Thanks to the Fridays for Future movement, sustainability and climate protection are at the top of the political and corporate agenda worldwide. Matthias Schäpers is extremely pleased about this. After all, sustainability is a topic close to his heart – and not only since he started as a sustainability manager at SMA, advancing the company’s sustainability strategy. What annoys him, on the other hand, is companies that only pretend to be sustainable. He knows exactly how to recognize them.

The world’s leading trade fair for the solar industry, Intersolar Europe, had to be cancelled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. With the new event format "Let's talk energy! POWER ON", SMA offered its customers and partners a digital alternative to the Munich trade fair in June. In the livestream, presenter Kimsy von Reischach and top-class experts provided interactive discussions and exciting glimpses behind the SMA scenes.

Stand-alone grids can be found all around the world — at the South Pole and in East Asia, deep in the jungle and in idyllic holiday regions. Solar stand-alone grids provide a stable electricity supply far away from utility grids – often even 100% from renewable energy. They form the basis for sustainable economic development. Isabel Ballesteros-Sanchez has already implemented countless off-grid projects for SMA and inspires optimism for a world full of off-grid systems.

With a large-scale battery storage system, the public utility company Versorgungsbetriebe Bordesholm in northern Germany is able to supply the European utility grid with balancing energy – a lucrative business model. In a unique experiment, the electric utility company and TH Köln, University of Applied Sciences in Germany, proved that the entire region can be supplied with electricity 100 percent from renewable energies. Setting a milestone for the energy transition.

The share of renewable energies in the electricity supply is rising and regenerative power plants such as large PV power plants or battery-storage systems are increasingly coming to the fore in the energy industry. With the SMA Power Plant Manager, these decentralized energy systems do not only meet all the requirements of grid operators, but are also optimally prepared for new energy marketing models.

The SMA 360° app helps PV solar power professionals with their everyday work. That includes servicing. Thanks to the app's comprehensive service, customers see solar power professionals as solar experts, and they can thus successfully set themselves apart from competitors.

Professional support for solar power professionals in the fields of planning, operation and service. With the new SMA 360° app, solar power professionals will always have their digital universal tool at the ready.

I recently had a need to take a closer look at my PV system. Some partial shade had developed on...

Digital traffic on the Internet consumes as much CO2 as air traffic. I was very surprised to learn this. After all, we are always hearing that digitalization is helping us use resources more efficiently. So is digitalization more sustainable or not?

Optimize energy yields in PV systems intelligently, but safely. When it comes to additional module electronics versus lean system design with modern inverter technology, Hannes Knopf is in his element. The expert in modern string inverter features knows why module optimizers are a safety risk. He explains how operators and installers can benefit from greater efficiency and safety over the entire system life with the integrated SMA ShadeFix software.