SolaX Power solar inverters reviews

SolaX Customer Service: 1300 476 529

Solax is a Chinese solar inverter manufacturer headquartered Hangzhou; with an Australian office in Melbourne. The company commenced operations in 2010 and reportedly currently has 6GW annual production capacity. The firm says 600,000+ Solax inverters have been installed globally to date.

Solax produce inverters with 5 year warranties at competitive prices and claim they have a mean-time before failure of over 100,000 hours. This appears to mean their average inverter can be expected to operate for over 11 years before failing, but these figures are generally not calculated using real life conditions.

In addition to standard inverters, Solax also makes multimode (also known as hybrid inverters) for battery systems.

Solax Single Phase Inverters

Solax single phase inverters are standard solar inverters that are sometimes called grid-tie or non-islanding inverters. They don’t support the use of battery storage or allow electricity from solar panels to be used when the grid is down.

Homes with these type of inverters can have battery storage installed, but it will need to operate independently from the inverter and either be connected with a DC converter such as the Goodwe GW2500-BP or a battery-inverter such as the Sunny Boy Storage. The Tesla Powerwall 2 has a battery-inverter that allows it to be used with any solar inverter.

While they are single phase inverters, they can be used by homes that have 3-phase power.

Solax has four single phase product lines:

• X1-MINI (0.6KW | 0.7KW | 1.1KW | 1.5KW | 2.0KW | 2.5KW | 3.0KW | 3.3KW | 3.6KW)
• X1-AIR (2.5KW | 3.0KW | 3.3KW)
• X1-BOOST (3.0kW | 3.3kW | 3.6kW | 4.2kW | 5.0kW | 5.5kW | 6.0kW)
• X1-SMART (6.0KW | 7.0KW | 8.0KW)

The Boost inverters have two Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPT), which means they can accept two sets of panels facing in different directions. For example, a house could have panels facing both east and west if desired.

They come with a warranty of 5 years, but the datasheet points out this can be extended to 10.

The noise emissions of these inverters are given as under 25 decibels, which literally makes them whisper quiet, as a whisper is about 25 decibels. Conversion efficiency of the Boost range is 97.80%.

As for the Smart range - a datasheet wasn't available at the time of review.

Solax 3 Phase Inverters

SolaX also produces 3 phase inverters, but as their smallest is 10 kilowatts they are unlikely to see much residential use.

SolaX Multimode (Hybrid) Inverters

SolaX also produces multimode inverters, also known as hybrid inverters, which can be used with battery storage. Their single phase models come in 3, 3.68, 4.6, and 4.999 kilowatt capacities.  In addition, they also produce 3 phase multimode models with capacities of 5, 6, 8, and 10 kilowatts. 

The 4.999 kilowatt capacity single phase inverter is useful for installation in the Ausgrid Distributed Network Service Provider area of eastern Sydney as their people with single phase power are limited to installing inverters of under 5 kilowatts - and 4.999 kilowatts is under 5 kilowatts. 

These inverters are available with internal or external battery chargers which can charge and discharge batteries at up to 1.25, 2.5, or 5 kilowatts. Note that not all battery systems can be charged or discharged at 5 kilowatts.

Their multimode inverters can provide backup power during a blackout and SolaX says they are suitable for off-grid use. But when used in off-grid mode the amount of power they can supply from batteries appears to fall by about 20%, so this will need to be taken into account when deciding what size battery charger to use.

In off grid mode their 3 kilowatt multimode inverter appears able to deliver 1, 2, or 3 kilowatts depending upon the size of its charger while their 5 kilowatt model appears able to deliver 1, 2, or 4 kilowatts.

Solax Inverter Warranty Notes

The latest Solax inverter warranty for Australian customers can be found here - note that this was current as at December 2021 - you should check the Solax web site for the latest Australian warranty details before making a purchase decision.

As mentioned, Solax inverters come with a warranty of 5 years, but it can be extended to 10.

If you have an issue with your Solax inverter, your first step should always be to contact the business that installed your system.

Regardless of if you've been told otherwise, if that business is still operating they are the ones liable for the repair or replacement of a faulty inverter, if it is still within its warranty period.

If your original installer has gone out of business or is no longer contactable, warranty claims must then be lodged by you through Solax.

SolaX advise that a customer who can no longer contact their original installer will first need to arrange, out of pocket, for a solar installer to inspect and verify that there’s an issue with their inverter (if you don’t know how to find a solar installer, you can call SolaX’s Australian office on their number listed above for a referral). Once the issue has been confirmed by the installer, you must then contact SolaX’s Australian office. SolaX will then reimburse the installer up to $150, and work with the installer to arrange replacement  or repair of the faulty inverter under warranty.

SolaX Energy Storage

Solax produces several different solar batteries available in Australia - the Solax 3.3 and 6.5, and the Triple Power 4.5 and 6.3. Details of these can be found on our solar battery comparison page and you can read Solax battery reviews here.

My Recommendation

While SolaX inverters are generally not considered as reliable as those from SMA, Fronius, or FIMER (ABB), they do have a lower price point and their multimode models appear to be one of the lower cost methods of installing some types of batteries with backup or off-grid capability.

If you like their combination of low price and features then you can take a punt on Solax inverters, but I would go in eyes open and not expect a Solax to last as long on average as the previously mentioned brands - and bear in mind the warranty arrangements.