Finn's SolarEdge Inverters Review & Verdict
Finn Peacock has been a Chartered Electrical Engineer since 1998, and is ex-CSIRO
There seems to be an almost 50/50 split with Aussie installers I know, either hating them with a passion or loving them to bits.
How can this be? Threatening to sue an Aussie installer who questioned their reliability is one reason.
A history of frustrating technical service and warranty delays for some installers is another.
In their defence, although issues still persist for some, SolarEdge's attitude and technical service has markedly improved since 2023.
SolarEdge isn’t my cup of tea, but I'm happy to recommend them as a long-established brand in Australia that should do the right thing by the consumer. If you want the yield and safety advantages of optimising every panel and don't want the expense of microinverters they are your best choice.
Just don't criticise the company too much, or they may send in the legal attack dogs.
Oh shit...
SolarEdge Inverters: Pros & Cons
- Good quality units
- Ability to have very flexible arrangement of arrays due to optimisers on every panel (akin to Enphase or Huawei)
- Quite reasonable app with good UI
- Native ecosystem of accessories like battery, EV charger & hot water controller
- Hot water control has large 4.8 kW capacity
- Much improved warranty support after some historic complaints
- Much improved warranty process where installers are better paid and should be able to solve problems with one visit
- Battery hybrids are rated for solar oversizing to 200% or even more
- Particular models have had numerous warranty failures
- Installers need to be well-versed in SolarEdge system design
- Some installers refer to SolarEdge as the red-headed stepchild of complexity
- No 3-phase hybrid (due to Australian electrical rules)
- "Smart panels" introduce a layer of unserviceability if the optimiser becomes faulty
- Passive cooling means they don't have great thermal management & anecdotally installers observe they seem to suffer in hotter climates
- Although improving tech support can be frustratingly slow
- They threatened to sue my mate Mark on Christmas Eve after he criticised them.
About SolarEdge
SolarEdge Customer Service: 1800 465 567
SolarEdge is an Israeli inverter and energy storage company with a unique approach to solar inverters. Normally, power optimisers can be placed on solar panels if desired, but most installations do entirely without them. SolarEdge inverters are different, as they require a SolarEdge optimiser on every panel.
Putting optimisers on each panel provides some advantages:
- It gives installers flexibility with positioning panel arrays.
- The output of individual panels can be monitored, rather than only the system as a whole.
- Dirt or shade on one panel can be prevented from affecting the output of other panels.
- Panels can be rapidly shut down in emergencies.
- It potentially provides more energy generation over the system's lifetime.
- SolarEdge inverters can be smaller because a lot of its work -- such as the Multi Power Point Tracking (MPPT) -- is done by the optimisers.
While their approach is different, SolarEdge inverters currently have a good reputation for reliability and efficiency. They're also backed up with one of the longest inverter warranties around.
SolarEdge Is A Large Company
SolarEdge was founded in 2006 and began producing solar inverters with optimizers in 2010. While not the largest solar inverter manufacturer in the world, SolarEdge isn't a small company. At the start of 2023 they claimed to have shipped:
- Over 40 gigawatts of inverters.
- Around 4.5 million individual inverters. (Making their average inverter size around 8.9 kW).
- Around 107.6 million power optimisers.
They also claim to have:
- Over 3.1 million separate PV systems connected to their internet monitoring platform.
Manufacturing Locations
While SolarEdge is an Israeli company, they manufacture their products around the world. I believe most of their manufacturing is done in China, but for some of their inverters they give the manufacturing locations as, "China/Vietnam/Hungry". I'm not sure if that means parts are produced in each of those countries or if the inverter could have been assembled in any one of them.
Safety
Safety is a major selling point for SolarEdge. While all solar inverters sold in Australia must have a high level of safety, SolarEdge boasts they have an edge over others.
When most inverters are shut down, the cables on the roof can still have dangerously high voltage if sunlight is falling on the panels. SolarEdge's "SafeDC" feature will reduce the voltage in the cables to just 1 volt. Additionally, if a power optimiser is unable to communicate with the inverter it will automatically reduce the output from its solar panel to 1 volt.
SolarEdge also claims their inverters are good at detecting arc faults, but it's not clear if they have an advantage over other quality inverters. An arc fault can occur when cables connected to solar panels are damaged and have the potential to start fires. When detected, inverters will shut down to prevent this possibility.
