It’s been a couple of years since I first wrote this SolarEdge inverter review. It started out nice. We installed over 3000 SolarEdge optimisers, and I had a tour of the SolarEdge HQ in Israel and had meetings with some of SolarEdge’s founders. But, as time went on, significant problems started appearing so I changed this SolarEdge review to voice my concerns with SolarEdge.
Since then SolarEdge lawyers have sent me threats on two occasions about this blog.
Part one and two are a condensed version of my original review. In part one, I explain the SolarEdge inverter theoretical advantages. In part two, I pull apart SolarEdge’s newest model, the SolarEdge HD Wave.
Part three is where I address the five significant problems I have discovered with SolarEdge: failure rates, monitoring, alerts, underperformance and blocking. Failure rates were last updated in December 2020.
The SolarEdge threats
On Christmas Eve of 2018 at 3:15 pm, I received a letter from SolarEdge lawyers. The letter demanded I remove Part Three of this post. Instead, I amended Part Three to address their concerns, and I added lots of bonus updates. Then on the day before Good Friday 2019, I received further threats from SolarEdge. I’ve updated this blog to removed some, arguably cheap-shots and irrelevant arguments in order to negotiate a truce. SolarEdge Lawers asked for more changes in July 2020 so that they would not persue claims. Some of the requested changes were inaccurate and the agreement would not allow for future updated to this blog so I didn’t agree.
Part One: Why SolarEdge optimisers?
SolarEdge is a huge player in today’s solar inverter market. Compared to their competitors, they are the new kids on the block. They only kicked off in 2006 with the first inverter sales in 2010. Today they are second only to SMA for the number of residential inverters they are moving, and the way I read it, they have been successful are making money hand over fist. So what are they doing right?
Optimisation
To step back a bit, let’s look at one of the key components of any solar inverter: the Maximum Power Point Tracker (or MPPT). Standard string inverters have two MPPT’s. The panels on a house are divided into two groups (or strings) and connected to the two MPPT’s in the inverter. As the sun’s intensity changes throughout the day, the two MPPT’s will continually adjust the voltage and the current from the panels to achieve maximum power.
The potential problem with standard string inverters is that a string of panels works kind of like old school Christmas tree lights: if one panel is affected by shade, then all the panels in the string are affected. The SolarEdge Inverter offers one solution to this problem. It takes the MPPT’s out of the inverter and effectively puts one MPPT (or optimiser) behind every panel. So if one panel is shaded, it does not drag down the performance of the next.
Rapid Shutdown
I deliberately didn’t call this section “enhanced safety” or “SafeDC” as SolarEdge brand it, because that infers other solar systems are not safe. If solar systems are installed by electricians who follow today’s standards, your solar is arguably as safe as the rest of the electrical wiring in your home.
The nature of electricity is that it is not 100 per cent safe, but we can put measures in place to make it safer.
Optimizers and microinverters offer a solution that brings another level of safety. SolarEdge’s optimisers require communication with the inverter in order for them to operate. If the SolarEdge inverter is turned off, the optimised panels will produce a safe 1 volt each. This would prevent solar contributing to your house fire, and the firefighters will appreciate that you used a solar solution that enables rapid shutdown.
SolarEdge Inverter Monitoring
Every system we install today has an in-depth level of monitoring. SolarEdge is one option that allows you to monitor every single panel’s production. Seems overkill? Here’s why you may think you want individual panel monitoring.
i) To identify shading for tree growth and soiling,
ii) to identify panel degradation, (this point is dampened in Part Three under “can optimisers underperform”).
iii) to identify bypass diode failure, and,
iv) education. Because there is always more to learn about solar.
In the earlier version of this post, I rabbited on about each of those points. However, while all these features are available on SolarEdge inverter monitoring, I now question their accessibility and their reliability. I discuss that in Part Three. But for now, let’s look at the positive and check out the HD Wave Inverter.
Part Two – The revolutionary new SolarEdge inverter
SolarEdge inverter specifications
In the early days, inverters used a heavy copper-wound transformer. Over the last ten years, inverters became “transformerless” which made them heaps lighter and more efficient. All inverter manufacturers today use SMA’s H5 Bridge technology – all except … the new SolarEdge inverter.
SolarEdge claims to have lifted the bar. They have replaced electrolytic capacitors with film capacitors and heavy magnetics with digital processing. There are three claims that SolarEdge makes that I’ll examine. In this updated version of my blog, I have abbreviated my original findings.
i) The HD Wave is more efficient.
In theory, I proved this to be correct in my original testing. But, read on to Part Three. It’s a bit more complicated than I understood in my original tests.
ii)The HD Wave produces less heat and requires less cooling.
Again, this was proven correct by my original testing. However, in my experience, this hasn’t necessarily translated into longevity compared to Fronius.
iii) Film capacitors last longer than electrolytic capacitors.
SolarEdge has claimed electrolytics only last an average of 10 years, and by using film capacitors they significantly increase the expected life of the inverter. I consulted leading inverter manufacturers.
An anonymous comment from a well-respected figure was pertinent:
If correctly specified and chosen, and an inverter’s internal heat dissipation properly designed and tested, electrolytic capacitors have no problem to continue to operate for a product design life of 20-25 years. But the same is of course true for ANY component within an inverter.
I contacted SMA, ABB, Sungrow and Fronius. Each had similar statements.
The ugly inbuilt DC Isolator
Design counts. The version of the SolarEdge inverter that was on display at Intersolar in Germany looked small and schmicko. Australia, however, has this stupid regulation about inbuilt DC isolators that made SolarEdge feel obliged to favour function over form.
The isolator works fine and I’m not doubting that it is ‘fit for purpose’. It just feels flimsy. You get the vibe that the engineers snuck it past the design department to get it to market in a hurry.
But good looks is the least of SolarEdges’ problems
Part Three – The problems with SolarEdge
SolarEdge lawyers suggested some of my headlines such as this are misleading and inaccurate. I don’t agree. Having discussed some of the good aspects of SolarEdge, I now want to discuss some of the not so good aspects. Accordingly, I think the headline is fair and reflects the content of this section. I believe the content is accurate (otherwise I wouldn’t include it) and of significant interest to consumers and installers.
SolarEdge are charging ahead with their ambition to be a one-stop-shop for solar. Their product line up will soon include:
- Inverters
- Optimisers
- Home Automation using the wireless ZigBee controllers
- An “Immersion Heater Controller” or a hot water diverter.
- Solar panels with integrated optimisers (made by Jinergy in China).
- A SolarEdge battery
- Electric Vehicle Chargers
- Popcorn makers (just kidding).
I could philosophise about the approach SolarEdge take to developing their business, but I’ll resist and just state some facts as I understand them.
As always, I am happy to correct or update facts if things change or further information is available.
SolarEdge facts
As best as I can ascertain.
- SolarEdge manufactures nothing. They outsource their manufacturing to other companies in China (by Flextronics), Hungary and Romania. They place their own staff in these factories for Quality Control.
- Every other major solar manufacturer has chosen to collaborate under the Sunspec Alliance and enable “plug & play” system inter-operability, promote technology innovation, and accelerate Solar industry growth. SolarEdge has chosen to pull out of the Sunspec Alliance and go it alone. (Their lawyers took exception to this point as misleading. I fact-checked this point with people involved in the SunSpec Alliance and they confirmed my comments are reasonable and true.)
- SolarEdge is at the eve of offering a whole new swag of technically complex products. That is good news as I am always happy to see technological advancements (and, hopefully, improvements). However, in my opinion, after 8 years of sales, Solaredge have not yet proven to the market that their main product has a level of reliability that consumers should be entitled to expect.
It’s this reliability that is my biggest concern, so last month I went to Israel on a “business trip” to investigate.
My tour of SolarEdge Israel
I lived in the north of Israel for several months in 1999. Israel is a fascinatingly complicated country steeped in history, so when SolarEdge invited me, I initially jumped at the opportunity to get back and hang out in Jerusalem.
SolarEdge was well aware of my reservations. At one point I turned down the invitation saying that we had decided not to use SolarEdge optimisers (at least for now) because the issues we had experienced were too significant. SolarEdge convinced me to go, so I went as a sceptic willing and wanting to be convinced. There were two significant issues I wanted to address.
- SolarEdge optimiser failure rate.
- Performance issues due to design restrictions.
SolarEdge optimiser failures
Here are MC Electrical’s updated SolarEdge failures as of December 2020. It has been 6 years since our first install.
- 130 SolarEdge systems installed since Nov 2015
- 138 inverters installed
- 3293 optimisers installed
- 75 approved optimiser warranties
- 36 approved inverter warranties
- 1 rejected inverter warranty (SE claimed lightning with no evidence).
So percentages work out as a whopping…
- 2.2% optimiser failure rate
- 27% inverter failure rate
Is that bad?
I count failures as loss in production not monitoring or communication issues. These failure rates will increase over time but to date:
- Our Fronius inverter failures is a grand total of 24. We’ve installed over 3450 Fronius inverters since 2015.
Our Fronius inverters : 0.7% failure rate. - Our Enphase MicroInverter failures is a grand total of 3. We’ve installed over 3100 Enphase micros (across 132 installs) since 2015.
Oure Enphase microinverters : 0.096% failure rate.
Keep in mind that replacing an optimiser (or microinverter) isn’t as safe and easy as replacing a string inverter. It can be costly to safely get on a roof and remove multiple panels to get to the failed optimiser. While SolarEdge currently has an agreement with installers to pay a small labour component to replace faulty optimisers, their SolarEdge warranty explicitly states otherwise. I’ve asked SolarEdge to change this in their terms and conditions, but they say it’s a standard term. Indeed it is, as my Enphase Warranty document also has this as a “standard term” they are unwilling to change. That doesn’t make it right.
These optimisers are warranted to last 25 years. That’s what they call a “business liability”.
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The tour of SolarEdge
During our tour of SolarEdge, we visited their R&D testing labs…..
Before publishing this post in July 2018, I sent it to SolarEdge for feedback. I gave them 4 days to respond. I told them repeatedly that I am open for corrections or omissions and I was willing to delete sensitive information. I also did the same when I reviewed SMA, ABB and Fronius. This time instead of a “thanks for the courtesy, can you change …”, I was threatened with legal action and was given very little feedback. It wasn’t until Christmas Eve 3.15pm that I got a five-page letter from SolarEdge lawyers. I was threatened the second time in the afternoon on the day before Easter holidays 2019. I received further legal letter from SolarEdge lawyers in July 2020.
While I deleted this section about the “tour of SolarEdge” their Christmas Eve legal letter still asserts that the blog still breaks a confidentiality agreement, but they did not state which part they believe is in breach.
I certainly don’t believe I have included anything in this blog which is confidential. If I did, I wouldn’t have included it, to begin with. I take those obligations seriously. If SolarEdge identifies something which they feel was told to me in confidence, I will certainly look at whether it should be removed.
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SolarEdge changes their tune
Both leading up to my Israel trip and after it, I had multiple conversations with SolarEdge Australia. Their tune has now changed and they now admit they have high optimiser failure rates across the board. They made two claims that I want to discuss. Edit, their lawyers deny SolarEdge have changed their tune or that they have a high optimiser failure rate.
- SolarEdge’s optimiser problem was mainly “infant mortality”. Optimisers were failing within the first few months of install. Infant mortality usually occurs because of faulty components (like capacitors) and at the manufacturing process level rather than an inherent design fault.
- The “Generation 4” SolarEdge optimiser solution.
Infant mortality?
SolarEdge had reviewed our optimiser failures and said they were mostly infant mortality issues, which SolarEdge defines as failures within two months. Anecdotally, this didn’t seem right to me, so we checked as much data as we were able to and found that more than half of our faulty optimisers failed after 12 months. Many failed after 20 months. Contrary to what SolarEdge specifically told me, the main problem we have with optimisers is not infant mortality.
The hope of Generation 4?
In an earlier version of this blog, I referred to a “Gen 4” optimiser manufactured in February 2017. I suggested Gen 4 may have solved the reliability issues.
While I have written correspondence with SolarEdge about Generation 4 optimisers, their lawyers tell me that “SolarEdge has never marketed, nor sold, a fourth generation of its product”.
So I’ve removed any further reference to Generation 4 optimisers and until there is a new release or something else changes, any inference to hope for improvement in optimiser reliability in the short term.
Why doesn’t everyone complain about SolarEdge optimiser failures?
SolarEdge is a polarising product. While the majority of solar companies I’ve spoken to complain of numerous optimiser failures; some claim no failures.
But why do some installers claim very few failures while SolarEdge themselves admit there has been an unreasonably high failure rate. Do some installers just have good luck? I have two theories.
1. The average failure time
An interesting although relatively anecdotal observation that an industry friend recently made: the companies that defend SolarEdge reliability have often been installing them for less than two years. I could list numerous companies that have done large numbers of SolarEdge systems over a long period of time. They will no longer install SolarEdge because of the failure rates that some claim is much worse than mine.
