The UK’s solar industry is expanding rapidly, driven by record installations and a growing focus on storage integration.
As part of UK Solar Week, we spoke with Simon Landrivon, Marketing Communications Manager EMEA at Mersen, about how the company is supporting a fast-evolving solar landscape ahead of Solar & Storage Live UK.
“Solar markets are heavily policy‐driven… so volatility in regulation or subsidies (or macroeconomic slowdowns) can hit demand quickly. Mersen closely monitors that risk.”
Mersen is the only manufacturer serving the PV market with overcurrent protection, surge protection, laminated bus bars, cooling solutions, and capacitors. How does this offering benefit your solar customers?
Mersen’s unique position as the only manufacturer providing a comprehensive suite of critical components – overcurrent protection, surge protection, laminated bus bars, cooling solutions, and capacitors – offers several strategic advantages to solar and PV customers:
System Integration and Compatibility
Because all these components come from a single supplier, they are engineered to work seamlessly together. This reduces interface issues, improves electrical and thermal performance, and accelerates the design cycle for solar inverters, combiner boxes, and energy storage systems.
Simplified Supply Chain
Sourcing multiple key components from one trusted partner minimises procurement complexity, shortens lead times, and reduces the risk of supply disruptions – especially valuable in large-scale solar projects with strict timelines.
Optimised Reliability and Safety
Coordinated design between protection devices (overcurrent and surge) and passive components (bus bars, capacitors, and cooling) enhances system resilience, prevents cascading failures, and supports compliance with stringent international safety standards.
Improved Energy Efficiency and Performance
Laminated bus bars and integrated cooling systems reduce resistive losses and thermal stress, while high-quality capacitors stabilise power output. The result is higher inverter efficiency and longer system lifetime, directly improving the levelised cost of energy (Levelised cost of energy).
Technical Support and Co-Development
With expertise across these domains, Mersen can collaborate with customers early in the design process to co-engineer tailored solutions, reducing time-to-market and fostering innovation in next-generation PV systems.
Could you give us a deeper dive into HelioProtection – what inspired its development, and what makes it especially suited to the demands of solar installations?
The HelioProtection program was launched by Mersen as part of its ongoing commitment to protection solutions for the power production and distribution market. Building on its expertise in electrical protection, the company developed dedicated solutions specifically for grid-connected photovoltaic systems.
HelioProtection became the global brand for solar photovoltaic power protection, created to address the rapid expansion of large-scale solar projects. These projects operate in harsh environments—exposed to UV radiation, temperature cycles, humidity, and dust – requiring more robust materials and designs than conventional components could provide.
The HelioProtection Program is a wide dedicated product offering, the global brand name of solar power protection, dedicated product offering that includes IEC and UL fuses, high-speed and BS fuses, fuse holders, Surge-Trap®, NH fuse switch disconnectors and NH fuses.
HelioProtection offers PV-specific fuse design, engineered to clear low overcurrent faults in high-voltage DC circuits, with precise time-current characteristics to protect modules, strings, and combiner boxes.
HelioProtection bundles overcurrent protection, surge protection, and disconnecting solutions optimised for PV, allowing coordinated protection across the entire DC side.
HelioProtection solutions are designed for PV and solar applications: they perfectly fit combiner boxes and string inverters, helping in reducing space, thermal load, and system losses.
HelioProtection solutions are fully tested to international PV standards (IEC / UL), giving OEMs and EPCs confidence in regulatory acceptance worldwide.
In essence, HelioProtection was inspired by the gap between conventional industrial protection and the extreme, reliability-critical conditions of modern solar plants, and it is tailored to deliver precise, robust, long-life protection that maximises uptime and safety in PV installations.
How are Mersen’s strategy and operations responding well to current solar-storage market volatility, particularly in its solar and power electronics segments?
Mersen is investing in what it considers structural growth areas: SiC semiconductors, EV, renewable energies, energy storage, and electrical power/power electronics.
Mersen is leveraging its global footprint (North America, Europe, Asia) and multiple markets (transport, rail, aerospace, process industries, renewable energies, …) to spread risk.
Solar markets are often policy‐driven (tariffs, subsidies, grid regulation), so volatility in regulation or subsidies (or macroeconomic slowdowns) can hit demand. Mersen closely monitors that risk.
The power electronics, SiC, and energy storage spaces are drawing many entrants. Mersen’s differentiation (technical, reliability, full component offering) helps, as Mersen keeps innovating. For example, Mersen has designed new solutions dedicated to energy storage: new range of ABAT fuses with very limited power loss, Infinicell bus bar for cell connections in batteries, and DC Link capacitors for PV converters.
What trends in the global solar market are driving your current product development, and how are you tailoring your solutions to meet these needs?
Mersen’s current product development is being shaped by 2 major global trends in the solar sector, especially on the high-power DC side (microgrids, utility-scale) and systems pushing toward 2000 V DC, and the company is tailoring its solutions accordingly.
Utility-scale PV and hybrid solar-storage systems are moving toward 2000 V DC architectures to cut balance-of-system costs, increase string length, and improve conversion efficiency.
DC microgrids are proliferating in industrial, commercial, and remote installations to integrate PV, batteries, and DC loads directly, avoiding inverter losses. These grids demand bidirectional protection and stable operation under low or fluctuating fault currents, which AC-oriented protection devices cannot manage.
Mersen’s mission is to design advanced electrical solutions that protect systems, keep people safe and preserve the environment.
Thanks to its expertise in power electronics, protection against overvoltage and overcurrent, as well as its historical know-how in direct current (expertise in rail), Mersen helps its customers to integrate reliable, high-performance solutions. Mersen’s ambition is to play a key role in the development of DC networks by offering innovative technologies to enhance their stability, safety and energy efficiency.
Mersen is already very committed to DC, and we are actively involved in the Current_OS Foundation, a global initiative that brings together 74 committed partners, including industry leaders, researchers, integrators and certification bodies.
The foundation’s mission is to define a global standard for direct current (DC) to ensure reliable, uninterrupted access to electricity for all, maximising the integration of renewable energies and optimising the management of the electricity grid.
Mersen already offers a solution for string protection – a 22×85 cylindrical fuse, and by the end of the year, expects to launch a solution for inverter input protection —square-body fuses with bolted blades. Mersen fuses will comply with the new IEC 63523 standard and UL 248-19.
What can visitors to Solar & Storage Live UK expect to see from Mersen at this year’s show?
Mersen’s presence at Solar & Storage will combine a complete showcase of PV protection and power electronics components, direct access to its specialist UK engineering team, and access to sign up for CPD-certified training on Surge Protection, making it a one-stop hub for future-ready solar and storage system design.
Visitors will have the opportunity to meet Mersen’s engineering teams, and have the opportunity to discuss electrical protection requirements for your AC/DC needs.
These experts bring deep experience in integrating electrical protection within high-voltage assemblies and in adapting solutions to the specific electrical and environmental constraints of UK regulations.
They will be present on the stand to review project concepts, address technical challenges, and work collaboratively with system integrators and inverter manufacturers to develop bespoke solutions.
UK Solar Week marks the leadup to Solar & Storage Live UK, taking place 23 – 25 September. Haven’t registered yet? Don’t miss out on your free ticket by securing your place here.
