With debate raging about the affordable end of the battery market, a fortuitous press release hit my inbox recently.
Can you get a system that offers full backup of synchronous 3 phase loads at an affordable price point? I’m pleased to report that yes, the GoodWe ESA series has now been CEC approved and will be rolling out from late March.
Are GoodWe Batteries Any Good?
We knew the Three-Phase ESA was coming after the single-phase model was released at the All Energy Convention last year. The timing isn’t bad for expanding GoodWe’s all-in-one battery range, but with many installers already booked out, there won’t be much opportunity for a fully subsidised 50kWh battery before the rebate reduces sharply for bigger batteries post May 1, but let’s be honest, 14 to 28kWh will still be a pretty good deal.
GoodWe have been making pretty honest bang for buck systems with separate high or low voltage batteries for years, however ESA is the all new product line which we covered when the single-phase range was announced.
Enough For A Small McMansion
I’m told 80% of east coast connections are single phase, but for properties with three-phase power the ESA packs a solar inverter, high-voltage battery and energy management system into one neat stack of up to six batteries plus inverter.
The spec sheet says inverter power ranges from 5 kW to 29.999 kW, (lets call it 30kW for clarity) with storage from 5 kWh to 54 kWh, so that should be enough to suit anything from a small McMansion to a serious cafe setup. If you’re looking to run a small supermarket, then parallel units will offer 60kW of power and 108kWh of storage.
DC Solar oversizing is a healthy 200% so for a max effort system, you can have a 30kW inverter with 60kW of panels on the roof. Under ideal conditions in Adelaide, that means a potential average yield of 264kWh every day. Your mileage may vary but it’s nothing to sneeze at.
Batteries Are Well Specified
GoodWe uses lithium-iron-phosphate battery chemistry to prioritise safety, durability, and longevity. The latest point of difference in marketing speak is “layers of protection” which we are assured the ESA has many of, not limited to advanced arc-fault detection and fire suppression technology.
Right now there are 5 & 8kWh modules available, though 6 and 9kWh are promised to be coming soon. In any can they can be mixed if you choose to add capacity later.
The charging temperature range is listed as  +2 ~ +55ºC or -18 ~ +55ºC for the models with internal heating, which can be quite handy for inland southern Australian mornings. However the discharging temperature range is -20 ~ +55ºC for both.
Pass Through Simplicity
The ESA is a series connected machine, (like Sungrow) so it’s best installed near your main switchboard, with a bypass switch just in case things go pear shaped and you need to revert to mains power.
Some systems are being delivered with a manual backup switch as a cheap way around doing a proper switchboard rebuild. If you’re paying for backup power, insist it’s automatic.
While Fronius, Tesla and others use a parallel architecture with a gateway, which does offer priceless flexibility, it’s also an expense to buy and wire up. If say you have a rural install where the main switchboard at the road feeds two or three buildings, a parallel system is the only way to do it properly.
However for many, perhaps the majority of customers, who can fit the stack within coo-ee of the main switchboard, wiring to and from the inverter is quick, simple and lower cost.
The ESA is rated for “whole home” backup so most models offer 63Amp pass through current, but there’s 80Amp rating for 25 & 30kW models.
Integration For Amber And Home Assistant
With beta testing in its final stages, ESA owners will be able to play games on the wholesale energy market trading with Amber soon. It’s not for everybody, but if you’re looking for a new hobby and you know which season the prices can be volatile, you’ll be able to capitalise on extended savings with GoodWe, but probably not in Victoria.
Another interesting detail I’ve found comes from the automation enthusiasts who use Home Assistant to extract some really nitty gritty data from behind the scenes. While the normal SEMS user interface shows “inverter temperature” there are more measurements taken inside the machine.
The temperature inside is what counts.
GoodWe’s Warranty Isn’t So Good
Unfortunately one asterix has to be the ESA battery document, which to be honest is a little disappointing, especially if you’re within 5km of the sea. It’d certainly rub me up the wrong way if the inverter carked it at half the battery life, and I’d query if there’s a case for a “reasonable person” to expect these things to have a similar warranty under Australian Consumer Law.
1. Product warranty: GOODWE warrants, for five (5) years, that the hardware of electronics and enclosure
(including all aforementioned Energy Storage system Components) will be free of defects caused by
improper workmanship or defective materials;
2. Performance warranty: GOODWE warrants that, for ten (10) years, the Energy Storage system retains either
seventy percent (70%) of *Usable Energy 261.48 kWh or 6000 full *charge cycles, whichever comes first.
This document, along with the battery warranty might want a full interrogation in future.
Pretty Gutsy Solar Specifications
Having seen a few inverters let the smoke out, it’s nice to see the current crop of hybrids stepping up to take their place.
Where previously an ABB Aurora Trio 27kW was difficult to match for solar specification, there’s a good chance you can add batteries to your winery or sailing club without being forced to rewire the roof, a step which can render a whole system uneconomic.
The larger ESAs have two inputs rated at 21Amps, and two more rated at 42Amps, so provided the DC wiring isn’t too crazy, you can replace an old SMA Sunny Tripower, Fronius Symo or ABB without much hassle.
All In One Is All The Rage
As we wrote last year, all the cool kids have ditched cable connections and are are stacking batteries sky high. It’s really been a step change in the market, much like plastic plumbing was for houses, simply because installation is so simple and fast. However, just like plastic plumbing, once you’ve picked a brand, you’re stuck with that range of pipe, fittings and installation tooling.
If your particular brand has a model update, they may abandon legacy batteries, like AlphaESS does for instance. Thus an expansion later in life you might mean you’re looking for obsolete stock. However if the manufacturer or monitoring dies an early death, then re-using any part of the existing system will be impossible.
If you want really adaptable systems that don’t tie you to anybody, start with 48V batteries and a remote area solar expert.Â
Stackable Sort Of Started With Sig
It’s brilliant, in terms of reliably getting things correct, to have all the connections plugged together automatically, right up into the inverter, such that Sigenergy stormed the market with the idea. Sadly they couldn’t execute a simple AC plug connection.
Perhaps what’s more remarkable is that having rapidly claimed 30% of the market, I heard from industry sources that Sigenergy allegedly started throwing their weight around. Nobody is going on record but the new ESA is conspicuously absent from some wholesalers, who otherwise carry all of the GoodWe range. The Sigenergy rep I quizzed however flatly denied this was happening.
When Dollars Make Cents
If you’re looking for a well supported system with a company who’s been around for 15 years not 15 months, GoodWe are a pretty good option. They don’t specify incredible off grid surge capacity or flashing Xmas lights but neither do they ask a premium price.
GoodWe have long been making some interesting hardware, not all of which I would have recommended in the past, but they do offer a well established local team for support and a more mature product range than ever.
We recently added GoodWe to our recommended battery brands list, so if you’re looking at the cheap end of the market, they are one of the safer bets.
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