About
Us
30 years of dedicated research and development in the solar industry lead CTO Henk Oldenkamp and CEO Julian Mattheis to the foundation of Solarnative – a young company with a great heritage.
It’s all in a stick
At Solarnative, it’s all about the smallest PV micro-inverter in the world, the Solarnative PowerStick. Our developers headed by CTO Henk Oldenkamp, the inventor of the micro-inverter, have managed to shrink the required electronics to a minimum and fit everything inside a small and handy stick. Consequently, this exceptional micro-inverter fits into open PV rails and even into the frame of a PV module!
Meet Henk, the inventor of the micro-inverter
In 1994, Solarnative CTO of today Henk Oldenkamp successfully developed his first model of the micro-inverter in collaboration with NKF, a Dutch cable company, and Shell Solar. After that, Henk’s journey to the realization of his dream – an inverter that could fit into the frame of a module – was not always an easy one.
But he stuck to his vision and kept going: After 30 years of dedicated development, the Solarnative PowerStick is not only even to a standard inverter but has also numerous advantages over competing products. And it is a dream come true for Henk, the inventor of the micro-inverter.
It is this mindset of making the impossible possible, elaborating and pushing an idea to perfection, standing up to any obstacles that may come, refusing to give up, that sets Solarnative apart from its competitors: We go beyond the edge of what is possible!
One shared vision: to bring solar energy to the people
In 2018, Henk met Julian at a photovoltaic conference. Both being true „solar natives“, they immediately got off to a good start, and soon found out that they shared a strong vision: to bring solar energy to the people. Julian had been working on the solar cell and module side of the PV value chain, developing current PERC technology, building PV factories and PV systems, so he was quite familiar with the market requirements. Having founded and headed several companies in the past, it was clear how to proceed – the idea for Solarnative was born.
Both, Henk and Julian are driven by the desire to bring the energy revolution into everybody’s home. Therefore, residential PV systems need to be efficient, low-cost, safe, and easy to install. As Julian puts it: “We firmly believe that Solarnative’s Smart Energy Home with AC-modules is the way to achieve these targets. We are building the future standard for residential PV systems.”
Developed and made in Germany
Our R&D: Kassel Lohfelden
Our R&D team is grouped around CTO Henk Oldenkamp and based in Kassel Lohfelden. Here we design and refine our products based on the latest market demands. From electronic and meachanical engineering to software development and cloud architecture, our specialists contrantly work on improving and extending our portfolio.
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Our production: Hofheim am Taunus
With the opening of our factory in Hofheim am Taunus in May 2023, we kicked off our in-house production. Along with a 20 meter long SMT line, numerous semi-automated and manual workstations were set up in our 565 square meter hall space. Around 60 employees do detailed work here in multi-shift operation in order to bring up to 100,000 micro-inverters “made in Germany” to the roofs and balconies every month.
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Our offices: Kriftel near Frankfurt
In addition to our development and manufacturing sites, our back office and service employees share a newly renovated 400 square meter office space in Kriftel near Frankfurt.
Looking for new challenges? Browse our job openings now!
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