Is everything in the solar industry now an all-in-one stackable system? It seems that’s where everyone is headed, because they’re fast to install and that means installers like selling them. Stackable systems were climbing the walls at the recent All Energy Australia conference, which is often a glimpse at the next big trends in home energy.
What Is A Stackable All-In-One Home Energy System?
Stackable all-in-one systems are based on a modular design that can be added to as needed, integrating everything from solar to inverters to home battery storage to EV chargers and hot water heat pumps.
Where I Wouldn’t Start
I’m not about to make recommendations for the dozens of brands spruiking their stackable solutions at All Energy, but what I can point out is the way some of them have behaved before.
Energiser
While you might recognise the AA cells you pumped into kids toys and torches for the last half a century, when that brand appears on some solar equipment you might realise it’s just a licenced logo.
Things might not be that flash under the paint job. If it’s FoxESS they might be okay, but watch out how cheap the installer is in any case. Let the one star reviews be your guide.
This looks fishy? Or perhaps foxy to be more accurate.
Growatt
Equally our old friends at Growatt have a nice looking stack going on here, but you’d want to hope it’s better than the previous range of products. I’ve always thought they were rubbish and being the only CEC approved inverter brand with two ACCC recalls to their name isn’t what you find on the marketing blurb.
I always suggest you sort for the one star reviews to see how customer service really works.
Branding Is Interesting
You can often see when a company has some native English speaking marketing going on, and equally when they don’t it can become hilariously obvious.
“Mate I think your branding is cactus” might have been lost in translation.
Despite moving from e-cactus and the model names reflecting hardy desert plants, WHES is a little ambiguous to my mind.
The fit and finish of these units isn’t though, I wouldn’t call them rough, but perhaps rudimentary from a design point of view.
Hyxi Power
While it might be unfair to have such superficial judgement, if the marketing department can’t afford a decent name and the engineers are struggling to make the boxes look straight and uniform, it just doesn’t look good does it.
Super flat surfaces on this Hyxi are difficult to make look nice without superb quality control.
SAJ
How well the product works and the quality of the parts they use doesn’t always align with how pronounceable the name is. At least one technician I know thinks that SAJ have a very ordinary name yet first class electronics under the covers.
SAJ all in one seems business like but the handles look dangerously cheap.
It could be hearsay but that technician laments they have established a dubious reputation, simply because they have come into the market at such a low price point. So if you own one please leave a review.
These specifications are all looking healthy enough
20 amps is not enough DC current to parallel many of the modern solar panels available today but it’s not out of the question. If you have a couple of legacy arrays on the roof, they could be combined onto one channel while the other gets a heap more new solar.
An AC car charger module is a nice touch here. Will be interesting to see how well the software controls it for solar surplus smarts and OCPP compliance.
DMEGC
Talk about awkward names. Perhaps this unit is a DME and Grid Connected is part of the acronym? Sadly I didn’t get the chance to inquire.
Another nondescript box
Deye
Deye had their own answer to stackability, which if it’s anything like the low voltage battery hybrids they make (and also sell as NoArk brand) they should be a good thing.
I’ve been told this is simply pronounced “day”
SoFar
I installed a few of these earlier solar inverters, they were cheap, cheerful and tended to run hot. When reviewing the specifications in the past I found a remarkably optimistic battery warranty too.
Industry wags refer to them as SoFar, so good? I reckon creative advertisers should lean into that as SoFar, So Good! But your mileage may vary.
I wonder how the “Power-All” name has worked for them now that the smell of Musk has wrecked the Powerwall brand?
Haier
Another brand with only 12 months in the market and zero reviews on our site at the time of writing. Seeing as they also own Fisher and Paykel amongst others, I’d expect there’s some decent corporate heft behind them to provide after sales service.
Haier make all manner of whitegoods, or in this case insipid ashphalt colour like everything else on the road
Midea
If appliance makers are getting into solar then I would expect they’re going to do a good job of full home energy management. Midea seem to have the ingredients to run heat pump hot water and air conditioning, as well as the EV charging most others have an eye on.
Midea have this box. I hope the smarts inside match the smart looks.
ESY Sunhome
New, cheap and turning up in a lot of quotes we see through the SolarQuotes office. Leave a review if you have one.
It looks like these are at least manageable sized batteries.