The companies that defend SolarEdge reliability have often been installing them for less than 2 years.
2. Temperature-related optimiser failures
After talking with so many installers across Australia, it seems to me there is a strong correlation between the location of the installation and the reported optimiser failure rate. For example, a friend in Darwin has a significantly worse failure rate than mine. Another good friend in Melbourne assures me his optimiser failure rates are fairly reasonable.
The Arrhenius equation is a rule of thumb that asserts every 10°C increase in temperature reduces component life by half. While I hope it isn’t the case, if the Arrhenius equation can be applied to SolarEdge components, then my friend in Melbourne may be subject to the “Pantene Promise” :
“It won’t happen overnight but it will happen”.
“It won’t happen overnight but it will happen”.3. Restricted SolarEdge inverter monitoring
My second theory relates to monitoring. The SolarEdge inverter monitoring platform has three levels of accessibility. While the full view gives individual panel monitoring and alerts, the most basic view does not allow the customer to view “alerts” or “layout”. Most companies I talk to only give the customer the most basic access when they set up the SolarEdge inverter monitoring portal. This is obviously unfortunate as panel level monitoring is half the reason to buy a SolarEdge inverter.
The Devil’s advocate
But let’s play devils advocate and suggest that as long as the installation company closely monitors all of their SolarEdge systems, a restricted customer view would work, assuming:
- The installation company remain in business for the next 25 years.
- They give a rats about their past customers – for the next 25 years
- Busyness does not get in the way of them making your failed optimiser high on their priority list – for the next 25 years.
- SolarEdge remains on their product line up and they regularly log into their monitoring platform – for the next 25 years.
- The alerts actually work for the next 25 years.
Alerts don’t always work
Let’s assume an exceptional company like MC Electrical installs your SolarEdge inverter, and we adhere to all of the above points for the next 25 years. I call it my “Platinum-Gold-Ironclad 25-year Exceptional Customer Service Guarantee”.
All we need to do is regularly check the alerts of the 2000+ system we would have installed, and repair the failures that are likely to happen.
The problem is the alerts don’t necessarily work.
Over half of our failures have been picked up because our customer looked at the individual panel monitoring, or we have happened to stumble across it. Clearly, not all customers bother to check their monitoring so we regularly check all 130 systems manually.
Can optimisers underperform?
A few months ago, a diligent customer called us insisting that some of his Sunpower panels were underperforming by around 5 per cent. Given the system was installed in the shade, it seemed like an unlikely story, but we took the time to look into it. The short of a very long story is that the panels were not underperforming nor was it a shading issue. We spent countless hours identifying that 3 SolarEdge optimisers were underperforming. SolarEdge told us they could see these optimisers were running hot. They eventually replaced all three optimisers, (albeit one by one).
We have identified several other jobs that appear to have underperforming optimisers. Some of these are pending optimiser warranties listed above.
Are we aware of the full extent of SolarEdge failures?
Now think of all the companies that report a low optimiser failure rate, but don’t give their customers access to panel level monitoring. Think of all the underperforming optimisers that are almost impossible to identify. Do we really know the full extent of the problem?
SolarEdge tells me they are working on updating the alerts in their portal. If this is applied retrospectively, will we see a massive glut of optimiser warranty claims? SolarEdge lawyers did not comment on this section.
Production Loss and “Blocking”
Designing a SolarEdge system on a residential home is far more complicated than keeping the stringing rules and using the SolarEdge design tool. Consider this install we did earlier this year. This installation is in full sun, in two strings of 10 panels. However, four of the northern panels are producing significantly less than the other ten. What’s going on?
Optimisers work on a string level by increasing or decreasing the voltage on individual panels so that the current in each panel in that string is the same. To complicate this even more, the SolarEdge inverter needs optimiser voltages to add up to ≈380 volts. A P500 optimiser boosts to a maximum of 60 volts. In this example, the voltage and current figures of the red string look like this:
- The four northern panels boost the voltage to their maximum of 60 volts and 2.2 amps (≅132 watts).
- The six western panels buck the voltage to about 24 volts and 2.2 amps (≅52 Watts).
- The voltage of all the panels add up to ≅380 volts and 2.2amps.
However, if the four northern panels were not “blocked” by the 60 volts limit, they could have produced the same power as the other group of 10 panels. We worked out the production due to blocking to between $6 and $9 per quarter.
SolarEdge’s response
SolarEdge lawyers pointed out that this situation is rare. I looked at the “charts” and the “optimiser voltage” on the SolarEdge monitoring platform for many of our more complicated roof layouts. It takes some time. You need to select all the optimisers and zoom into day view. Winter often has the worst results.
I found many of our complicated layouts had some degree of blocking. Adjacent is one of the worst examples. (The panel stringing we used is recommended by the SolarEdge site designer.)
It gets worse
SolarEdge optimisers is a product we were recommending for shaded situations. However, if we have a string with 6 or fewer panels in the sun, the system will suffer voltage blocking at best, or it will just shut down at worst. This is even when the electrician installs to SolarEdge guidelines.
Unless a shaded SolarEdge optimiser system is very thoughtfully designed by someone experienced in the intricacies of SolarEdge optimisers, it is highly likely that performance will be restricted due to voltage blocking.
(SolarEdges lawyers commented on this section stating that I “wrongly imply that a string of 6 or less [sic] panels is permissible in accordance with SolarEdge’s installation guidelines”. To be clear, I was not saying that. I bolded “in the sun” for clarification.)
Solution 1 – Long strings
There is a simple way to solve this. In the example above, if all 20 panels were in one string, then the average panel would run at 19 volts. Lowering the average voltage of an optimiser would give it more room to boost and less chance to clip. But lowering the voltage, in turn, increases the current, and we could end up with a problem by limiting the current at the optimiser’s maximum current of 15 amps. Panel currents are fast approaching 10 amps. I’ll leave the solar installers to chew over that little mathematical nugget.
However, assuming current limiting will not occur with the design, long strings are a great idea. That’s assuming you don’t care about your 25-year SolarEdge optimiser warranty. But if you want your warranty intact, SolarEdge inverter design guidelines allow a maximum of 5.7kW of panels per string. If we exceed 5.7kW, we may put undue stress on the optimiser, and your warranty may be void.
The loophole – if SolarEdge trusts you.
Fortunately, SolarEdge trusts MC Electrical’s ability to design correctly because they gave us a waiver to install up to 25 panels in a string.
Now that’s a strange suggestion from SolarEdge because if we connected just 22 x 330W panels (keeping it to 6.6kW) in one string, our average voltage would be: 380volts/22panels =17.3volts.
If a 300W panel was running at 17.3 volts, it would need to run at: 300w/17.3v=17.3 amps.
But the maximum an optimizer can run at is 15amps. So we would just be replacing the voltage blocking problem to a current blocking problem.
Incidentally, the below SolarEdge Waiver debunks any suggestion that our high optimiser failure rates are because we don’t know how to design SolarEdge systems properly.
Solution 2 – Larger SolarEdge optimisers
A second option is to install an optimiser with a higher voltage. The P404 has a maximum voltage of 85 volts. This means it needs fewer panels operating in full sun to reach the 380 volts required by the inverter. Still, if you have shading or split orientations, you will need much longer strings than the minimum.
Either way, a combination of longer strings and larger optimisers and less shade is an ideal way of reducing optimiser blocking.
Solution 3- Smaller panels
This isn’t really a solution. It’s a problem I dressed up as a solution. The problem is that panels are getting bigger and bigger. The standard panels we install in 2019 are 330W, 350W and 360W panels.
Let’s say you choose a 350w panel and you want to install 6.48kW of panels. You can’t do a long string of 18 panels (unless SolarEdge gives you a waiver) so you do 2 strings of 9 and 10 panels. If the 9 panels are on different orientations or have significant shade issues, you may be prone to blocking. If you get some clearance stock 275W panels for a bargain, you could have 2 strings of 12. Problem solved!
A word from SolarEdge
Finally, SolarEdge insists that there is no flaw in the way they have designed their system to operate. They say that, to ensure optimum performance, any solar panel system must be thoughtfully designed and installed in accordance with the applicable manufacturer’s instructions and that SolarEdge is no different.
Additionally, they say I have relied on some specific and rare situations and that there are no inherent design defects in its general application. (I’d suggest a good example of a “general application” may be one orientation per string with minimal shade.)
As indicated previously, I have no issue with SolarEdge. If my experience demonstrated to me that their products were performing without problems arising, I would say so. If things improve, I will report that. I will continue to engage with SolarEdge on these issues in the hope of a better outcome for everyone.
Conclusion
The SolarEdge optimiser solution has, in theory, some technical advantages: optimisation in the shade, rapid shutdown, panel level monitoring.
The new HD Wave is a redesigned and in theory more efficient. SolarEdge believes they have solved a significant problem by replacing electrolytic with film capacitors. However, the industry does not entirely agree this problem needed to be solved. SolarEdge does not admit the optimiser failures is bad. But the failure rate I have seen is worse than bad. I also suspect the full extent of failures has not been reported as a result of restricted access to monitoring and an alert system that is not fully working.
SolarEdge has an inherent design problem in many applications because of a fixed string voltage and low SolarEdge optimiser voltage. We can sometimes solve this with longer strings, more expensive optimisers, and an experienced SolarEdge designer.
Mark Cavanagh
426 Responses
I have a Solar edge inverter with 19 optimizers for going on 10 years (full 10 come April of 2025).
So far I have had 3 optimizers fail one as I am writing this reply. I have had no problems as of yet with the inverter.
I am very disappointed with this failure rate and I have suspected that it is a temperature induced failures.
I can see the layout in my solar edge monitoring, but disappointed that I can monitor the optimizer or the solar panel temperature’s. I believe both are needed.
I agree that the optimizer current and voltage limits are tight and can create (P300 model) shading and string sizing issues.
In my opinion the best thing Solar edge should do is come out with a new optimizer design were all optimizers are operated in parallel. This would require them to output the full 380 inverter operating voltage but be capable of higher voltage when the inverter is required to go to a higher output during very sunny times. I see no advantage to staying with a serial string setup. The only requirement with a parallel setup would be the need of a short circuit safety fuse on the output of each optimizer in case one of the optimizers output circuitry should short which could cause the full array output to be short circuited at the failing optimizer. Without the high current fuse the failing optimizer could cause a fire in such a rare scenario. Such a small fuse would have to be
DC rated to interrupt the fault current. I would assume that Enphase has such a fuse on there AC output as this is a good engineering practice. I am considering upgrading my system to Enphase microinverters they are more expensive but the 25 year warranty may be worth it. I looked at Enphase 10 years ago but decided against them at the time for two reasons the extra cost and the fact that at the time Enphase was not profitable. What good is a 25 year warranty if the company is not around after five years. I am glad to see Enphase is now a profitable company and can be count on. For 25 years the extra cost maybe worth it now.
Hi Love2 run. Enphase is your best blog. If you google MC Electrical Enphase review you’ll see my comment on Enphase. The best of a bad bunch I would say.
What is a good solid system that complies with module level rapid shutdown? Enphase? SMA with panel level optimizers?
I had a SunCity Solaredge system installed Jan 2014. Flawless peformance until this year. Error code 25 popping up. Tesla took a month to get a service call scheduled. they claim they will do a reset and then monitor for 3 months. If problem still exists then order replacement parts that could take up to a year to replace. They said something about the fault occurring after heavy rains. That it needed to dry out then it would start working again… Ok, Not impressed. Peter
Hi Mark. Your article is very interesting. I’m very disappointed with my 7.4kw SolarEdge system. The hotter and sunnier the weather has become since it was installed in June 2019, the more time it spends with the inverter not producing power. It seems that the better the panels produce (between 10am and 3pm) the inventor spends most of its time shutting down and re-connecting. Generally my output is a sawtooth pattern on any given sunny day. My installer changed the cutoff voltage to 258v with no effect and I have monitored my grid voltage and it never exceeds 247v. The installer is no longer responding to my emails or text so I’ve logged a job with SolarEdge but nothing has occurred. If I had my time again I would not have gone with this product there is something very wrong, I have no shading and some panels face NE and the others North all on one string. If I can’t get a reply from SolarEdge I guess my next step will be fair trading. Very disappointed with this product.
Thanks Mark for your informative blog, I had a SolarEdge inverter installed and I discovered that mine failed, I was sold on this system and feel that these inverters are the weak link, hope I can get this resolved without legal action.
