About SolarQuotes Reviews
One of the best ways to learn about a product or service aside from a company’s own blurbs (that are of course very biased) is to read reviews.
Here on SolarQuotes, we’ve been collecting feedback from Australian solar owners for over a decade, and during that time amassed the largest solar reviews database in Australia, if not the world.
Collectively, SolarQuotes has 98,980 Australian customer ratings and reviews of solar panels, inverters, batteries, installers, EV chargers, hot water heat pumps and air conditioners. These pages are a very valuable resource for anyone considering electrifying their home.
How Are The Ratings And Reviews Collected?
We publish all reviews without fear or favour – the positive, the negative and the indifferent. However, we take very special care to ensure whatever is published is genuine.
While we understandably can’t reveal all our screening methods, every single review submitted not only comes under automated scrutiny, but is also human-reviewed. And that human is “Ninja Ned”. Smart, stealthy, nimble and lethal; Ned sniffs out any questionable reviews, investigates thoroughly and if proven to be non-genuine, deletes with extreme prejudice.
How Our Rankings Work
We use customer reviews to rank products and installers, but not every list on SolarQuotes works in exactly the same way. The method depends on whether you are viewing our Solar Reviews Centre, an interactive review widget, a standalone Top 10 page or an installer ratings page.
The main things to know:
- Most Good Reviews is a weighted score that rewards four and five-star reviews and deducts points for lower ratings.
- Average Score is the ordinary average star rating, but a minimum number of reviews is required before a brand can appear.
- Our standalone Top 10 product pages use recent reviews to determine the order, while displaying each brand’s all-time rating and total review count.
Most Good Reviews
Most Good Reviews is not simply a count of four and five-star reviews. It is a weighted score that takes both good and poor reviews into account.
Every eligible review adds or removes points:
| Review Rating | Points |
| 5 stars | +2 |
| 4 stars | +1 |
| 3 stars | -1 |
| 2 stars | -2 |
| 1 star | -3 |
We add together the points from all eligible reviews in the relevant review period. The brand or installer with the highest total ranks first.
There is no minimum-review filter for Most Good Reviews. Review-count minimums only apply when a list is sorted by Average Score.
A simple example
- Brand A receives ten five-star reviews and two one-star reviews. Its score is 20 minus 6, for a total of 14 points.
- Brand B receives eight five-star reviews and no poor reviews. Its total is 16 points.
Brand B ranks higher, even though Brand A received more five-star reviews, because Brand A’s poor reviews reduce its score.
Average Score
Average Score is the ordinary average star rating across the eligible reviews in the selected review period.
A brand with only one or two perfect reviews can otherwise appear to outperform an established brand with hundreds of reviews. To reduce this problem, a brand must receive a minimum number of reviews before it can appear in an Average Score list.
| Review category | Minimum reviews for Average Score |
| Solar panels | 15 |
| Solar inverters | 15 |
| Home batteries | 5 |
| EV chargers | 5 |
| Hot water heat pumps | 5 |
The minimum must be reached within the selected review period. For example, when viewing reviews from the previous six months, only reviews submitted during those six months count towards the minimum.
If fewer than 10 brands meet the requirement, an Average Score list may contain fewer than 10 brands.
Lists On The Solar Reviews Centre
The Top 5 lists on our Solar Reviews Centre are ranked using Most Good Reviews from the previous six months.
- The list order is based on the weighted Most Good Reviews score.
- There is no minimum-review filter.
- The rating and review count displayed for each business or brand also cover the previous six months.
This means the business or brand with the highest displayed average rating will not necessarily rank first. A slightly lower-rated brand may rank higher if it has received considerably more good reviews.
Interactive Product Review Widgets
By default, our Top 10 widgets are sorted by Most Good Reviews in the last 6 months.
These widgets open with Most Good Reviews and Previous 6 months selected. You can then change:
- The ranking method: Most Good Reviews or Average Score.
You can select whether you want to sort the Top 10 list by Average Score or Most Good Reviews.
- The review period: previous six months, previous year or all time.
Then, you can filter for reviews from the past 6 months, the past year, or all-time.
The selected review period determines which reviews are included in the calculation. Most Good Reviews has no minimum-review filter. If you select Average Score, the minimums listed above apply.
Standalone Top 10 Product Pages
Our standalone Top 10 product pages are ranked as follows:
- The list order is based on each brand’s Most Good Reviews score from the previous six months.
