What is the history of micro inverters?
Micro inverters as a concept have been part of the solar industry for a very long time and as a practical application since the mid 1980s. The key issue has been that the cost of manufacturing of downsized transformers and other components meant that micro inverters were not cost competitive against large conventional string inverters.
In the past years a number of micro inverter brands using smaller components entered the local market and they enjoy a growing but still small market share. There are specific advantages of micro inverter solar systems for specific residential sites such as sites with partly overshadowing or where panels need to be mounted facing different directions, but overall micro inverter systems are still slightly more expensive than conventional string inverter systems.