A conversation with two Sungrow team members on string inverters, storage demand, and why Illinois is the market to watch.
Company: Sungrow
Product Focus: String inverters and energy storage
Featuring: Madeline Acri – Applications Engineer, String Inverters and Kane Kuharik – Director of Sales, Energy Storage (Commercial & Industrial)
Show Presence: Sungrow served as a host sponsor of the show, with a focus on building relationships in Illinois’ community solar market, particularly projects in the 5–15-megawatt (MW) range.
During Intersolar & Energy Storage North America (IESNA) Midwest, Digital Editor Krista Simicich caught up with Sungrow on the show floor for a conversation that ended up covering more ground than expected. The discussion touched on string inverters, storage, and the state of the Illinois market, thanks to two Sungrow team members tag-teaming the interview.
Applications engineer Madeline Acri, pictured above, introducing the Day 1 keynote, led the conversation, walking through Sungrow’s string inverter lineup and the company’s strategy in Illinois. Partway through, when the topic shifted to energy storage, she looped in a colleague standing nearby: Kane Kuharik, Sungrow’s Director of Sales for Energy Storage in the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment.
What started as a single interview turned into a two-for-one, with Madeline covering the hardware side and Kane bringing the storage market perspective.
It made for a fuller picture of where Sungrow is focused right now, providing a clear snapshot of the kind of team the company brought to the show: deep enough on both inverters and storage to bring in the right voice for the right question.
The Product: A 200kW Inverter Built for Illinois
Madeline’s focus at the show was Sungrow’s string inverter line, with one product in particular: the 200-kilowatt (kW), 600-volt (V) alternating current (AC) string inverter, built with 12 Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) inputs.
For context, string inverters work by grouping multiple panel inputs together into a “string,” which then feeds into a shared inverter, as opposed to microinverters, which handle each panel independently.
Madeline explained the trade-off simply: microinverters make sense for sites with obstructions (chimneys, trees, uneven roofs) at scales from 1kW up to about a megawatt, while string inverter architecture like Sungrow’s is built for flat, unobstructed sites. Think fields or big flat roofs — but at the scale of multiple megawatts.
That’s exactly the sweet spot Sungrow is targeting with this product: small-to-mid-sized utility and community solar projects, in the 5-15-MW range that Illinois has been actively bringing online. The 600V AC spec, Madeline noted, lines up directly with what’s currently in demand in the Illinois market, which is no accident.
Why Illinois? Sungrow Plants Its Flag
Sungrow didn’t just exhibit, they came on as a host sponsor, and the reasoning was specific. “We are trying to get more engagement with the community solar market,” Madeline said. “Illinois is doing a really good job at having projects of that size interconnection here, and we want to make sure that our name is known for people that are doing projects in that size range.”
That regional focus extended to how the team talked about their broader U.S. position. On the utility scale, Sungrow is one of the leading central inverter providers for the North American market, offering full turnkey solutions for large interconnection projects, complete with inverters, transformers, and medium-voltage skids.
“This is probably one of the primary events for Midwest installers to come and meet and talk,” Madeline said. “We care about the Midwest market a lot, and we want to make sure we’re getting face time with all the players who are participating in bringing solar here.”
The Storage Pulse: “It’s Just an Explosion Now”
Once Kane joined the conversation, the topic shifted to storage. His read on the market was unambiguous: demand is accelerating fast, particularly in the C&I segment.
“The commercial and industrial market is definitely kicking off this year,” Kane said. New Illinois legislation is incentivizing customers who previously had no interest in battery storage to add it now, including a wave of retrofits, or sites that installed solar years ago and are now coming back to bolt on storage. “This is the first time it makes sense to add battery storage to your site,” Kane noted, pointing to 2025–2026 as an inflection point for Illinois specifically.
What They’re Listening For
Both Madeline and Kane framed their goals for the show less around pitching and more around listening. For Madeline, that meant probing installers on friction points: “What are the hurdles installers are having? What makes installing an inverter particularly easy or challenging? How can we make procurement and installation simpler, more streamlined?”
Kane echoed the sentiment from the storage side: understanding a customer’s problem takes face-to-face conversations, something a sales deck can’t replicate. “It’s different being face-to-face,” he said. “It’s invaluable.”
What’s Next
Sungrow reinvests roughly 40% of its revenue into R&D and the team hinted at new storage products in development, following a recent visit to the company’s China headquarters. Details are still under wraps, but Kane confirmed: “Something new is always happening.”
Their closing message targeted developers who might feel intimidated by the C&I and utility-scale space, whether they’re breaking ground on their first project or their twentieth. “Things people were trying to do a few years ago that didn’t seem realistic are realistic today,” Madeline said. “It’s always important to reevaluate how projects may become viable, because things are always changing.”
Kane put it simply: “We’re very open to helping you on your first project or supporting you on your twentieth. It really doesn’t matter.”
For more on Sungrow’s product lineup and their work in the Illinois solar market, visit their website at sungrowpower.com
This feature is part of our ongoing post-show recap coverage from the 2026 IESNA Midwest conference and trade show, spotlighting the companies, products, and people bringing innovation to the exhibit hall floor.