Hi Dave, that doesn’t make any sense to me. You said you have to have another optimiser installed? Do you mean a voltage regulator? (I think you had a typo and your incoming voltage is reaching 240 volts.) Voltage never stays at the same. Google tells me in England it can fluctuate from 216v to 253v. The inverter has to have overvoltage protection. If they are saying voltage fluctuations will void your warranty then you should go to consumer affairs / fair trade or whatever government body England has to protect consumers. If your voltage gets really high (eg 265v) and SE void your warranty (although I don’t think they can), you should get the grid/utility to pay for replacing the inverter. The most likely scenario, you are being lied to.
Hi John, No, unfortunately all optimiser will have to be removed. It is also likely that new cable will need to be installed to the inverter.
Mark, friend already has SE system installed. He wants a regular string inverter instead. Can he leave the optimizers in place and just swap out the old SE with a new SMA?
I have been having trouble w/ my system for quite some time. One a sunny, cloudless, cold day, the system (24 panels+optimizers+HD Wave inverter), should peg peak power. I see frequent dropouts of the inverter and some optimizers. The initial inverter failed in year 4 and was replaced in July 2023 under warranty. Since then, I have not had the expected performance. The installer replaced 4 optimizers recently and immediately thereafter, other optimizers started dropping out. Now they want to replace even more optimizers, but they have not figured out why the dropouts are happening. I’m an engineer and I know quite a bit about optimizers (having designed and built many myself). The solaredge system seems to have some instability issue at or near peak power. I second Max J – why doesn’t SE look into these failures and solve the problem??
My system went down with in a year from installation. Unfortunately I needed a new roof because of hail damage. I had scheduler to have the inverter box replaced but that did not happen because the 3rd party did not leave any voicemail per my specific instructions. They just closed the Work Order. I am so dissatisfied with my solar system so I’m taking them to court to get out of the contract. My 28 panels are still in the garage.
Hi there Mark My impression from your review comments is that you have made a diligent attempt to state the facts as you understand them. Given your obvious stated experience and application to analysis of these systems it would seem your conclusions deserve to be regarded with some credibility. Interestingly I was watching an informational video sourced from the UK today and a similar claim was made about the relatively high failure rate of Solar Edge power optimisers. I am just wondering that as your comments are about products produced about 3-4 years ago do you have any sense that there has been improvements in the design, manufacture and performance of those items since then?
Now I am confused whether to use SolarEdge Optimiser S505/S440 with the quote I received from the Solar installer. I have a tall tree situated north-west, there are shading issues during winter around 11am-2pm, summer probably around 11.30am-2.30pm. I would rather organise to have the tree trim to 5m then won’t need to use optimiser.
Yes we always recommend keeping trees trimmed.
Hi Mark, Over the years we installed few thousands of SE systems. We have seen significant failure rates and I cannot get any answers from SE as for root cause of those failures. Last 5 years we replaced many thousands of optimisers and inverters. These failures really destroyed our company, and we are facing immense difficulty to support our customers. I cannot understand why SE cannot look in to these failures as an engineering company and solve them! I cannot understand how SE allowed to trade and no pressure being applied to rectify issues. I have analysed over 100k units and looked at failures. Is there a way for many installers to share failure information and then figure out if failures are batch related, model related, manufacturing location related or simply overall topology related? Thanks p.s, I would appreciate any advice to get out of this mess.
I have 42 panels. In 8 years we have replaced 15 optimisers. I don’t have access to alerts, so I must constantly check my system status online. I am able to see my layout and panel production, but no alerts.
We only fit SolarEdge when there is a clear advantage in doing so. In our experience it’s quite unnecessary for the vast majority of installs.
BTW, Solaredge recently changed their rules for all customers to allow more than 5700W on a single string so long as the inverter is SE5000 or below and less than 25 optimizers. So this matches the ‘special exception’ they provided you. As I pointed out 4 years ago in this thread, since the SE5000 will never draw more than 5000W DC, it only makes sense that the 5700W limit for total panel power made no sense since it will never be reached. Not sure why it took them 5 years to finally realize this.
I jut found out that my inverter has been down since September 12th (by calling the electric company to ask about my larger bill than normal). Do you know what I may have access to as far as reimbursement is concerned?
Hi Mike, from my understanding, one you report the issue to your installer, they have to repair it in a reasonable time. If not, then you might be eligible to lost electricity.
I found your article extremely interesting. Right now I have have a problem and Im pretty sure its the inverter. I have a solar company that has been working on it for 4 months. SE keeps fighting them on replacing the inverter. My app shows that the panels are are producing what they should be on the graph but when you look at the daily total its 50 percent or more less than what it should be if you do the math. I need help, they just keep sending out the company i hired to replace parts, fimware update, new comm card and its not working. Im beyond pissed and need advice. Thanks, Brent
A data driven article is good. I recently worked for 2 whole days at a company installing solar edge. I know from the phone calls within the company that there is a high failure rate of this product. I know the install company is closely linked to Solar edge. I quit the company. It is my belief that they cold call people and get them to pass a credit check and sell them a system. In two days most of all the systems I was aware of had significant problems and were installed incorrectly. I know that the electrical inspectors passed systems with errors on a regular basis. If a system is installed incorrectly then the manufacturer is not liable for failure. I believe this whole company is a scam to take advantage of people paying for the product on loan money, and that the install companies get rich quick if they are at the top of their pyramid. I think they are trained to incorrectly install a cheaply made product and that the design and install companies profit over the customer’s credit approval to pay their bills. I think the install companies get the cheaply made product at a cheap price and that they just hustle people. The group of people in front of computers in a cold dimly lit warehouse gave me the impression that they were cold calling to hustle sales. The customers believed that they were going to see a reduction in their high utility bills and are paying money to lease the solar systems. If they are installed incorrectly then the manufacturer is off the hook in a class action lawsuit and the installer goes bankrupt. I felt that the 3rd party electrical inspectors were also paid off on the side and not objective. We went to inner city homes and the contractors were passing shoddy electrical work, and I witnessed coworkers hiding electrical issues and forging signatures of electricians. You trust your data. I trust my gut, stay away from this company! I quit the install company after 2 days.!
Hi Mark. Great work. I have just experienced my second Solar Edge Inverter (or optimiser?) failure. Each unit lasted almost exactly 13 months. On both occasions failure occured at or near maximum energy production (near 12 noon) and in the heat of the day (32C +). I live in Perth and the inverter (although partly shaded by an eve) is East facing.
I have a 30 month old Tindo Solar system with a Solar Edge inverter. I have not had any production for the past 5 weeks, despite contacting my installer 4 weeks ago. I was given answers that suggested reasons such as: the power network may have shut it down; although it is not showing on my app, it is probably still producing power; Tindo have contacting Solar Edge and are waiting for delivery of a replacement inverter; Solar Edge have probably shut down over the Festive Season and probably have a back log. This is peak production – and air con use – here and I am concerned re added cost due to energy not being produced. Tindo subsequently were able to tell me that I was not having solar energy produced. There were no alarms to indicate that and, although Tindo had the resources to inform me of this, it was not until I pressed them that they bothered to check it out. Had I not been checking solar production myself and noticed this malfunction, I would not have known until I received my next power bill – which should be in credit at this time of year! Do I have any recourse for this loss of production? Cheers, Sue
Hey there, although this article is referring to tech a few generations prior to the current offerings—Energy Hub and Energy Banks—I wanted to chime in. We have experience an alarming rate of failure of Solaredge products. Our customers are being brutalized buy their lack of reliable equipment, especially the Energy Banks and the Energy Hub systems.
Just some feedback on my system. 8kW SE8000 HD wave, with 2×15 ‘strings’ 330W Jinko Panels with SE optimisers (9.9kWp) as there can be shading at particular times on the year. Installed early May ’20, but commissioned mid June ’20 after a call to the installer. All went well until Dec 29, ’22 when one entire string was lost. Then the second string went on 2 Jan ’23. Didn’t notice this situation until I had a look on Jan 5, and checked history. My problem is/was the installer had stopped trading – I assume that Covid had impacted their business. I contacted SE to try and resolve it, they asked me to wait while they tried to fix it, after 45mins I asked if they were still there and they responded “they need more time to resolve this” so I waited another hour waiting on the ‘Chat’ service and suddenly, the chat disappeared with a notice that the chat had been deleted… A ‘survey popped up, asking for my ‘experience’ which I truthfully answered. I’m quite busy 7days a week but as it turns out, while catering a birthday party, hubby was a solar installer and after discussion, he said he could have a look at it for me. He sent me a picture of ‘connectors’ within the inverter (or DC isolation? section) that were burnt out. Interestingly, the cables used were 4mm – I would have thought a larger cross section would be needed for 8kW? Short story is the Sparky has got the system up and running again, but it now seems to be ‘capped’ at around 5.8kW production in full sun. I haven’t followed it up with the sparky yet. After reading your findings and the comments here, I’m beginning to wonder if I have made a good decision to go with SE for the power control…
Hi Mark, great article. Glad I found your site before my second SE system purchase! In 2019 I had a SE system installed with the inverter failing within 6 months. Replacement was trouble free and up running again within 2 weeks. The following 18 months it was a brilliant system especially with the monitoring which I found extremely useful. We have since moved and sounds like we may have got the best period of its lifespan. I have a question if you have a moment, I am now looking for a PV system for our new property with 3ph supply. Can you recommend a 3ph brand/model of inverter in the 10kw range? Cheers, Damien
HI Damian, have a look at the new Fronius GEN24 10kW Symo: http://www.mcelectrical.com.au/fronius-gen24-review/ Call us on 3268 3836 if you’re in South East Qld and we can arrange a quote for you.
My SolarEdge system installed 2019 by Pink Energy/ power Solar now out of business 🤬 ,,my system stopped working in August 2022 with blown fuse ,, I had replaced fuse so I does communicate with Solaredge and made a Travel ticket which they text me with the system was flagged for an auto replace of the inverter and for me to get with my installer to replace.. they are out of business and I can’t seem to get anybody that wants or can do it. Any ideas of how I can get this fixed??
I have 2 SolarEdge inverters SE 11400H-uS and only 1 is showing up on the dashboard app when I go to layout it shows the other inverter is working and producing is there any way to get both on dashboard so it totals out all production Thanks
Hello! Has anyone found decent optimizers – at least doing efficient step-down – that is communicating with open source hardware/software – in non-internet (local) network or using the solar wire till “gateway” near inverter? I will not do anything cloudy that makes me dependent on internet connection. I will try to log with raspberry pi and MQTT (iobroker, volkszaehler.org, mosquitto, .. have to dig into reasonable setup.) Questions ist, if there are optimizers out there that are both reliable and a bit open to “local communication only” AND able to be controlled by this. In my eyes, a well-built optimizer mesh/grid of parallel “strings” is something like 1/4 of an inverter. In theory. Just wind around the house with your panel strings, and the more mixed they are in one “string”, the better. In theory. In theory you can even hook up several of these strings in parallel on one input of some PV Inverter… I will dig into building modular snake robots for different purposes, a new one is to exchange optimizers without demounting the PV panels ;)) Still I think it is a very interesting technique, and one can only hope and perhaps help them to get it reliable done. Don’t they do aging thests one could automize and make cheap – like a burn-in phase for every brick? Andi
Hi Mark great article, had the sales person from SE out yesterday selling me a PV system, He forgot to mention the optimiser issue and the fact that i cant get full access to alerts etc. Thank you for highlighting these omission’s, Can you recommend a good system Fronius?
Hi Ian. Thanks for the comment. Yes, we always recommend Fronius. In our experience, they have vastly superior reliability and performance.
Appreciate your due diligence. After 3.5 years of LG panels with SolarEdge, my system failed. My installer and SE attempted a firmware update to no avail so now I’m scheduled to get a new SE HDWave inverter in about a week. I am disappointed that it was my frequent app checking that highlighted a loss of production and not an email alert from my installer or SE. Like you point out, my access through the web portal is minimal, I want to see more, and I really want to receive notifications/alerts. Your article that points out they may not work is concerning. An service representative from my installer said I’m signed up for alerts, yet my system failed and has been down for 4 days and still no alert. I’m shocked the inverter failed after less than 4 years. I’m disappointed I never got any notification. My friend has a similar setup with same equipment by same installer but nearing 6 years, and his inverter also died, though this will be his 2nd replacement. Shocking actually
Thank you for the informative and over my head explanation. As a layman, the expectation we have with the installation is a trust we must have with the company who design the products, design our particular system and install said system. We did not ask for a cheaper system that may or may not work correctly. We are willing to pay for the expectation that our system will function correctly for 20-25 years with routine maintenance. In the past 8-9 month we’ve been through two “critical” failures of the “single phase inverter” from Solar Edge. This is not acceptable. We waited nearly two months the first time for a replacement. We didn’t catch the failure for a month as the phone app from Palmetto shows green bars as if the system is working. It wasn’t till I looked at the kws being produce that I saw it said “0”. Meanwhile we are not producing energy to put back on the grid in turn not getting credit so we get a $400 power bill plus we have to make the monthly installment for the loan to pay for the system! To read that this was and still is an issue with Solar Edge and Palmetto chose to use it on our system is a huge disappointment. Palmetto did pay the difference of our power bill, appropriate for their use of a error laden product. Currently waiting for another converter.
