Photomate, a company established in the Czech Republic, is active at European level in seven other countries – Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark, Romania and Slovakia, the last office being opened in Georgia. Huawei partner, Photomate had in 2019 a turnover of 63 million euros with 31 employees, since 2016 and until now inverters for 4,000 MW solar power plants have been delivered.
“We offer our partners from technical trainings to technical solutions, with a team of engineers spread all over Europe. Before the pandemic, we held over 100-150 trainings in 2019-2020, but, unfortunately, with the arrival of the health crisis, we had to recalibrate, so this year all the trainings and conferences went online. We miss the interactive part a lot, but we have to adapt and move on”, said Adrian Paraschiv, Country Manager Photomate, during the conference “Digitalization and Energy Efficiency in Industry – Iasi”, organized by Energynomics.
In 2019, Photomate had in its portfolio projects in the markets in Ukraine, with 997 MW delivered in solar capacities, Poland, with 168 MW and Hungary, with 116 MW. In Ukraine, the market share was 32.5%, or 43% together with Huawei’s direct sales, and the aim is to increase the share to 55%. In Poland, the market share was 60%, in commercial scale projects, and in Hungary, 35%.
“Unfortunately, Romania does not appear here, as the Romanian photovoltaic market was quite small, but it has a significant growth in 2020 and we expect it to continue to grow in 2021, both in the residential and in the industrial and large-scale segment. Projects are under discussion, the financing part must be completed”, said Paraschiv.
The Photomate delivery center is located in the Czech Republic; in 2019 over 1,200 road deliveries will be made. “Deliveries are made very quickly, within seven working days from receiving orders. We are Huawei partners and a certified service partner of this company, covering everything that means service, delivery, after sales and technical support. Huawei technology allows an online check for faults, so the detection time is reduced by 80%”, he added, presenting the company’s solutions, among them Huawei’s optimized storage systems. Solar production is monitored online, and consumption is centralized, Huawei technology uses integrated artificial intelligence modules that also allow the avoidance of electric arc.
“Usually, the batteries are discharged in parallel, but Huawei has come up with a technology that allows mass discharge.”
Industrial power storage is done at a very low cost compared to old technologies, with the help of Xelectrix Power systems in Austria, which offer solutions of up to 1MW per container, and allows for several containers to be connected.
