A spin-off of the inverter manufacturer Studer Innotec, smartsuna is a company with a mission: to make smart solar self-sufficiency available to everyone, enabling homeowners to live off-grid. A possibility that is particularly appealing in these times of energy market tensions – and which is set to encourage more individual consumers to adopt photovoltaic installations. “By combining an inverter with a battery, our system provides 85% energy self-sufficiency for the average detached house,” says Pierre-Olivier Moix, Studer Innotec’s CTO.
The system on offer from the fledgling company uses the NEXT3 smart inverter developed by Studer Innotec – one of the only inverters on the market that can operate off-grid. The surplus electricity produced is stored in a battery and can be used at any time. The system will also charge an electric vehicle as and when required, thus also providing full solar mobility. Inspired by the system used to power off-grid mountain huts, this energy-self-sufficient model enables flexible management of current flows between photovoltaic production and consumption. “If you don’t add a storage solution, it’s difficult to achieve more than 30% energy autonomy,” adds the engineer. For a detached house, installing a complete system doubles the cost compared to a photovoltaic system alone. “But the return on investment is much better,” he says. “With electricity bills at zero, or even earning the consumer money, and with the potential gain in mobility.”
In the two years since it started operating, smartsuna has fitted around 50 detached houses with the system, enabling it also to take on the apartment block market and industrial installations, which are keen to achieve security of electricity supply. “We are encouraging as much use of roofs as possible,” says Pierre-Olivier Moix. With business booming in Valais, the company is starting to develop projects further afield in Switzerland through its consultancy, design and installation services.
Building on the success of its smartsuna self-sufficient solar system on the Swiss market, Studer Innotec is rolling out its expertise beyond the country’s borders. The parent company has long had a presence internationally with its off-grid systems and is now pushing this new self-sufficiency model for detached houses to numerous partners in Europe and the rest of the world. “We used Switzerland as an incubator, taking advantage of our local market to try out our model and make it more relevant before taking on other markets,” says the CTO.
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