Hi Mark, first I want to thank you for looking out for the consumer. I’m in a terrible situation with my solar, installed in May 2019. I discovered inadvertently, after huge electric bills, that the data from my solar abruptly stopped in Dec 2021, so in my tru-up in June, instead of solar credit I got a true bill for $1100. I have 25 yr warranty. Question 1: I’m trying to figure out which part it is and wonder if this is what a post below by StR 3 months ago is referring to same problem “My SolarEdge inverter SE9K has the error number 8×10 (communication error) and is not producing anymore.” I started looking on google to see if the problem of data not being reported to electric company is identified anywhere. Then I found this article of yours and I think it might be the inverter. question 2. Rather than hire an electrician to diagnose then ask for the part to. be mailed, one solar company (for commercial) advised me just to tell SolarEdge that it is the Solar edge fault and just send a whole new system as replacement. But I think Solar Edge requires something from an electrician in writing before they will honor warranty. Does any one have a reply about this? Thanks Mark!
Hello Mark, I recently had this quote. In update is it your opinion that as of August 2022 this combination will be without it’s problems you mention? Kind regards, John SunPower Maxeon3 395W / 400W Solar Panels 1 x 3680W SolarEdge Inverter with Power Optimisers In Roof Mounting System.
Is there a class action lawsuit in the works are does one need to be initiated?
Getting lawyers involved before talking to you directly about their issues puts me off SolarEdge. SolarEdge has become my last resort if nothing else will do a half reasonable jog. The Edge they have would appear a very rough Edge, it certainly ruffles my feathers. You are doing your best to keep the industry open and honest and if openness and honesty are a problem to them, they are not my cup of tea.
Mark, I’m using this online form not to post a comment, but rather to thank you for your pertinent and informative blog, and also to solicit your help regarding the high failure rates I have experienced with solar equipment in general and SolarEdge in particular. I am a 66 year old general building contractor in Butte County California, and am seriously questioning my long held beliefs related to solar PV and sustainability. I’m confident that just a little of your valuable time would help me immensely in choosing environmentally sustainable technologies. Thank you in advance, Mark Menard
Hi Mark, sorry to hear about the high failure rates you’re experiencing, that would be discouraging. We only install Fronius inverters now and Mark explains why in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXhYvA_fSI
The Solar Edge Optimiser system has been recommended for our home which gets a lot of shade. Is this information still current please? I have not been able to find any independent customer reviews on the system. Many thanks your information was extremely helpful.
Hi mark I have now had 3 solaredge inverter over 4years we have a 3680 inverter with 570 capacity we are in the south of UK east south and west facing roof panels producing 20 KW ,should our Company forever green energy have fitted a larger inverter we have My 5000 inverter or what are you thoughts.kind regards keith
Thanks for this review. Facts based! A pity SolarEdge has pulled out of the SunSpec alliance.
Hi Mark Interesting article – thanks for taking the time to publish it. Now, 4 years on, how do SolarEdge inverters compare? Have you seen demonstrable improvements? Thanks Bruce
Thanks for the informative article. Your reported failure rate in the field is exceptionally high and it astounded me when today it is possible to guarantee few ppm failures for both the semiconductors and the passive components. As a retired semiconductor scientist and director of quality and reliability I can conjecture that the failure rates are in good part due to subcontracting and sourcing of semiconductors from countries that are new to design and manufacture semiconductors.
Thanks for your insight Al Grasso
Hello, can you please provide a contact to Laszlo Suranyi who also has the SolarEdge error 8×10? It seems like we are the only two persons in the internet with this error. My inverter does not work anymore 🙁 My contact: solaredge8x10@2022.temporarily.de
Hi Stefan. I emailed your contact to him. Let me know how you go!
My SolarEdge inverter SE9K has the error number 8×10 (communication error) and is not producing anymore. Does anybody have a solution? Laszlo Suranyi had the same error 6 months ago in the comments here, but I have no possibility to contact him. My contact: solaredge8x10@2022.temporarily.de @Marc: Maybe you can forward my question to Laszlo’s mail?
Can you please put me in touch with Matt who commented asking if anyone has had a SE inverter explode? Eliot also stated that he had heard of withers exploding? On Friday this week that is exactly what happened to my HD Wave inverter. It caused a serious fire at my home and I would like to understand from anyone else who has seen such issues with them The fire investigation team are also looking for more of these examples Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated
Hi, that is an interesting view of SolarEdge optimisers especially as I am just about to order these in my new system. Can I ask if ; 1. Their products have changes appreciably since your review – for the better. 2. I live in UK where ( sadly) the temperatures we see do not come close to those you experience in Aus. Would this change your view regarding reliability ? Thanks in advance Roy
Hi Roy, the problem with deciding if SolarEdge have changed or not, is that it takes several years to know. Our failures really started happening after 2 years. Maybe they have improved them a bit – maybe they only start failing after 4 years? I’m not volunteering to find out.
Just had my Solaredge installed in December 2021 and it is just dead!!! (only 4 months). Checked the system and came up with “Error 18xB7: Vcap21 Surge”, they try to update the “firmware” but unfortunately, it didn’t work. So they will be replacing the inverter! Asked them what the error meant, they said it was the hardware issue 🙁 I would personally not recommend anyone to get SolarEdge, so much for the so-called “high-end inverter”
Mark, I am in the US, in the state of Florida a bit north of Miami. I had 29 SolarEdge Sunmodule Plus 280 mono panels installed in February 2015. I have since had five optimizers replaced, two that failed one in February and another in Mach this year. I do not know which optimizer I have. My original installer is out of business and it has been VERY difficult to find an authorized SolarEdge representative in my area. In every case, I discovered the failed optimizer and it took 30-60 days and many emails and phone calls each time to receive replacement parts. Last comment, would it be safe for a layman such as myself to simply buy replacement optimizers and replace them myself? Todays service to replace two costs me $245.00. Is programming required on the inverter to get the replaced part into th system? Regards and thank you for the excellent information in this blog!
Here in San Diego, In the past 2 years I have had 4 different solaredge inverters. We are switching out the system and going to Enphase. I had Enphase on my other house. If you are thinking of Solaredge……..DON’T,
My installer and I have been in contact with SolarEdge for some time regarding the optimizer voltage blocking issue. I’ve found SolarEdge to be incredibly evasive in dealing with the issue. Despite repeatedly explaining the design/engineering issue to them, they keep coming back with statements like “our tools show no production errors”. When I talk to them on the phone, they seem to understand, but they seem to be very cagey to put anything in writing.
HI Mark, so glad I stumbled across your article before signing up with Solar Edge, thank you. We have considerable shade hence why the Solar Edge system was first recommended to us. Can I ask, in your experience, is there an inverter/microinverter that you’d recommend given our shaded aspect? thank you
Hi Jo, Mark created a video about the new winning shade solution here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqOw43-hbjc
Like some others I also experience the problem where my SolarEdge SE 3000HD inverter used to drop off the WiFi network. This usually happened every one or two days, last summer once every week or so. I used to fix this by rebooting the WiFi access point that SolarEdge connects to. Unfortunately it seems quite complex to change the WiFi network credentials that SolarEdge connects to, but of course my install guy will happily change it for me for his hourly rate + travel expense, but he wouldn’t guarantee it’d fix my problem. I don’t mind paying for a good product or service, but because of the no guarantee I refused that and I solved the issue with a RaspberryPi that would restart the access point whenever the connection dropped. That worked for about a year and a half now without any problems. Couple days ago I made an interesting discovery. SolarEdge is connected to a dual band access point (2.4GHz+5GHz with identical SSID’s) and for some unrelated reason I disabled the 5GHz radio. Right after that change, SolarEdge hasn’t dropped off the WiFi for days and the first disconnect has yet to happen. My theory is that SolarEdge doesn’t cope very well with switching WiFi bands (2.4 to 5GHz and/or back). So not typing about WiFi channels, that works OK, but switching bands OR the 5GHz band in itself, but I suspect the band switching (there was a reason for investigating that in the first place). Some more experimenting will be necessary on my side, but I think part of the solution for my situation will be to change the SSID for one of the WiFi radio’s, effectively creating fully separate networks for 2.4 and for 5GHz and thus preventing SolarEdge to hop from one radio to the other. If I had my SolarEdge installed with the knowledge I have today, I would’ve opted for the wired network connection, because of the changing WiFi network credentials is so difficult. An alternative, in case you don’t have wired network present, would be to use a simple/cheap WiFi repeater, of the type that also comes with a (single) cable interface and supports a bridge mode. These devices are cheap, sometimes even given away with a new Internet subscription. It would need some experimenting, but I’ve seen it work. The advantage is that you effectively move WiFi configurations away from SolarEdge into a device that you can more easily configure (or replace) yourself. This is important because over the lifetime of the solar installation, you most certainly will replace your Internet modem/router/repeater/accesspoint more than once. On the other hand a decent and simple procedure for configuring WiFi should just be available in the manual. But then again I also don’t trust the App to be available during the entire lifespan of SolarEdge. Eg. due to SolarEdge dissolving or losing interest in supporting older platforms. Maybe my view is too much from a consumer perspective, but I hope it helps anyway. I have a question, if I’m allowed to ask: My SolarEdge SE 3000HD is currently configured for WiFi. What happens when I simply connect it to a wired network? Will it automatically prefer the wired network over the wireless network? And the second (most important part of the question) is, when in turn I decide to remove the wired network, will SolarEdge fall back to the WiFi and will it still have remembered the WiFi credentials? Reasoning: I feel comfortable opening the cover of SolarEdge and run a network cable to the switch (I believe from the manual it is really simple), but I want to prevent the situation of SolarEdge loosing its WiFi configuration and a similar “dropping off the network”-bug still existing and then having to pay my install guy for redoing the WiFi configurations.
Hi, my solar edge system was down for almost 4 months. I thought my system was being monitored, and I would have been given an alert of some kind? I looked at my monitoring app and it showed the day it went down. My system is about 5 years old. Is it reasonable for me to expect that there monitoring system should have alerted me? I’m very upset at this seaming false sense of security. My installation company said I was responsible to monitor my electric bill? But unless I get into the details I just see the monthly provider cost which is minimal until I get the yearly even up. It’s been over 2 weeks and my installer still doesn’t know when the replacement inverter will be delivered?? So irritating. Do I have a right to be irritated or should I calm down and except this is normal or more my responsibility? Thanks for your perspective! I live in California. Jon
The SolarEdge inverters have been an ongoing problem since the system was installed. They replaced one of the two inverters with their wave inverter, but it has known communication problems and doesn’t apply needed updates. The second inverter just shorted out and they are replacing it. I asked them to replace it with their energy hub, hoping this product is more stable, but haven’t heard from them. The inverter failures have cost me in excess of $8,000. in true-up costs. I have a 14.4 KWp, 47 pannel system and shouldn’t be paying anything in true-up costs for my 3,000 s.f. home. What are your thoughts in general and specifically is the energy hub the solution? Also, I know they have many unhappy customers – has anyone filed a class action suit? Thanks Fred
Hi Fred, regarding Energy Hub, I think it would be better for SE to get the basics right before they complicate things further. SE has a nack of keeping people who have bad experiences quiet.
Very thorough analysis. My SE6000 inverter and LG battery are installed out of the weather, but noticed inverter temps reaching 50C, sometimes a little more.. The inverter was moved off the wall by 40mm and overtemperature fans fitted to keep inverter temps <40C.. As an ex manufacturing engineer (NEC and ERICSSON and Switchmode Power) electrolytic capacitors only have a reliable service life of 8 to 10 years... any longer is just a lottery.. so SE are doing right using non-electrolytic caps in their switch mode configuration. Having repaired one SE6000 with new mosfets and gate resistors, they are easy to repair, but SE corporate simply didn't respond to documentation requests.. Biggest gripe is finding a second solaredhe installer here in Sydney to get a competitive quote to upgrade my install.. I still live in hope...
Hi, just a question, I have a company pushing for a solaredge optimisers system, given your review & the fact that I have a no shading area would a string system without optimisers be a good alternative option. cheers..
Hi Michael, yes a Fronius string system is a great alternative to SolarEdge with or without shade.
Interesting material about optimizers! I have seen your youtube videos that compares enphase micro inverters to a fronius string inverter. Is it possible for you to do the same test with solar edge and optimizers?
Thanks Mark for your blog and review. I have a bad experience after 1 (one) day of production. Communication panel of the SE7k inverter sent 8×10 error code, AP wi-fi dropped the connection for SetApp. I hope this inverter is modular so much that the installer will be able to change the communication panel only. Or I guess this is a RMA event, so changing the whole inverter is mandantory.