Efficiency
The efficiency of SolarEdge inverters is excellent, with most having an average efficiency of 99%. But this isn't the full story, as their power optimisers also have an efficiency rating of around 98.8%. Combining these two figures gives an average system efficiency of 97.8%. This is similar to many inverters on the market today.
Whether or not SolarEdge optimisers on panels will increase overall energy output will depend on its location and situation. If a solar system is mostly unshaded there may be no noticeable benefit. The greatest benefit is likely to be seen for solar systems with substantial shading. But even in these cases, the overall benefit is likely to be small compared to modern inverters without optimisers.
Low Nighttime Energy Consumption
At night SolarEdge inverters draw under 2.5 watts. While the benefit of this low energy consumption when the sun isn't shining is small, it still helps.
Monitoring
One advantage of having an optimiser on every panel is it lets you see exactly what is going on with your system, down to the level of individual panel output. Using the mySolarEdge app will let you see...
- The amount of power each panel is producing.
- Total solar output.
- Your home's solar power consumption.
- How much power your home is importing from the grid or exporting for a solar feed-in tariff.
As far as these things go, the mySolarEdge monitoring app is relatively easy to use. It also lets you see if all the optimisers on your roof are working, so helps avoid the problem of people not knowing if something is wrong with their system.
Hybrid Inverters For Batteries
SolarEdge produces hybrid inverters for use with batteries and sells their own battery called the StorEdge. One advantage of SolarEdge hybrid inverters is that when installed with a battery, the solar panel capacity can be up to 200% of the inverter's capacity. This is very helpful for installing a large solar system.
SolarEdge makes both single-phase and three-phase hybrid inverters. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, their 3-phase ones are unable to provide backup power during blackouts. This problem is due to Australian wiring rules, as they can provide it in other countries. Hopefully, this will be resolved in the future.
SolarEdge Hot Water Diverter
If you have a SolarEdge inverter and monitoring, you can install their hot water diverter they call the SolarEdge Hot Water Controller. This sends surplus solar energy that would normally be exported to the grid to your hot water system, provided it's a conventional electric resistance hot water system. Unlike some diverters, it will work with large 4.8kW heating elements. It only has a 5 year warranty but at the moment that's good for a diverter.
You can find its details on our Hot Water PV Diverter Comparison Table.
SolarEdge EV Charger
SolarEdge also makes a home charger for electric vehicles. It has a 3-year warranty and you can check out its details on our EV Charger Comparison Table.
SolarEdge Warranty
SolarEdge have one of the best standard inverter warranties in the industry at 12 years. If you like, you can pay to have it extended to 20 or 25 years. The optimisers have 25-year warranties.
The weak point of the SolarEdge warranty is a number of products normally required for installation only have a 5-year warranty. These include wireless communication devices and energy meters.
SolarEdge's Australian office is based in East Melbourne and they have field technicians across the country. This means they should be able to respond to any warranty issues that occur rapidly. But note that the first person you should contact if there is a warranty is the original installer. While some installation businesses -- ones we do not recommend -- may try to dodge their responsibility, they are obligated to address warranty issues.
If the original installer has disappeared, SolarEdge advises customers to contact their Australian office on the number listed at the top of this description. Alternatively, you can email them at: [email protected] They will then arrange an installer in their network to fix the problem.
Reliability
We consider SolarEdge's current inverters to be reliable and are happy to recommend them -- despite the company earning a reputation for being prickly when it comes to well-intentioned criticism.
While we consider them dependable now, in the past SolarEdge inverters had some problems. At one point their power optimisers suffered a high failure rate. Some suggested high temperatures and humidity contributed to this, while others suggested poor installation. Whatever the reason, SolarEdge lived up to their responsibility to replace them under warranty. Any company can make mistakes, but good ones fix them. And so do good prickly ones.
Installer Vote Of Confidence
In SolarQuotes' Installers' Choice Awards for 2023, SolarEdge attained third place in the best inverter category.
Additional Info
You can find technical and estimated pricing information for the company's products on our solar inverter comparison page. SolarEdge is currently listed as a SolarQuotes recommended inverter brand.
If you have a SolarEdge inverter installed, please feel free to share your experience with us by hitting the "Leave a review" button above.
SolarEdge has 7 solar inverters in our database
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View Timeline
09 October 2024
03 May 2024
Updated after about 12 months usage (May 2024).