- There is no minimum-review filter for this ranking.
- The star rating displayed beside each brand is its all-time average.
- The displayed number of ratings is the total number of reviews collected over all time.
In other words, the list position measures recent review performance, while the rating and review count provide longer-term context.
| What you see | What it represents |
| Position in the Top 10 | Most Good Reviews score from the previous six months |
| Displayed star rating | Average rating across all reviews |
| Displayed review count | Total number of reviews collected over all time |
This is why a brand displaying 4.8 stars can rank above one displaying 4.9 stars. Its recent weighted review score may be higher, even though its all-time average is slightly lower.
While Tesla has a higher rating and more all-time reviews, FoxESS outranks them because they had a better Most Good Reviews score in the last 6 months.
You can view our standalone lists for solar panels, home batteries, EV chargers and hot water heat pumps.
Installer Rankings And Ratings
SolarQuotes collects reviews for installers across Australia, including installers outside our network. However, our ranked installer lists only include businesses that are active members of the SolarQuotes network.
The Top 5 installer list on the Solar Reviews Centre uses Most Good Reviews from the previous six months.
Just like all the other Top 5 lists in the Solar Reviews Centre, the Top 5 Installers list also sorts by Most Good Review score in the last 6 months.
Our Top-rated installer page uses a separate system based on how many reviews an installer has received during the previous three years and their average rating over the same period. Installers are then placed into Legendary, Platinum, Gold or Silver tiers.
If an installer makes it to one of these tiers, they will have a badge displayed on their installer review page.
Browse Our Reviews And Rankings
Review pages
We Don’t Bow To Cranky Companies (Or Their Lawyers)
No company likes to see bad reviews. Some use genuine negative feedback as a way to improve. Unfortunately, at times others put pressure on me to have those reviews removed. Unless there is *very* good reason to do so, this simply doesn’t happen – even under threat from or of lawyers. Check out our legal threats policy.
We also don’t tolerate companies leaning on Australians who have left authentic negative reviews (which thankfully rarely happens) to get them to change or remove their feedback. we will go into bat for those people and alert the relevant authorities – as this isn’t just unethical, it’s illegal.
How Are Incentivised Reviews Handled?
Australian businesses are permitted to offer incentives for reviews, and some choose to. But these incentive offers must comply with Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) guidelines, in accordance with the Competition and Consumer Act (2010).
At SolarQuotes, we help to educate pre-vetted installers within our network on these guidelines. But we list thousands of other installers as well; many of whom aren’t part of the SQ network. There are also our hardware reviews sections – panels, batteries, inverters and EV chargers.
For many years, SolarQuotes didn’t accept incentivised reviews. In more recent years, we changed our stance given such reviews are acceptable if within the ACCC’s guidelines.
Then in April 2022, as part of a review submission process update, we began asking reviewers to indicate if the companies they are commenting on have offered any type of reward for submitting a review.
On the submission form we also note while the ACCC has said incentives can be OK, what’s not OK is only incentivising good reviews – and we provide a link (as above) to further information from the ACCC on related rules. We encourage further contact if the reviewer has any questions about this.
For reviews that have been identified as incentivised by the submitter, a white $ symbol in an orange box appears at the top right of each review to act as a flag.
Choose Your Section
- Solar installers – hands-down Australia’s most extensive database of installer reviews. 98,980 uncensored reviews of 3,155 solar installation companies across this great nation.
- Solar panels – reviews and information on 140+ brands of panels; including brands you’ve likely never heard of.
- Solar inverters – find details, ratings and opinions on products from over 200 solar inverter manufacturers
- Solar Batteries – ratings, reviews and information on 90+ home battery brands currently available in Australia.
- EV chargers – ratings, reviews and information on 35+ EV charger brands currently available in Australia.
- Hot water heat pumps – ratings, reviews and information on 20+ hot water heat pump brands currently available in Australia.
- Air conditioners – ratings, reviews and information on 20+ air conditioner brands currently available in Australia
Submit Your Own Review
If you’re the owner of a solar system, solar battery, hot water heat pump, air conditioner or EV charger, share your thoughts on your system’s performance and general experience with other Australians. This is very easy to do – using the pages linked to above, navigate to the brand you own or installer you used and click the “leave a review” button. Alternatively (and probably a bit quicker) is to access the relevant form you’ll find listed on this page.