Hi, In the Netherlands, we got a HDWave inverter and the power optimizers from Solar Edge, together with 12 panels. For the last 3 months the inverter has been losing wi-fi connectivity every week or so. Whatever I do, I could never get the damn thing to reconnect with the wi-fi through the solaredge app. I always have to hard-reset the inverter. And this happens every 3 to 5 days, so at this point I’m extyremely pissed with Solar Edge. I’ve opened numerous cases with them, just to have them all closed because, according to them, I need to update my wi-fi. I would, except that is not the issue. The issue is that their firmware looks to be flawed, as whenever I try to reconnect the inverter through their app, it gives me a ” wrong wi-fi password” message. That is hilarious as the password never gets changed. The thing just needs to reconnect, but it fails misserably. Getting a SolarEdge inverter was the worst decision I could make.
I purchased a solar edge system 2019 very unhappy with the performance as my electric bill is still very high. 6.6kw system I did not know I would have to not only recheck their work but also not have access to panel power output. Plus a huge learning curve.it seems difficult to get them to cooperate and examine the system for faults. I really wish there was a straight forward tech that could come in inspect modify if needed and there was proper software to not only track but set up warning messenges when its not working correctly. Please Help as this is a deep rabbit whole for me to figure out.
My solar edge system is about 2 years old and although I am reasonably happy with it, there has beed a recurring issue. Oe day I just decided to check the monitoring and discovered the system was not reporting for 10 days. I checked the 32amp main switch and it was tripped. I contacted the installer and then turned it back on. There are 22 panels and all except panel number 20 was working. the installed said the optimiser was broken and they sent someone to replace it. That was 4 months ago. I checked the monitoring again last week and found the same fault as before, ie the 32 amp main switch was tripped and panel number 20 was not not working when power was restored. The installer mentioned solar edge are having issues but as the other 21 panels are working it is not that urgent. They will send someone to replace the optimiser again. My concern is not that the very same panel not working but what is causing a 32 amp main switch to trip. Both times, the system failed to report an alert.
Just sharing my experience. I have a small system: 12 optimizers (P405), two panels per optimizer, two strings in parallel on an SE3500, installed in 2017. Four optimizers failed so far. One that dropped out got back online when the weather got dryer before failing forever. I installed everything myself and could not be bothered to get on the roof to replace the last ones that failed for some time. This summer I decided to rearrange things a bit with all optimizers next to each other at ground level so they can be easily replaced when the next one fails. It is more cables but considering the optimizer failure rate it made sense. I had an additional problem though. Since about a year one string reported hardly any yield. I figured one of the broken optimizers ruined the whole string. It did not get better though after I replaced them, it went from almost nothing to zero. I disconnected the other string and took out each optimizer in the bad string one by one but never saw any yield. The inverter reports a sensible voltage but just does not convert it to power with this string. The system has been severely underperforming for about a year now. I was never contacted or alerted by my supplier or SolarEdge.
Hello, Thank you so much for your very thorough examination of the solaredge system. I am in the UK and live in a location shaded by trees. For 20 years I have been examining the possibility of having a PV system and have been learning about solar PV designs from first principles. I have watched just about all elements of a system improve and reduce in cost to the point where it might be possible to justify an installation even with limited full on sun. I have watched solaredge installations on YouTube channels and was surprised at the statements made by the installer that the optimiser allows a panel to fail and the rest to of the panels increase their output. I can see that partial shading with partial decrease in output voltage could be compensated but not a total panel failure. After all the panels are in strings….am I right? In my own mind I was going towards using micro inverters . I was interested to see that you had concerns that solar edge had pulled out of.the manufacturing arrangements and compatibility with other manufacturers equipment was unlikely. I am no longer considering Solar edge!! I am long retired now but have spent many a month in Australia representing an old British firm of consulting engineers who did the specification and project management of large power plant going back to Victorian times. Anyway thank you again for your excellent paper, Mike
Has anybody has a SolarEdge Inverter explode on them?
Hi Matt. Yes, we have seen and heard of the solaredge inverters exploding in the past.
I installed four Solaredge SE7600A-US inverters for a customer, that had bought his own system. This was my first experience with the company. All four have failed in under 3 years. Now I’m spending my time trying to get warranty for a product I didn’t sell. I find them difficult to deal with. After six months, no results, and no production out of the system.
Hi Mark. Thanks for this article. We are about to get our 3rd SolarEdge inverter installed after the last two failed (fried circuits). I have just been advised that this is the last time they will replace it and if It fails against will need to do a home insurance claim. System was only installed in late 2017 and last inverter replaced 12 months ago.
Hi Monica. That’s very interesting, and concerning. What state do you live in? Are they claiming it was due to lightning or installation error?
No comment, just a question. Have the p370 optimizers been updated to solve the excessive failure issue? My solar salesman in Texas says so. Thanks, David Watkins – Dallas
Hi David. No idea. It takes an average of 2 years for my optimisers to fail. So you’ll find out in 2 years.
Just had my 3rd Solar Edge HD inverter replaced in 3 years. I thought I must be extremely unlucky because I had heard that Solar Edge was very reliable. I guess it’s not bad luck just a bad product.
Dear Mark, Great report. Why dont you try Huawei? There you have full flexibility. The same inverter can run with optimizers, without optimizers or even partially with optimizers. And they have only one type: SUN2000-450W-P. Best regards, Evert
My SolarEdge inverter started giving a fault code after 2 years and stopped producing. After numerous phone calls to installers and SolarEdge, it was fixed by a firmware update that SolarEdge rolled out to my system over the internet. I wonder how common this is and vaguely curious if my firmware got corrupted or what happened. Now I know exactly who to contact and what to ask if this happens again.
Good information, I read your article a couple of years ago. Just had system fail, seen voltage reporting as 430 ish… and getting error 18x8b hardware fault. This isn’t seen on any info on web. Taken 2 days for them to agree with my supplier inverter needs changing. Love the monitoring feature of the system. I’ve got 15x300w facing SW and 10×300 facing NW. Did notice some of the panels saying they were producing more than 320w so may be an optimiser problem ? Anyone else reporting similar ? Cheers Cliff in UK
Thank you for sharing. I just discovered that my Solar Edge Dream had failed back in February. I wasn’t notified by Solar Edge because the installation company received the notice. As it turns out, the installer had gone out of business. Solar Edge is sending a replacement/upgraded system and refuses to pay part/or all of the installation costs of the new unit.
Hi Mark, thanks for this. I’m a lot wiser now. Some of my Optimisers failed under warranty. Bill was $705 to diagnose & repair with a local agent SolarEdge put me onto. Solar Edge would only pay $200. I want to complain and take them to court if necessary to get the full repair cost – can you help me with some responsible names in SolarE in Australia. Emails to “Support” give me no reply so I want to get to someone more senior. John D
Hi Mark I have a solar edge system installed with a 7600 inverter and 28 310 watt silifab panels. It’s been installed for 2 years 9 months. The other day it started acting up, during peak output on sunny days it will suddenly shut off setting error code 18×37 v-line Max. I can hear the inverter clicking like a relay is failing. Solar edge told my installer my voltage is peaking to high. I think the inverter is failing. I had the power company check the voltage to the meter and it is 252.8 volts. I keep getting the run around as they are telling me the voltage cannot exceed 252, but the system has worked great for almost 3 years! Have you heard of this concern or have any knowledge of this concern? Thanks so much Shawn
Hi Shawn, if the power company measure once at 252, then your voltage is almost certainly getting significantly higher. Your SolarEdge monitoring should have all of this available if you have been given full access. What time did they measure it? Your voltage would get highest when you are producing maximum and consuming minimum. ie, lunchtime. In this case, I’d guess SolarEdge are right this time.
I have a Solar Edge system on my home and I am about to sue or have them taken off. My Solar company, United Solar went out of business and my solar panels haven’t worked right since I had them installed. I have tried to contact everyone from United Solar to Solar Edge to Duke Energy and even to other installers to get my panels working properly but not on person I have called has done anything to help. I can’t even get anyone to take over the meintenance or the account to see what is wrong with them. I am paying almost $300 a month for my system loan and around $150 to $300 a month still for my electric bill an no one will do anything to help. I wish I had never gotten solar and I would not recommend it to anyone.
Enjoyed yr article. I’m build I ng 7 x 5MW solar farms in regional QLD. Solar edge has been put forward as the inverters option. I prefer string Fronius. The issues nored in your article noted. What issues have you seen in this product used in this size installation. I must tell you that each one of these farms is a 100KW block so there are 50 such blocks. Keen to see your comments Peter
Hi Peter. I missed this comment. Did you go ahead with SolarEdge? I have just heard some bad stories from the NT about large projects, where they ended up replacing the system with a string system at their own cost.
Interesting that they threatened with lawyers and that they don’t manufacture anything.
Solar Edge is a largest invertor manufacture in the world. How is it possible that the largest inverter manufacture in the world has bad invertors? Don’t you thing that there is a contradiction? How do you resolve this contradiction?
Since our initial experience, we have had installers who greatly opposed our position come to realise that our findings were accurate and they’ve since stopped selling them. The newer generation SolarEdge inverters are apparently more reliable, but only time will tell. Our preference is Fronius, as after sales support surpasses the product, and a few more reasons that Mark shares here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXhYvA_fSI
I worked out why Solar Edge have such good reviews. While I was researching I noticed that most of the reviews posted by reviewers were posted within days of the installation, which isn’t allowing any time for faults to show up. So they are actually giving 5 stars for a product that they have barely used. Must be very happy with installer experience . Reviews would mean something if the Purchaser was contacted for an opinion after 12-24 months of use. Quite misleading.
Thanks for sharing this info. Mark. Always looking to learn more…..
Your article has scared the living daylights out of me. I received a quote for a complete SolarEdge package that includes 370w Smart PV modules with built-in optimisers, along with 5kw single phase inverter. The quote is also for a 9.8kwh LG Chem Lithium Iron battery. I was doing some research before I would accept or reject the quote. I could not find any independent reviews until I came across your article. The problem I face is that I am blind and monitoring would be a challenge for me. I would need reliable products to be installed. Thank you for writing about the issues you and your clients have encountered with the SolarEdge optimisers and inverters. Such a shame that the SolarEdge website promises do not match what is occurring in the real world. Life is sometimes tough enough for me, I do not need such unreliability with a solar system.
HELP My solar edge stopped working on 1/1/21. When I informed support by email, the lady acknowledged the fault via web site monitoring and said she will send a engineer. Then she changed her mind or was told to. I was told to contact the installer whom I do not know who he is. Trying to contact CEO or Omdudsman. Not legal to refuse to repair. Installer is SE’s agent not mine
Hi Teik. Did you call your installer? It is possible that it’s not a solaredge fault and your installer should check it first. But, if you are convinced it is a SolarEdge issue and your installer is no longer around, I’,m afraid you’ll probably need to take it up with the ombudsman.
I have had a solar system for nearly 4 years now and have had 3 replacement batteries and 2 replacement inverters ( Solaredge). On top of this my system was continually cutting out due to high voltage until I finally found out ( after 2 Years) that they had installed 6 mm wire to the meter box instead of 16mm ! Since then it has worked fine but I found Solaredge support useless . I have also have an issue with the monitoring portal with the graphs and the figures not giving the same information.I have taken this up with Solaredge over a number of years but they just keep saying there is no problem but obviously there is. The system production says I produced 1.1 megawatts and the comparative energy graph says 1.46 megawatts!( and the energy per month figure). So far it eventually gets corrected but to say there is no problem when it is only correct less than 30% of the month is just rubbish. Very frustrated with Solaredge and would not recommend this company to anyone.
Where do I begin? I had a Solaredge converter,18 panels and a LG Battery installed 18 months ago. I regularly monitored the daily performance for the first year until I had figured out when I needed to run items such as a dishwasher, spa etc, to maximise my solar usage and reduce my electric bills. My previous two bills were much higher than expected, however I noticed that the bills included the feedback to the grid so I presumed my wife must have been using power outside of solar generating hours (bad mistake to blame the wife I know!). I knew the monitoring App was not working since May 2020 but put this down to the fact that I had changed my Wi-Fi modem and thought that it was just a communication error (wrong!). When I realised there was a problem with the system I rebooted it and it started working again. However, my joy was short lived as the inverter would stop working again after a very short period (30min to 2hrs) and a 2×99 HW error message was displayed on the LCD screen. I rang and emailed my installer and messaged SolarEdge (who still haven’t replied) as it is a warranty issue. I told both parties that my research had revealed that my inverter (with the LCD screen) was no longer being installed because of a known capacitor issue (my knowledge about this seemed to surprise them). To cut a long story short I’ve been stuffed around for the past two weeks by both SolarEdge and the installer. Last week I was told that a replacement inverter had been sent, including a tracking number for my installer. Today an electrician turned up and stated that SolarEdge wanted him to check the electrical before installing a replacement inverter, in case it was a “simple” electrical issue. Of course it wasn’t and the electrician said it would have to be replaced (no surprised there). What really ticked me off was the electrician rang me back to say that SolarEdge had CANCELLED the order until they heard back from the electrician! We are now 3 days out from Christmas and the inverter has to be sent from Melbourne to the NSW South Coast. I won’t get the inverter installed now until the new year!! My question is: My system hasn’t worked since May (7 months). My installer should have been monitoring my system and advising me once a fault was detected. Obviously no one has monitored since it’s install and I am out of pocket hundreds of dollars as a result. Would I use SolarEdge again? Not in a million years!!!