Still happy with the SolarEdge Inverter (SolarEdge SE8250 Home Hub with Power Optimisers on on JINKO Tiger N-Type All Black 440W panels. We have 20 panels for an 8.8kW system. The inverter hasn't had a problem in those 12 months. We are thinking of getting a battery and the SolarEdge Home Hub is battery ready.
Really, really impressed with the SolarEdge monitoring app on my iPhone. It gives loads of real-time data, as well as historical data. I would recommend that you do look into monitoring as a component of your system, as well as inverter / panels / racking. App gives cumulative production for the day, instantaneous "solar power now", instantaneous solar power being used by house and exported to the grid, instantaneous power coming into the house from the grid (on a cloudy rainy day or at night), instantaneous energy balance on the day as bar graphs (production exported and production used, as well as consumption imported from grid and self-consumption of your own solar), production and consumption (as above) against time of day, and bar graphs of comparative solar production monthly, quarterly & yearly.
If you are at home, you can schedule heavy electricity usage appliances during times of excess solar production (e.g. dishwasher, washing machine, pool pumps, oven etc.).
The app also gives individual panel production output, via a graphic showing each individual panel, so you can see if a panel is not working (we have not had this problem in 12 months). This also shows if some shade is having an impact on panel output e.g some chimney shadow in winter, but not in summer.
The best peak instantaneous output for our system has been about 8kW (from an 8.8kW system). I presume the reduction of about 10% is the efficiency losses that are usually shown in predictions of system performance. Best instantaneous output is usually near the longest day of the year (December) but on a cooler day, as performance drops off on very hot days. The best total daily output we got was about 59kWh.
Since getting our solar system we have had electricity bills of $12 (spring) and $0 (summer) for two quarters. there are only two of us, but there is also a swimming pool. (Prior to this solar system, bills were about $1000 total for the year, with more of this in winter, less in summer, and a smaller older solar system saving a bit of money.)
04 March 2024
04.03.24
The SolarEdge has performed well. It had a few drop outs in the early stages, but Ben my installer, fixed those with an onsite visit and another time online.
The only annoying thing is it has a ticking sound when the sun's rays hit the eastern panels in the mornings. It is placed in the garage just below my bedroom and being a light sleeper, I hear it at 0530. My still in use 10 y.o. Sunnyboy doesn't make a peep. Advancing technology can sometimes be a pain.
The SolarEdge app works well.
I've also hooked up a 7kw Zappie EV charger to it, and I'm happy that they work well together.
27 January 2024
Works really well but not sure if I can add a Tesla battery which would be my preferred option.
The Solar Edge app is superb, I can see exactly how the system is performing daily whereas my friends without the SE inverter can't do that as easily.
04 December 2023
I have found with both inverter failures it would randomly reboot in the middle of the day for a few weeks then just die, I raised these random shutdowns with the installer both times before the failures, but they said the system was fine.
Seems to be a few weeks turn around for warranty replacement which is annoying, but I have heard of much longer wait times with other brands, so all in all its pretty good.
Will never buy SolarEdge again though as their panel optimisers are not compatible with any other inverter as I was going to just swap it out with a couple of Fronius's as they will talk to our Selectronic inverter.
They have a 12year warranty, so I won't be replacing the system with something new until the warranty runs out, even though I want to.
13 April 2023
Plus the Wildman Solar boys put a lot of effort into making the inverters neat and tidy on my wall which I am very pleased about.
13 February 2023
The mySolarEdge App is great - easy to understand and show friends. Nice extra feature is the ability to drill down to each panel to see how North vs West panels are producing over the day, or the month/year.
15 September 2022
07 August 2022
07 August 2022
30 June 2022
27 April 2022
01 March 2022
05 December 2021
Inverter continues to work flawlessly at one year after installation.
30 November 2021
15 October 2021
15 September 2021
The only audible noise from the device is a low level click at the commencement and at the conclusion of solar PV feed-in.
Mounted in our garage, the device has a small form factor and attractive aesthetic.
Monitoring functionality on a smart phone includes full visibility of individual solar panel performance, via optimisers fitted to the rear of each solar panel. We're yet to be convinced the optimisers provide any other practical benefit in our particular case, however real-time knowledge of panel performance is very reassuring.
07 August 2021
Easy to access data from phone of computer - no issues connecting, so far.
Gives me all the information right down to layout and individual panel performance.
