Do you own a Huawei hybrid solar inverter? Are you thinking of adding or expanding your battery?
This is a call for the 40,000 odd Huawei customers who probably don’t know they need to talk to iStore.
What’s The Deadline For Expanding Huawei Batteries?
If you have an existing 5 or 10kWh Huawei battery, additional 5kWh modules will only be available until the end of 2026.
iStore has recently confirmed that expansion modules will only be available until 31 December 2026, or while stocks last.
From 2027 onward, adding additional battery units to existing systems will no longer be possible.
For those who weren’t aware, Huawei are the world’s largest inverter manufacturer, punching out what’s arguably some great solar hardware. Despite making solid gear with a very flexible panel level optimiser option, their position in the market became politically untenable, and they withdrew from Australia.
There are around 40,000 Huawei hybrid inverter systems installed across Australia. Many owners may not realise they now need to deal directly with iStore for battery supply and support.
A Huawei hybrid setup.
Enter iStore
For over a decade, iStore has been an Australian manufacturer (OEM) and wholesaler of energy products, initially supplying heat pump hot water systems and now hybrid solar inverters, home battery systems and EV chargers across the country.
iStore doesn’t just rebrand boxes, they have invested heavily in compliance, like CEC listings, local support, software, DNSP integration and data management for these hybrid solar systems in Australia.
Yes they’re made overseas, 95% of the world’s batteries come from one country, but the people answering the phone, and the servers with your information, aren’t in China.
A History Of Success
For context, iStore was born from Solargain, a 100% Australian-owned family company that started in Western Australia in 2005. It grew from a humble one man plumbing business into one of the country’s largest integrated solar and solar hot water installers. With 23 offices and more than 190 staff across Australia, the empire includes SG Wholesale as a trade supplier with 8 branches across WA, SA, Vic ACT & NSW.
While iStore is a related company to Solargain, the two operate as separate businesses with iStore being a wholesale supplier, supporting retailers, installers and end customers nationwide.
Two stacks of iStore equates to 30kWh, installed very neatly by Solargain Adelaide.
Batteries Are Changing
Like many other companies, iStore are increasing the size of their batteries. 5kWh units will soon grow to 7kWh. So if you are considering a new battery for your existing inverter, it could be a good time to get moving.
However if you already have an iStore or Huawei system that uses 5kWh battery modules, and you’d like to expand, it’s critical that you act now.
New model batteries are not compatible with old ones.
So unlike a GoodWe for instance, you can’t mix and match module capacity in the same stack.
As I understand it though, a whole new stack of batteries complete with base and head unit, can be connected in parallel with a legacy stack. That’s a lot better situation than many others, like for example alphaESS, where every new model offers zero backward compatibility.
We’ll write more about the improved range of iStore batteries as the information comes to hand. There’s some word they’ll offer stacks of 4 (up from 3) but for now there’s nothing revolutionary enough I’d say it’s worth waiting for.
Privacy Law Leaves Huawei Customers Isolated
It’s sometimes said that a true patriot is the person who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. I can’t say I’m that type of pedant but I’m happy to report Australia has at least improved it’s privacy law since VHS video tapes were a thing.1
We know there’s a lot of you out there but for existing Huawei customers, privacy law means that iStore can’t access records of your system. It’s illegal for Huawei to hand over your details.
So whether you already have a battery or not, anytime you like is a good time to contact iStore, because of course they’d like to sell you a battery, but they’ll offer the support to go with it.
Footnotes
- Seriously, the last time privacy law was updated in the USA was when a congressman was embarrassed by the release of his rental history at the video store. Just think about how much data has been collected since then. ↩
About Anthony Bennett
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We had an additional iStore 5kWh module added to our existing iStore 10kWh setup on Monday by SolarGain. We had intended to do that in a couple of years but had to do it this year instead. The system has worked well, but better since the wifi connection to the inverter was replaced by direct connection to the router by Ethernet which was part of the original installation. SolarGain have been very good from the beginning.