Mark, Thank you for your detailed, honest and open assessment of SolarEdge. I was searching for product reviews after receiving two quotes based on SolarEdge products. It was sufficient to make it clear that I wont be using SolarEdge. 1) Even if they do address the issues you raise, the culture appears to be one of litigation rather than resolution; as a customer I don’t want to have to use a lawyer to resolve a problem that a “normal” company would fix without asking. 2) As a law graduate (but not a practising lawyer) I studied their “Limited Product Warranty” statement. They attempt to explicitly exclude “labor” (sic) as an element of liability. Given the spelling I am guessing that they merely copied and pasted without reference to Australian law. My personal opinion is that not only would excluding labor (from the repair) be a violation of the Competition Consumer Act 2010, but even suggesting that they can do so is also an offence. The implication that a customer could be liable for labor costs to repair – one day after installation is pretty terrifying. Even if they chose not to charge labor costs – implying that they could is likely unlawful. Out of curiosity I compared with a competitor (LG) who explicitly include labor in their warranty. Thanks for the excellent blog.
Hi Mark, I notice that this blog is from 2 years ago where you have stated that SolarEdge have not released a Gen 4 inverter. Has this changed since. I’m getting quotes and I am told that the earlier versions of SolarEdge inverters had problems that have been fixed by Gen 4. Is that right. Please let me know your suggestion for a good inverter because depending on the installer, I have been recommended Fronius, Sungrow or SolarEdge. Await your inputs. Thanks.
Hi Susan. We stopped installing SolarEdge in December 2018. Our “mean time to failure” for SolarEdge is currently about 2 years. I’m sure that time will increase as our installs get older. We have had over 30 failures from jobs installed in 2018. If there have been improvements made to their products, then we will find out over the next few years. But then, maybe they start failing after 5 years. If you want a reliable solar system, nothing about the SolarEdge architecture makes sense to me. If you don’t have shade, fo Fronius or Sungrow. I’ve done blog reviews and youtube reviews on both. Hope that helps!
I am planning to install solar and preferred Solar Edge equipment until I read this Blog. In your Opinion, have their inverters and optimizers improved significantly in the last two years so that the failure rates are now acceptable? John Justice
Hi John, we havn’t installed them for 2 years – so i guess you could take the chance. However, the technology is still the same with “voltage blocking” – and having weak points on your roof and a central weak point as your inverter just makes no sense to me. If you have shade consider Tigo or Enphase. If not, keep with a simple string inverter like Fronius.
Mark, I just wanted to thank you for such a data driven review. I am about to install solar and one of the potential installers is all for Solar Edge. After having read your review I did a lot more diving. I am reverting to a Fronius string design. Again my sincere thanks. My only regret, I don’t live in SE Qld. You would be my first choice!
Hi Mark. Just read your excellent article. We have received a quote from Sunrise Power Solutions. We were very impressed with the “salesman” who is a well known and respected businessman. I wonder if you view has changed since writing the review in 2018 ? We have shading and very hot Summers and a high optimiser failure rate would be a concern. Sunrise were recommended by Finn at SolarQotes and have excellent reviews. Cheers. Mike
We had a Solar Edge Inverter Plus PV 20 panels and Solar Edge Monitoring installed in June 2019, and in November er 2020 our Electrician installed a new circuit with a adapter plug to feed in 15 amp feed from a Emergency Generator. The new adapter plug/Generator works fine but the Inverter has failed. Solar Edge have agreed to replace the Inverter, however now I’m concerned about S/E in the long term, after reading your article. Could you suggest an longer strategy ???????
Hi Otto. SolarEdge have recently been fairly pro-active with their warranty process. Just keep your eye on the inverter and the panel level monitoring and push for an inverter or optimiser warranty replacement. Hopefully they keep honouring their warranty and no cost to the end customer. They may not fail that often for you. It’s not worth replacing the entire system. It’s still producing power from sunshine!
This is a very complex article with no clear solutions. Would you recommend optimizers versus micro inverters given all these problems.
Hi Peter – it’s a complex topic. Would I recommend SolarEdge? its a firm no. Would i recommend Tigo optimisers or Enphase? – depends on your situation. Have a look at this YouTube I made about Tigo – it’s less technical video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8KrqmQftRM
I am looking at a new solar plus battery install and one of the quotes is from Solar Edge. Thank you for your honest review. Much appreciated. Best regards
Hi Marc, Thanks for the review. I have a 8.4 system with 28 Jinko Panels (12 + 8 + 8) and SE8000 inv. Been installed for a bit over 2 years in the Canberra area and no issues until recently. Looking at the layout view I can see a single panel that is about 40% less output than the other 7 in that string. However its intermittent – meaning that in playback mode I can see that at times throughout the day it was outputting the same as the other panels and then it drops off for a few hours and then comes back to normal again. Is this a typical symptom of a failing optimiser? Thanks Regards
Hi Phil. It could be – we have had similar “underperformance” issues – where the optimiser is just beginning to fail – and eventually fails. It could also be 1/3 of your panel in the shade – but I’m assuming that’s not the case otherwise you would know. Keep your eye on it and let us know if it fails!
I just had a in ground, 24 panel 9.6 KwH with optimizers array installed. Inverter is SolaeEdge model, SE7600H-US000BNU4. My system is being clipped at 7.6KhW and I really don’t fully understand that. The other problem is that the system keeps shutting down anywhere from 3 to 10 times a day. Can anyone shed some light (pun intended) as to what could be causing this. My solar company says there is nothing on the array/inverter causing the problem.
Hi R Tarr. That sounds like poor customer service. A 7.6kW inverter will max out at 7.6kW, even if you have more panels on it. That’s not a bad thing – it’s more efficient for the inverter to run at higher power instead of only momentarily reaching its maximum. It’s also the best bang for buck to have 30 per cent more panels than your inverter. If it is shutting off 3 times a day, it’s likely either because you have high grid voltage, (above 255v?) or because you chose SolarEdge. Probably the former. Yout installer should be able to give you a clearer answer.
Thanks for the analysis. It is depressing, but helpful. Keep it up.
About film capacitors vs electrolytic capacitors, the industry, i mean, the whole industry working with dc-dc converters agree that film capacitors are the best choice for these kind of applications including high temperature applications. They might be more expensive per but are still the best choice. Sounds like you are desperately looking for criticism on the technical side. On the practical issues i have no comment, sounds like a manufacturer has quality control issues.
Hi Joost. I agree that film caps are better as a component. Did they need to be? This part of the post was actually written when it was a more positively inclined blog. I really wanted to know if it was a problem that needed solving so I asked around. Was everyone going to change to film capacitors? The answer (admittedly biased) was that “electrolytic capacitors have no problem to continue to operate for a product design life of 20-25 years.”
Very similar experience here in the UK where temps are much lower. Dismal failure rate and have replacement some inverters 2-3 times over ~ 5 years. Totally nuts. HD Wave has ushered in a greater failure rate, certainly for DOA units. Hoping that the newest SetApp devices demonstrate fewer issues – as well as system failures we’ve had a few faulty comms boards.
I installed a 5KW HD Wave Dec 2019, it failed Jan 2020 and was an approved warranty replacement. Still haven’t been paid the approved amount of $180 for the replacement labour after submitting invoice in May 2020. Anyone else had any problems with their warranty payments?
i was told by an installer down here that you didn’t use the correct isolators for the panels you were installing and you were sued by solaredge? conflicting opinions….
Hi KK, That’s a new one. No, I was never sued but just threatened several times by their lawyers because of the content of this blog. And the isolator part has not even a sniff of truth to it. We have been accused of installing them incorrectly, but nobody has suggested how we installed them incorrectly. SolarEdge has not rejected warranty on that basis.
Enphase looks to be a lot more pricier down here. Several are recommending the solaredge system with the hybrid inverter as I may go battery down the track. Since your article, how has the failure rate of optimisers and inverters been?
Hi KK, we keep a spreadsheet of faults so I just checked. We’ve now replaced 63 optimisers and 26 inverters out of 133 systems. We haven’t individually checked our optimisers for a long time, so I’m guessing we’ll find more when we go through and check. Inverter failures are more obvious which is why we or the customer notices them. 26 inverters (about 19 per cent of our SE inverters) is a pathetically high failure rate for an inverter with a 12-year warranty.
I have a 10kw AC cap back into the grid, with 5kw inverter already in place. If I use enphase I guess I am limited to another total 5kw, whereas with an string inverter I can put in a 5kw inverter and clip it. Also affects my battery solution down the track as the 10kw AC cap comes into effect, which means I would need to look at a DC battery solution which sits behind the inverters due to this cap…. I was advised that my energy distributor counts a Tesla battery as a 5kw inverter?? just looking to add another system and solaredge looked ideal for shading…. bah…
Ok, yes that makes sense. And you are right – SolarEdge does look really attractive on paper. Look at a different DC-coupled battery solution like the Fronius Gen 24 (I have a blog coming out next week) and add Tigo. You just need to keep your eye on the optimisers by watching the DC voltages. I’ll do you tube video on that soon. Or try Huawei (see my Huawei blog).
Hi Mark, I have contacted a few installers who use huawei inverters and optimisers and q-cell panels, so looking forward to their quotes! Thanks for you informative blog.
Excellent information , I have just ordered a Solar Edge system , having read your report I am not so sure I have made the correct decision. I will make sure I do the monitoring of the panels.
Installed 24 panel system about 5 years ago. First inverter failed after 6 months. Second inverter failed after 4 years. Third inverter (new and improved (Wave technology) installed Sept 16, 2020. Communications failure since day one. Installers came a week later (23 Sept, 2020 and after talking to tech support, determined that the new, improved inverter has failed. I am told after waiting another 2 days, the paperwork will be approved for yet another inverter to be shipped from northeren CA to southeran CA. Then, the inverter will be shipped to the installer. This will be expedited and may only take one week to travel the 401 miles. REALLY? Driving time by car is 6 hours and 25 mins. Then, the installer has to schedule an installation date for the forth inverter. The last full week of electrical production was ln August 2020. SolarEdge has fallen far short of supplying reliable inverters. I would not reccomened solarEdge inverters.
Have eight of these inverters and have replaced five of them. Two more just failed today. It someone would like to visit call me. 515680516 USA. Andy
Hi Mark. Disclaimer: I am Israeli American. In my previous solar company that was owned by Israeli owner in Miami I showed your blog and Israeli owner of the company switched to microinverters from Solar Edge in four days from the moment I showed him your blog. However question remains : If Solar Edge as bad as you wrote why Solar Edge has biggest markert share in USA? Can Taoyta and Honda be a bad cars when they have such a big market share? Your article doesn’t make sense. How come they have such a huge market share in USA ? And so many companies use them. Solar company owners are not idiots.
I worked at solaredge. They are not as crap as Mark says. They are far worse
Lol Bob
Mark, Thank you for your informative writeup on solar edge. Tell me this, should my inverter max be roughly the same as my theoretical max panel output? Back ground info; Currently I have 14,850w worth of 330w panels on 3 strings but only a 11400w inverter. I was expecting 75 to 80% of what I have on the roof but rarley get above 10.5kw. Mostly south facing panels with 6 facing west all on string 2.
Hi Tom, In Australia, we can install panels to a maximum of 33 per cent over the nominal output of the inverter. Without knowing much I’d say wait till 2 pm in December and you’ll see the maximum you are looking for. But nobody would guarantee you maximum instantaneous output (kW). You’re asking the wrong question. The installer should have given you an estimated average monthly production (kWh), and they should be fairly accurate with that estimate (within 10 per cent annualised easily). If they didn’t give you that, ask them to. It’s necessary to ensure your system is not faulty.
