There are 50 million people worldwide living in modern slavery – that is 10 million more than five years ago. This shocking statistic was published by human rights organization “Walk Free” just recently. The organization lays part of the blame on companies in industrialized countries, which benefit from forced labor through supply chains. This is a topic that Jessica Mannocchi and Erik Siems, appointed by the Managing Board as SMA’s human rights officers, care deeply about.

Wolfram Dege destroys inverters for a living – and helps to make them better in the process. To do so, he puts the devices under high stress and induces artificial aging. He really puts the inverters through the wringer, using cold, heat, moisture and high currents and voltages – ideally all at once. This gives him valuable information about service life. Read on to find out more about his life-prolonging work and his favorite test.

If the energy transition is to succeed and climate change is to be halted, renewable generation must be significantly expanded. To achieve this, large spaces in particular must also be used for solar power production. Like the rooftop of the Australian Panel Products’ (APP) particleboard production and distribution facility - there, earthconnect has built Australia`s largest rooftop solar system under the most challenging conditions.

Senegal wants to give its population permanent access to electricity by 2025. However, half of the country’s approximately 17 million residents live in rural areas, sometimes a long way from the national utility grid. The government is therefore looking to decentralized and environmentally friendly energy solutions. The government’s ASER300 project is bringing electricity to 300 villages all around the country with mini-grids, which include PV modules, inverters, batteries, and cooling systems.

As Diversity & Cultural Development Manager at SMA, Claudia Jakob is committed to bringing the strengths of our diverse society into the workplace. In this interview, she reveals how her career has changed over the years and why diversity is so important for the company's success.

Control, visualize and optimize energy flows – and of course intelligently charge your electric vehicle – with the SMA Energy app. More than 700,000 users are already using our SMA Energy app to manage their home energy systems. This service tip will help you with the installation.

Sybille talks in the interview about her development at SMA and what advice she gives to young women just starting out in their careers.

It's all in the mix: In the new "blended learning" format, the SMA Solar Academy is now combining digital and analog maintenance training for the Sunny Central and Sunny Central Storage central inverters. There are only two days of classroom training at the Solar Academy. Prior to that, the theory will be provided on four half days as remote training. "This is more flexible, fits better into everyday work and family life, and the participants save on accommodation costs," says Academy trainer Jan Rössler.

One of the fastest growing job markets, working in the renewables industry is good for you and the planet. Increasingly, people are turning to a career in solar energy at various stages of their professional lives. But is everyone suited to solar? We speak to Danielle Budd, SMA UK’s Logistics Coordinator. Danielle joined SMA at the beginning of her career in solar energy – now after three years with SMA, find out how she finds working in the renewables sector and what she’s learning from the team.

The safety of a PV system depends, among other things, on the design of the overall system. Modern string inverters with integrated features enable a slim system design. This avoids potential sources of error, for example through additional cabling effort when installing module electronics. In a webinar "Analyzing PV system safety and the promise of optimizers" in June 2022, Dr. Heribert Schmidt from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE and SMA expert Hannes Knopf discussed the influence of different system designs on the safety of PV systems. Afterwards we received so many exciting questions on the topic, which we would like to share with you. Our colleague Hannes Knopf answered the most frequently asked questions here.