Very happy with ease of use and GUI layout.
2021 follow up
Solaredge inverter is very user friendly and the data is easy to access.
It is currently winter and solaredge gives me individual panel readings so I can monitor the health of my system.
NB I am having a dispute with my supplier and I am able to collect data using the date parameters that the bills indicate.
19 May 2021
17 February 2021
05 February 2021
15 December 2020
I check the system a few times a day to see how it's performing under different conditions and I'm impressed that it's still 50-60% of peak with full cloud cover. Eventually I expect that I'll only check every few days or so.
(Note that I also have a SmartMeter that has different tariffs throughout the day, and this greatly helps optimise my power use).
29 May 2020
19 March 2018
It seems that the High AC Voltage error is not uncommon but it's my main and quite concerning issue with the entire installation. I am stuck between the installer blaming the energy provider and the energy provider not getting their act together to check the grid voltage to our house.
I've checked out your article: https://support.solarquotes.com.au/hc/en-us/articles/115001759153-My-Inverter-Keeps-Tripping-or-Reducing-Power-On-Over-voltage-What-can-I-do-
I've asked the installer for the VRC but they have not provided it. I will hassle them but I think they will point me back to the power supplier (who I have been waiting on for months) anyway.
My main concern is that the problem is the resistance in our connection to the street as I can pretty reliably cause an error if I turn off my pool equipment in the middle of a hot day resulting in a big spike in our output into the grid. The High AC error and subsequent resetting of the inverter happens reliably after the pool heater timer switches off especially if it's a really sunny day. If it is our wire I suspect it needs to be changed and I think the installer should have taken that into account at the time of install.
It's all a bit frustrating as I am worried we might be damaging our equipment everytime it trips not to mention Sunny days are often no where near as productive as they should be.
04 December 2017
30 April 2017
This SolarEdge System has only been installed for seven months, not one year. Installation delay due to non-availability of Back-up Inverter, i.e., one that would switch to battery supply (if and when installed) when the Grid failed for whatever reason. It was purchased under a special offer that included supply of a free 3G mobile connection to the Internet which I wanted so as to avoid them blaming my Internet connection if the Inverter did not communicate properly. Installation included a SolarEdge Smart Meter to show me what power was generated, consumed (own PV and grid), and exported. System arrived with NO 3G modem and was connected to my Internet connection instead. The Inverter worked fine, but the communication was delayed for anything from 5 hours to several weeks (at which it lost/dumped data). SolarEdge would not accept responsibility and blamed my Internet connection, and would not supply the 3G modem I was entitled to. Funny how I don’t have problems with my Internet connection or use!
I never wish to deal with that particular SolarEdge individual involved ever again.
After three months my original installer was able to extract the 3G modem from SolarEdge for me, and it was installed (along with other work by a second installer) in the Inverter in March. It required a change of the Inverter’s communication board (which was done) AND an installation of a later version of the operating System which was not done because SolarEdge at the time failed/refused to supply the said operating system to the second installer. (One and a half months later the second installer now has the operating system upgrade ready to install.) So at the moment the 3G modem is not operating and the Inverter is still connected to my Internet connection. It now communicates every hour mostly (should be about every ten minutes) but sometimes only every half day, BUT now the Inverter no longer communicates with the SolarEdge Smart Meter (which cost $1150) so the only information I sometimes get is the total power amount generated by the system up to that time of day. If I want to know if the system is operating I have to go to the garage and press a button on it.
This Inverter is a SolarEdge SE6000-RWS 6 kW On-grid and Backup one.
When I investigated adding a battery, I discovered that this Inverter could only handle a maximum of 3300 watts delivered by the battery, which was very surprising as it was rated as 5000 Watt AC Backup Output Power on the brochure. So it was basically useless for reasonable backup as my house is entirely electric except for solar hot water.
Would I buy a SolarEdge anything ever again? NO WAY, just because of the company!
21 November 2016
31 October 2024
31 October 2024
11 October 2024
The installers were very efficient and the overall installation is nice and neat.
10 October 2024
07 October 2024
20 September 2024
Manufacturer Reply
Hi Bernard, SolarEdge Customer Care team here. Can you please reach out to us via [email protected] with your site details. We can then offer you our support and advise.10 September 2024
23 August 2024
An incentive was offered by RenewCo Solar for this review. Learn more here.
17 August 2024
13 August 2024