(Denmark). I own a SolarEdge solar-system (did overtake it from the previous house-owner). I have just exchanged the first Optimizer. And, I did notice signs of repeatedly overheating – which I think is the main reason for the too high failing-rates. DC-to-DC converters gets hot, which happens the more energy that has to be “converted” … that is, during peak-hours, where the temperature is hottest, and the solar-panel above gets hottest. An extremely unfortunate cocktail. My failing optimizer had bubbled paint, that “had cooked up”, and that wasn’t anymore attached to the cabinet-surface – enlarging the heat(dissipation) problem, because of “heat-isolation, due to the air-gap” … I suspect that my other optimizers will also fail, because of the very same reason … one by one. Each time this happens, the unit is replaced without uint-costs, but the exchanging (when on a roof) is very difficult – and if taken-care-of by proff’s it is quite/very costly … So, I, as a consumer and customer, can see that the super-start (high production rates, super-good-performance, no shadow-etc problems), will change to “high maintanance-costs”).
hi mark, wow! what a very interesting and useful read. thank you. it has definitely thrown a spanner in my works but if it potentially saves me some heartache; it is a very welcomed spanner 🙂 i have been contemplating a solar system for years and only recently decided to bite the bullet. i have been trying to upskill in understanding how different configs work, different brands and bang for buck. although reading forums is useful, inherently i found contradictory opinions for all components. i am (maybe was now lol) looking at a solaredge inverter with p370 optimisers and 18 x LG neon 2 panels. i have an annoying roof footprint, that mean s the 18 could be spread across 3 different facings and potentially different orientations. iv been explained about the ability to mix and match with solaredge (panels and the ease of changing panel orientation). im also looking at the same panels but with a fronius instead. generally i dont get any roof shade and live in sydney’s northwest, so def a few 40+ days each summer. i know you’re located in qld and therefore not an ideal install option, but any suggestions as to what to get would greatly be appreciated. i thought spending a bit extra would increase the longevity of the system, but i know there are no guarantees. it seems some of the mid range products seem to be quite good these day. thx again for posting this blog and i hope the solaredge legal team get off your back 🙂 regards ronnie
H Ronnie, Apologies for the delayed reply. 3 orientations with Fronius is often fine. Have a read of this blog.https://dev-mc-electrical-old.pantheonsite.io/solar-panel-design-north-east-west/. Have you made a decision yet? If your roof needs something like SolarEdge, then go Enphase instead.
Thank you for this article. I live in Las Vegas and we have some extreme heat in the summer. My solar system was installed in Dec. 2018 with a SolarEdge inverter and optimisers. The inverter went out in July 2020 and was replaced on Aug. 25, 2020. Now 11 days later my solar output is again 0. I will again be calling Elevation Solar to fix the problem. I am so disappointed in my solar system. Wish I had never bought it. Would never recommend one to anyone. This system was to save us money as we have just retired. Now we are paying double for power. And it looks like we will continue to have problems with the system as the failure rate you posted is very unsettling.
SolarEdge is junk. We paid $50,000 for a solar system and the inverter failed after one year. Now for a month all we get from SolarEdge is “we are waiting for an update” on a replacement. While the meter runs. Do not use their garbage. And please please please have their legal department contact me!
Hi Mark, Thank you for your article, I work for a PV company based in Brazil and we are now hesitate to use Solaredge here since we are located in one of the hottest parts of the country. Which inverter and optimiser models are you specifically referring to in your article? I want to see whether the produces that exist here are the same ones! Warm Regards, Tom E
Hi Tom. We first thought it was the optimisers embedded into panels that had issues – because they were the first we installed, they naturally ran hotter and they failed first. But we have had an unacceptable failures rate on all optimisers models and inverters that we have installed.
Hi Mark, An interesting read to say the least, I have been checking in on this for updates and seeing what comes up thought i would add to it with some of the figures we have seen. We installed between 220-250 solaredge systems within a year during 2017/18. Since then it has been nothing but heartache we have replaced more than 50 inverters I would have to look into it to give exact numbers. Some of these we have also replaced multiple times. The failure rate is astronomical. Always the same sorts of faults 18x hardware faults.
I am an unknowledgeable homeowner who had a 16 panel Solaredge installation by a local firm with > 2 decades local experience In 4/21/2016. “4.56 kw peak power”, shade shifting from one large near tree trunk, otherwise full Western sun. I was not told about Solaredge’s granular panel level monitoring or that there was supposedly panel performance warnings available, only that I had a 25 year warranty. I was so oblivious that I did not fix a power failure to the monitoring access point for a full 6 months; as inverter itself have no warning message I assumed system was putting out full power. When I obtained access again I found 6 panels were dead or putting out minimally. Called installer, parts covered under warranty but labor for an hour was US $250 on 4/18/2020for an hour’s work. Now I monitor weekly and, lo and behold, 2 more panels are croaking. The installer told me, well, you’re losing just $5/month from each bad panel when I challenged his increased labor charge to fix them (4 months later!) Oof now the labor charge is almost $300, “so better to wait.” WTF! I suspect the new panel croak is due to a series of 41 degree days in California recently, but that’s California! And who’s to say, if I’d wait until the other half of the optimizers fail, that the “new” replacement ones won’t die after another 2-3 years? I’ll ask the installer if he’s still recommending solar edge. If he is, I’ll let him know a bad local review of his company is coming from me. Thanks for your enlightening blog post. Sobering. Jonathan
Solar Edge said their pass through technology much like SMAs secure power would be available as an add on option. A year later after many calls they stated they are pursuing another direction. So mad.
An enlightening read. Having a review from someone who is seeing the pros and cons of a product is really helpful. I have been getting quotes for solar panels and its a minefield of information. my main reasoning to look at solar edge is that we will have some panels partially shaded on one side of the house. I like the sound of SMA inverter over fronious but would love your professional opinion and thoughts on what is the best system to install.
Hi Siria. I still prefer Fronius to any inverter. If you have significant shade, consider Enphase. If you are on a budget, you can’t go past the Sungrow Premium for quality. I’ve blogged on all of these products if you google MC Electrical and “Fronius review” etc.
Hi Marc, I hope my mail finds you well. my SE Plant of 4.19 Peak with 6 kWh Battery has been commissioned in 08.2019. Since than I keep on complaining about the plant takes in additional Energy from the grid despite the battery is fully charged. They Argument now: To feed the Grid from the Battery is not permitted while charging the battery from the Grid is uneconomical. The regularity algorithm Cover this with a slight undercovering the need out of the battery. Please advice. I may send some Charts having your email. Kind regards Dieter
Hi Mark Interesting reading your comments. We have installed about 3,000 optimisers in the last couple of years also. Our failure rate is less than 1% and not had one inverter issue. What we have found is that just about all issues with the optimisers were installer error. The back up and support is better than what we used to get with the other major inverter brands. I will be interested to see if my comments get published.
Hey Peter, I’ve been slack at keeping up with comments but thanks for the for push-back.I know not everyone has the same issues as we do – however many do. I think you are based in Adelaide so Arthenius’s equation would come into play as I stated in this blog. Our failures in Qld heat started at about 20 months, so I hope you don’t have the same experience but just a bit later because of the cooler climate. Remember you have twenty-five long years to deal with rooftop power electronic warranties. ——- Our competitors tell our potential clients that “MC Just doesn’t know how to install optimisers”. I’m not sure what we would be doing wrong if SolarEdge continues to honour warranties while continuing to send me legal threats about minor details of this blog. (The last legal SolarEdge letter i received was around July 2020). SolarEdge doesn’t seem to know what we did wrong on all of those installs and you’d think it would be worth them finding our fault. But, they are not pointing the finger at our design or install standards (unless they are behind our back). In fact they trusted us so much they gave us a design waiver! All my guys are employed directly and long term trained sparkies and apprentices. I took all of them to SolarEdge Training and I went several times myself. Our install standard is second to none (check our reviews). What would I be missing?
Would love to hear from Marian about how to scrape the SolarEdge data…
Hello, Excellent blog. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. We are in the process of installing solar panels plus a storage battery (for backup power in case of a power outage). Our installation company is recommending Canadian Solar panels, solar edge SE7600A optimisers/inverter and LG Chem RESU10 battery. When we expressed concern regarding the Solar Edge reliability/warranty service, they offered the (more expensive) option of TIGO optimisers with SimpliPhi battery. Do you have experience with these products? Per our Solar company, who has been in business 10 years, they have not seen a big difference between Solar Edge and other inverters in terms of reliability. We live in Southern CA
Hi Ruth. Unfortunately, I’m now advising against Tigo too. MLPE (rooftop electronics) have so many reliability issues. I understand you have restrictive rapid shutdown requirements in California. Try Enphase. A great Silicone Valley company 🙂
Hi, I worked as a field engineer for SolarEdge during 4 years in France. All you write in this review are 100% correct. I replaced more than 2000 optimizers and more than 200 inverters for important strategic sites in France and Belgium. And I cannot count how many Digital Board and Portia board I replaced too. I left the company because of the too many issues I faced during this time. In France, since the solar panel had to be integrated in the roof from 2010 to around 2018, most of the SolarEdge system are really painful to manage. With the optimizers failures, some of the owners had to pay thousands euros to replace only one optimizer since the installer had to remove all the panels in some cases…. During all the time pasted in the company, I never understand how they succeed to increase their revenues… I though I was alone to see the average failure count… Then I’m now happy to see that I’m not longer alone to see all the issue with SolarEdge products !! FYI: I have my own photovoltaic installer company, and I already have more than one hundred end users where I remove the SolarEdge system to install a string inverter with an increases harvesting energy of 10% in only one year….
Hi Moloney. It’s interesting that you did work for the “important and strategic sites”. What happens to the unimportant and unstrategic sites? Did they get looked after too? Or are they the ones who end up removing their systems at their own expense?
SolarEdge system installed in September 2017. So far two inverters have been replaced. One because of an installation problem, the other covered under warranty and I don’t know what happened beyond the entire system going down. Just saw the 3rd panel going bad. Two previously due to optimizers. This one will probably be the same once Solaredge checks it (up to 5 days before I find out). I have 48 panels. Pretty bad optimizer failure rate that have all occurred in the last 2-3 months.
I sure wish I would have seen this blog a few months ago. I just had my 9.4K system installed a couple weeks ago and had it turned on last week after the new meter was installed. It is using 24 new LG 395 watt panels in two strings and a Solar Edge H-D Wave inverter. Production looked good the first day at 63kW, but that is all she wrote. Looks like the inverter went belly up the second day. My contractor is reputable and has been around for a long time and their performance guarantee will reimburse me for my grid use until the inverter is replaced in a couple weeks. I am hoping this is not the first of many issues. The price was very competitive at 16K after incentives. I am hoping for the best as it is set up in two strings all in the same orientation on the perfectly south facing roof of my shop with no shading. Full sun exposure all day. I was disappointed that the inverter only lasted one day though. Not really confidence inspiring. Marc
I work for one of the largest PV companies in Sweden since 8 years. The SE head of sales, Scandinavia has from the start recommended us not to give customers access to monitoring layout. We see an optimizer failure rate of about 2%. SE sales rep state it is 0,2% world wide. We also tend to see more opt with suspicious low production.
Am I mistaken, but is all this information related to the HD Wave inverters? Does that mean that the StoreEdge model inverter is a better choice if you want to go SolarEdge? I am about to get a 10.92kw system, consisting of Jinko 390w N-Type panels, and I am trying to work out the best inverter to get. Essential Energy are about to offer discounted LG Chem batteries if you connect to their Virtual Power Plant, but only if you are using a SolarEdge StroreEdge or HD Wave inverter.
Hi Scott, Take this however you will, but, after 11+ years in the industry I would say don’t go with SolarEdge or Jinko. We installed considerable volumes of both. Significant issues and significant warranty issues with both. And batteries are almost always not worth it even if you confuse the maths with VPP figures. Check out the MC Electrical Electrical YouTube channel for a recent explanation of why batteries are almost always not worth it. It also shows you a battery calculator you can use.
I agree that batteries are not worth it at this stage, but Essential Energy are about to sell them at a 30-40% subsidy so it makes it worth some consideration. The issue is that the subsidy only applies to LG Chem and only if you connect to their virtual power plant. Any views on virtual power plants?
Hi Scott. I’d be very sceptical of anyone that told you that batteries had less than a 10-year payback. VPP’s are still not financially viable. If batteries were worth-while, then they would offer a solution where you can purchase outright rather than confusing it with a VPP.
hi mark, very interesting comments, quite obvious you are an expert. it is june 2020, do you have an update from solaredge regarding the quality of their product. thanks
Hi Wally, I should update my failure figures. Every time I walk into my warehouse there seems to be another Solaredge inverter we need to replace. TO be fair, I received a “proactive” last week where Solareddge found a “hardware error” and emailed us to ask us to replace the inverter. But, optimisers will keep failing. When we are not so busy we will spend a day finding those issues and we will go through the process of finding failures and after that, we will spend countless hours replacing optimisers. An informed and responsible company probably won’t sell Solaredge.
