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Kassel, Germany (Aug. 18, 2026) — SMA Solar Technology has switched on a 60 GW-capacity manufacturing plant in Niestetal, Germany, and confirmed that its first U.S. data center project is under contract. The move pairs one of Europe's largest inverter-production bets with an early win in the fast-growing AI infrastructure market.
The factory, located at SMA's longtime headquarters site outside Kassel, spans 46,000 square meters (roughly 495,000 square feet), including 20,500 square meters of production floor. It is built for utility-scale clean energy hardware: central inverters, battery storage platforms, and energy management systems for solar, storage, hybrid, hydrogen, and data center applications. SMA says the plant was designed with scalability in mind, allowing production lines to be added or reconfigured as order flows develop.
The investment totals roughly €80 million, or about $92 million. Approximately €50 million ($57.4 million) covers lease obligations, while around €30 million ($34.5 million) went into production-specific equipment and infrastructure. By leasing rather than buying the property, SMA keeps more capital in the manufacturing tooling itself — a structure that preserves flexibility if demand trajectories shift.
Inverters sit at the critical junction of any solar or battery asset: they convert direct current from panels and storage into grid-compatible alternating current, and they increasingly supply the voltage and frequency services that utilities expect from large power plants. Concentrated manufacturing capacity for those units has often been one of the tighter links in the renewable supply chain, which makes the Niestetal plant's throughput relevant well beyond Germany.
The new capacity arrives as SMA's base business accelerates. The company sold 8,985 MW of inverter capacity in the first half of 2026, up 7.9% from 8,327 MW in the same period of 2025. The export ratio came in at 73.7%, down from 79.6% a year earlier, signaling a partial rebalancing toward European buyers.
Data centers, however, are the strategic prize. SMA said it has secured its first U.S. data center project and expects further orders, pointing to two capabilities: grid-forming inverter software that can stabilize grid voltage and frequency without rotational inertia, and integrated solar-plus-storage packages that deliver firm clean power. For data center operators under pressure to power AI workloads around the clock, that combination is becoming an increasingly common procurement specification.
The market backdrop supports the thesis. The International Energy Agency's 2025 analysis of energy and AI projects global data center electricity use could nearly double from roughly 415 TWh in 2024 to around 945 TWh in 2030, with U.S. data centers consuming an estimated 140 TWh in 2024 — about 3% of the country's electricity. Hyperscale companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have committed to round-the-clock clean power targets and have signed multi-gigawatt purchase agreements with solar-and-storage developers, creating a demand pool that inverter vendors are racing to serve.
SMA has been in that race long before the AI boom. The company has sold solar inverters internationally since 2006 and has shipped roughly 156 GW of cumulative capacity. Its lineup today spans solar and battery inverters, complete storage solutions, energy management systems, EV charging hardware, power-to-gas applications, and digital energy services — a broad enough portfolio to bundle hardware and controls for complex projects.
The plant's opening also lands at an odd moment for the solar industry. SolarPower Europe's Global Solar Market Outlook 2026-2030 counted a record 664 GW of new installations in 2025, putting global operating capacity at about 2.9 TW. Europe came in second only to Asia-Pacific with 81.6 GW added, yet its growth rate slowed to 3% — a reminder that grid-connection queues, permitting delays, and low wholesale power prices are denting demand in mature markets.
European industrial policy, meanwhile, is pushing in the opposite direction. The European Union's Net-Zero Industry Act sets a goal of meeting 40% of clean energy technology demand with domestic manufacturing by 2030, and member states have rolled out a patchwork of support for supply chains. SMA did not disclose any public subsidies tied to the Niestetal project, which suggests the company is willing to invest on its own balance sheet to protect market position.
For U.S. readers, the more relevant shade is the gap between American module manufacturing and inverter capacity. The Inflation Reduction Act's Section 45X advanced manufacturing credit has prompted a wave of domestic solar cell, module, and battery plant announcements, but inverter output has not grown at the same pace. Much of the U.S. inverter supply still crosses borders, leaving projects sensitive to tariffs and freight costs. SMA America, based in Rocklin, California, has served North American utility-scale customers for years, and the parent's expanded production base gives that operation more headroom to quote delivery windows for large U.S. orders.
U.S. grid operators, particularly those serving major data center corridors, are also wrestling with interconnection queues that stretch for years. Virtual power plants, firm capacity from storage, and grid-forming capabilities are emerging as partial answers. SMA's pitch — hardware that can behave like a synchronous generator while sitting behind a meter or at a substation — speaks directly to that pain point, even if the hardware itself is built in Germany.
Competition in power electronics is nonetheless intensifying, with established vendors and newer entrants all chasing utility-scale and data center contracts. SMA's edge rests on two decades of field experience, a grid-forming feature set that utilities are beginning to require, and the financial capacity to build infrastructure ahead of demand. None of that guarantees the Niestetal lines will run at full tilt immediately: first-half shipments of 8,985 MW imply available capacity well above current run rates. But the flexible plant design means SMA can match output to the order book as data center deals and traditional utility projects come into focus.
In the end, the factory is a statement about where the company sees the next decade of power demand. Electrification of transport, digital infrastructure, industry, and heating is pulling more electricity through inverter-based systems, and SMA has positioned itself at the center of that shift. The immediate question for management now is how quickly the data center pipeline — starting with that first U.S. contract — can turn factory capacity into shipped megawatts.