Anything that has that yellow label is a red flag for me. Electronics don’t like heat, they should have fan cooling.
Swatten
Look I’ll be honest here and say we don’t have many reviews of Swatten, but scratch and win probably goes well with the kind of retailer who offers a free head and neck massager with every job.
Single phase Swatten seems modest in size
However this 3 phase 20kW Swatten is a bit of a monster. 32amp & 16amp DC solar inputs are great.
Marstek
has a similar glass fascia to the Tesla Powerwall, but is perhaps the polar opposite for two reasons, firstly it offers 3 phase and secondly it’s black so it’ll show the dust, or in this case the competition reflected across the hall.
I haven’t been able to establish if they have any Australian approvals but it doesn’t stop them showing up.
I’ve never heard of this brand but neither have the CEC apparently
Nothing to write home about here but generator specs aren’t usually on a sticker like this.
Eco Flow
Better known for camping batteries, these caught my eye with the 800 volt signage and I had to take a closer look.
It turns out the labels take the prize for being unreadable and somewhat confusing. I clarified with the staff they have a 51 volt nominal battery like many others. However the top of the stack is a DC to DC converter which boosts the output to 800 volts.
This is actually just a battery package
High voltage makes for less current and lower losses, but the inverter is separate.
Anker Solix
Showing up quite a lot in our reviews lately, I think in no small part because they’re popular with Resinc Solar, our installer of the year, who are very good at engaging their customers to leave good feedback, which is hard to argue with.
These things are very skinny, perhaps the only rivals to iStore in that regard.
Ampura
Very well developed local branding delivered with quite attractive hardware but apparently another model that isn’t available yet.
Decidedly ordinary specifications though – 5kW inverter with only 500volts and 16 Amps DC for the solar inputs.
Very nice looking thing
Even the backside is presentable enough you could get this 300mm away from a wall and avoid alot of rules.
Redback
Having established a reasonable reputation, Redback seem to have torched their good name a little with poor warranty service lately.
However the ratings for this 10kW single phase unit are pretty stout so they should be a competitive product.
Redback keep coming back
Four DC solar inputs and 43Amps AC output is pretty good, while the 9999Watt rating skirts some Queensland compliance rules.
Alpha ESS
My friends at Alpha must be getting better, because they couldn’t get worse and stay in business. Installers I know have got on quite well with them as a budget offering in the lineup, but after sales service may still be a bit problematic.
I don’t think they all come with microphones for karaoke, but who knows?
GoodWe
I think our review page might need an update, especially after seeing these new GoodWe ESA units in the flesh and speaking to a few electrcians who have installed the first ones in the country.
Nice looking jigger
GoodWe have taken quite a few good ideas from the competition and blended them with their own innovations, like simply angling the terminals to make cable bends more reasonable, thus installation easier, neater and more reliable. There are pros and cons but they’ve retained the series connection architecture, which means there’s no need for a gateway.
The business end looks good here.
Stickers aren’t pretty but there’s no fiddly, ill fitting plastic covers either.
To Sum Up
Stackable systems are the new black in a lot of cases, but sadly they’re leading to a lot of good inverters being binned or systems being compromised by a salad of different equipment being tossed together.
For example, Fronius are great for high DC current input ratings. Depending on how your existing array(s) are designed, you may want to hook them all up together, connected to one channel, and add more solar on the other.
Lesser inverters just aren’t flexible enough, even if they have 3 or 4 inputs, 16 amps on each isn’t enough in many cases.
And if you already have a Fronius, I think you’d be mad not to stay with them. Same goes for most other reputable brands. Single ecosystems are simply easier to manage, use smart controls and achieve compliance with poles and wire network rules.
There are still good reasons to use discrete components to build your solar power system, but like anything, getting a package tailored for your place, your habits, your budget and your demand is key to a good outcome.
Perhaps the biggest risk is something we have already seen. Brands like Alpha have updated models and no longer support legacy batteries if you want an expansion later in life. However if your stackable system or the manufacturer dies an early death, then re-using any part of the existing system will be impossible.
If you want something genuinely long lived and not tied to any particular brand, there are better options.
For more on the latest energy trends on display at All Energy, read my piece on the other points of interest at the biggest clean energy event in the Southern Hemisphere.
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