Is Enphase On A Highway To Hell, Or Back In Black?

I went to the AC/DC PWR UP! gig in Adelaide last weekend. There are two ways to look at that show.

• One: a couple of blokes in their 70s who don’t sound quite like the records anymore.
• Two: an inspiring wall of grit and showmanship, built on a formula they’ve refined over fifty years, still holding a stadium-sized crowd for two hours and fifteen minutes.

I chose the second view. It reminded me I’ve got zero interest in growing old gracefully.

Lying in bed afterwards, ears ringing, unable to sleep, I started thinking about the Enphase microinverters on the roof above my head (it’s not the first time a gig has got me thinking about solar.)

All AC, No DC

Enphase are solar’s loudest defenders of AC coupling. They can’t stand DC. As soon as the panels make DC, Enphase flips it into 230 V AC right at the solar panel and sends it to the switchboard. No DC isolators. No special cabling. Brilliant on complex roofs because you don’t have to worry about DC strings. And if you own an Enphase battery, it goes back to DC only at the battery itself, driven by the same electronics as the microinverters on your roof.

I’ve always liked Enphase, which is why they power my home. Thankfully they’ve proven reliable despite sceptics’ claims that they’d never survive the heat on Aussie roofs.

Next year they’ll hit twenty years as a company. In residential solar terms, that’s veteran rock-god status.

So the question is fair:

• Is Enphase’s AC-coupled architecture now past its time, given that almost everyone now wants DC-coupled batteries? Even Tesla dumped the AC Powerwall 2 for a DC Powerwall 3. Why pay for microinverters if you can stick panels straight into a hybrid inverter?
• Or… is Enphase still an example of solid engineering and a company backing a technical ideology that’s worked reliably for two decades?

You need a small army of Enphase home batteries to reach the energy storage needs Australians are expecting these days. Photo: Conjola Electrical and Solar.

Enphase Batteries: Dirty Deeds, Not Done Cheap

Right now, the answer hangs on one thing: the Enphase battery.

The problem: it’s a huge box with a tiny battery inside, sold at a wild price. Over a thousand bucks per kilowatt-hour after the rebate. Each one-metre-high box stores only 5 kWh of energy. If you want the 30 kWh many Aussies are buying today, you need six of them, a mansion to hang them on, and a bank balance to match.

It’s a real loss. The hardware is rock solid. Users highly rate the software. The solar, battery and EV charger play nicely as one eco-system. It’s easy to install and commission.

If Enphase could just compete on battery energy density and value, they’d be near the top of my list of solar/battery systems to recommend.

But right now? I can’t recommend them – unless you have a roof more complex than the guitar work in Thunderstruck.

Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to SolarQuotes’ free newsletter to get it emailed to your inbox each week along with our other home electrification coverage.