The start-up company Solarnative Deutschland is investing €1 million in an SMT production line from JUKI Automation Systems. SMT Renting is the financial partner for this project. This marks the start of a strategic partnership between the three companies to establish a large production site for solar micro inverters in Germany. Solarnative plans to ramp up production of high-frequency micro inverters from May 2023 and significantly expand its production capacity.
Solarnative's management has opted for the SMT leasing model in order to minimize capital expenditure on long-life assets. This is because the monthly rental costs for the system are booked as operating costs. The management also sees an advantage of the rental model in the fact that the system can be upgraded or replaced more easily in the coming years as technology changes rapidly.
The flexible production line covers all steps of the SMT process. JUKI will also supply the automatic logistics modules that supply the assembly line with the required electronic components. Solarnative has special requirements for the SMT system because the PCBs to be processed are very thin and cannot be processed separately, as is the case in a standard production process. The new system is therefore adapted to precisely these requirements.