Hi Mark, This article is super interesting, so thank you. I live in Melbourne, Australia. I’m currently doing some homework on what my Solar Installer is quoting to install. I’m looking at a setup consisting of 30x Jinko JKM330m-60h panels, with a SolarEdge se10000h inverter. Or potentially 32x Hyundai HIE-S315RG panels, with a SolarEdge se10000h inverter. Is this inverter the way to go with this setup, or would you recommend i look for another brand in the inverter? Thanks for your help.
Hi Tom. Read the second part of the article. I don’t recommend SolarEdge.
A fascinating read on SolarEdge. I think some of your criticisns are a bit unfair though. Particularly the “voltage blocking” problem. As I understand it, you put four panels facing in one direction in series with six panels facing in another direction. So when the four at an angle to the sun, the six are getting full sun and vice versa. So the optimizers reduce the voltage on the lesser-illuminated ones to increase the current to match that of the fully illuminated ones, and/or conversely the fully illuminated ones increase their voltage to reduce the current to that of the lesser-illuminated ones, while together having to meet the constraint of a total series voltage of say 380-400. Well, if in trying to meet those constraints, the P500s hit an output voltage limit of 60v (while still having plenty current output available) and that the 24 volt panels are so shaded that they would like to go lower than 24 to get the current up but can’t due to needing to produce a total of 380-400, I would say that that is not SolarEdge’s fault but the array designers fault for expecting too much dynamic range of control. That can all be simulated before construction. Maybe P505’s should been selected for that array! My company is Koolbridge Solar Inc in North Carolina USA. We are trying to solar a bit differently. Actually, I don’t believe in using optimizers, because the $ cost per extra watt produced is far higher than just using more solar panels. What I promote is more low voltage strings, (120v) paralleled with blocking diodes so that a shaded string doesn’t rob current from an illuminated string. I found that was only 5% worse than MPPT + optimizers, averaged over a year, for a typical array not plagued by too much shading. Of course a main reason people like the optimizers in the US is to meet the rapid shutdown requirement, which they keep making worse in order to screw solar. Do you have that requirement in Australia? Regards, Paul Dent
Hi Paul, yeh you could say “design it correctly and you won’t have a problem”. My point is that SolarEdge is spruiked as a shade solution and a complicated roof solution. But it can’t handle even simple problems because of the fixed string voltage. And, if the design was so simple – why would you put power electronics on the roof – it’s just muliple weak points. No, we don’t have Rapid Shutdown requirements – and it seems that rule won’t come into Australia either.
Why would solaredge he wave inverter 10 kw only produced 0 to 30% ac power. Green light changes to red flashing with green for about 1 minute then changes back to green
Very Interesting, I just had my inverter replaced. I was the one monitoring the system and saw shut downs for hours. Solar Edge could see the problem, but had not notified me or the installer. We got it replaced and system is producing now. I hope it does not have additional issues. The system was 5 months old when this occcurred.
Hi Mark. Tank you for this blog puts most things clear. Optimisers and micro-inverters are interesting but weak point of a system I think know. I will certainly not try them. What about to use more smaller inverter for divided roofs? Kind regards
Hi Mark, I’m from a far far away Poland ;). I’ve stumbled upon your review when doing research before my first FV installation. Respect for the in-depth analysis you’ve shared on this blog – sth I couldn’t find on polish portals. It seems SolarEdge has gained lots of popularity in Poland. Most of the companies are proposing it for my case. Would it be possible to get in email contact with you and ask you a few specific questions that might help me make the right decision. Appreciate in advance your time and willingness, Mat
I recently had Hyundai panels installed along with a solar edge inverter. Even with the crappy software they gave me I discovered huge glitch they had to install new firmware. Still not convinced the system is working correctly. I actually sold a system to a friend and am now glum about it. Please help.
Hi Mark,thanks for your informative blog,was just about to sign up for 15 Longi 370w panels to maximise output to 5.5Kw with Solar edge inverter.Due to limited/awkward roof space but no shading issues, they are to be intalled as 2East-2West-9North.Please advise on my Options as I have gotten numerous different opinions regarding my need or lack of optimizers and incorporating afew Tigos with Fronius or just a String optimiser with dual mppt.I have seen your inclination towards Enphase & Fronious as a possible solution.
Dear Marc, Thank you for your research. I have just ordered an LG and enphase solar installation. The installer told me the same story as yours about Solaredge. First he installed Solaredge systems and his friend (another firm) installed at the same time Enphase systems. After a couple of years he had very many problems with the Solaredge sytems while his friend had only a few (and normal) claims with the Enphase. So he changed also to Enphase and is still very enthousiastic with this decision. So aggressiv advertising and the storys of Solaredge account managers didn’t lead me to Solaredge. I was looking for some information because one of the account managers told me that the Solaredge system was superior to the Enphase in combination with LG 340 wp modules. He told IQ7+ micro inverters had a maximum output from 290 VA so I would lost 50 wp in any case. He didn’t tell the whole story. But experience in the field so as yours and the installer I choose here in Holland lead me to Enphase. Thanks for your information at this website. Kind regards from The Netherlands!
What a solid piece of writing. Many thanks. I have a local installer coming next week – he said he does Solaredge almost exclusively. Since you wrote, has the situation improved with failure rates for inverters and that optimisers? Much obliged, Jonathan
Hi Mark! I just read your article! Thanks a lot for telling us about your experience with SolarEdge. I am a brand new Brazilian FV Integrator, in Rio de Janeiro City – already have installed 3 Fronius FV System and now studying a lot about MLPE and SolarEdge…. And your feedback about SolarEdge Optimizers and Inverters failures is very important to help us decide about when and how/if use SolarEdge solutions…. Many “positives” and cons information, which helps us evaluate if SolarEdge is a good solution or not. Best Regards, Acácio de Oliveira
It was worth searching for hours on the internet to ultimately find your ‘SolarEdge inverter and optimizer review’. It was also worth reading several of your other reviews to realize the unique quality of the information with the many degrees of details and nuancing you provide. My congratulations! I would appreciate very much your opinion about the following. In 2017 we ordered a SolarEdge-based photovoltaic system which started working on December 1, 2017 (early winter as we live in Belgium – Europe, with a level of sun exposure grossly comparable to those of Munich and Austria, regions known to you). This system consists of 18 335Wp panels, 18 optimizers and a three phase 5K inverter. As to Belgian norms, it functioned very efficiently until its shutdown, somewhere between October 15 and November 10, 2019. I recognized the problem only in the first days of February 2020, erroneously thinking before those few sunny days that the extremely rainy and extremely sun-poor winter was the reason of not having any production. Control by the installer learned that two optimizers were corrupted. They were replaced and sent to the importer. According to the installer, at least one of both corrupted optimizers was checked by the importer. The problem was described as this optimizer having made havoc, continually having switched on and off without any external reason to do so, in that way spending its theoretical more-than-25-years robustness in less than two years. [How much less? a few weeks or a few months or more or less? Probably only a thoroughly testing consumer organization could tell]. This way of dysfunctioning should have had a bad influence on other optimizers and definitely damaged the second one (I don’t understand this consequence, but I am a layman as to electricity). Mid-March the two optimizers were replaced, the necessary adaptations were made in the software of the inverter, and the system started again. The production of solar current fell out four days later. Control by the installer revealed that this second time three optimizers are defect. The installer found it impossible to answer my question what would be the preferable solution: replacing only the 3 defect optimizers or also the 13 up to yet (but for how long?) functioning ones. When replacing only the 3 defect ones, the cost of an eventual third intervention to replace still more defect optimizers could amount to about the cost of the integral replacement now. Not to speak about an eventual fourth and fifth intervention. At the moment, this integral replacement seems a cheaper option than ‘taking my losses’ and radically replace the SolarEdge products by other ones (Fronius? SMA? Huawei? Kaco, now belonging to Siemens?). And, as I understand those of your reviews that I read, the ‘rapid shutdown’ solution by SolarEdge is up to now only matched or surpassed by the AC-delivery of the Enphase microinverters, a superfluously expensive solution for our house. Thanking you in advance for your opinion.
HI Luc. Thanks for taking the time to explain your experience with Solaredge. As you’re probably aware, we are constantly encountering more and more SE optimiser failures, not only that but the inverters also have an unacceptably high failure rate too. Despite the rapid shut down, I would be removing the SE components and installing a Fronius inverter. It may be an outlay right now, but ultimately will work out significantly cheaper and far less hassle for you in the long run.
We are currently looking at installing a Solar Edge system, 35 P70 optimisers, 27.6 kW tri power inverter and 70 x 365w panels. When an optimiser fails does it take out the panel or just limit the panels output performance and if so by how much. What is the purpose of the bypass diode please – is this part of the safe voltage level circuitry (1V) when AC supply is lost. Is it an extra cost for the top level monitoring software package. I am an electrician with years of experience across industry and am really looking forward to your reply. Would appreciate a call if you have the time thanks Mark. Regards Alan Howard.
Hi Alan. Don’t go Solaredge. it’s tempting for larger systems because it gets really cost-effective. But you will have so many parts that will fail. When an op fails it can either reduce output, but its hard t notice that. You would normally only see the fully failed ops. 3 Bypass diodes are built into all standard panels. They prevent hot spots caused by shade, but they also help with performance in shade – a little bit like an optimiser. They bypass the shaded 1/3 of a panel so it won’t drag the rest of the panels down. If you have shade, go Enphase (see my enphase blog) if not, use a string inverter like Fronius.
Hi, Just wondering if you have an updated opinions/experience with SolarEdge in the year since you posted the above. I have a new SolarEdge system that was just installed here in Canberra at the end of March and to this point, am quite happy with it. It is our second PVC system installed on the same house. The first is still operating (as it has been since July 2013) and both are tracking pretty closely with one another. Regards.
Hi Steve. It seems that in cooler climates Solaredge optimisers last longer. instead of failures starting after 1 or 2 years, you might see them after 3, 4 or 5 years. Keep your eye on the panel level monitoring and hopefully, the company that sold it to you is still in business if they start failing. Note, it’s difficult to prove an optimiser is underperforming but we’ve seen it a fair bit.
I read your article- thank you. However, you should consider installing RFI/EMI filters with transient protection to safeguard against high-frequency noise on the electrical lines. An example would be Total Protection Solutions TTLP. High-frequency noise causes advances circuit-board electronic degradation. Our electrical system was designed before a huge increase in DC-AC switches and step-down converters (also inside of most LED or CFL light bulbs), and every time voltage is stepped-down it generates high-frequency transients, which cause problems (over time). You’d have close to your ideal failure rate (or less) with adapting this technology.
Hi Jim. Solaredge issues are a bit bigger than noise. But that is certainly one of the issues. Enphase has similar noise issues.
Hi Mark, Thank you for writing this blog, we have a SolarEdge HD that was installed in 2018 because the original inverter failed after 2 months. To make us happy our contractor installed the HD with all the bells and whistles. Last month the HD failed and it needs to be replaced again. We only found out because the electric bill started spiking. Would you suggest going with another inverter? Thanks, Claude
Hi Claude. Unfortunately switching out the inverter would mean rewiring the whole system and removing the optimisers. The layout you have may not be possible with any other inverter, and regardless, the cost would be too much. In reality, you are stuck with a SolarEdge unless you want to go to the expense of all but starting again.
I am perplexed by the whole solar experience. I bought a 8.19 Kw system in late 2015. The installer (Titan Solar) folded due to legal issues. Financed Renovate America Hero. PREDITORS. Two American standard HVAC and solar system 56,000. 5 year term. Actual cost. $95,000! I can’t seem to get any installer to replace a bad optimizer. The system certainly has degraded from its original capacity of 1.4 to 1.5 Mw per month during peak season. Any advise. $3000 Trueup cost to boot. Thank’s Darrell Coleman
Hi Darrell, Sorry for the late reply, the COVID crisis has my focus on the blog. I’ve heard SolarEdge won’t talk to the end customer, which is difficult if the sales company has gone bust. Hope you can find someone, where in the USA do you live? Keep safe!
I wish I had read this before installing solar edge, we live in FNQ and yes failed within two months, installer after 2 weeks comi to fix it. What should I be asking them?
I’d Chantal, I’d be asking them to read this blog and stop selling Solaredge in FNQ. It’s a stupid idea in that heat. ANd make sure you have access to your panel-level monitoring and look for panel failures. I can almost guarantee that won’t be checking systems for their customers, otherwise they wouldn’t still be selling Solaredge
I gotta say, I think you are doing something wrong. I have installed several hundred solar edge jobs and haven’t had a single inverter failure and only a few DOA optimizer failures (the optimizers were clearly smashed and broken on arrival, no testing required lol). I am sure everyone has their own experiences but I wonder why my failure rate is almost zero and yours is 36%?
Hi Chase, Is the average temperature lower where you install? Solaredge has spent heaps of money and time on lawyers trying to make me take down the blog. If I were doing something wrong, they would have pointed that out publicly. Never once was their any suggestion of an installer issue. In fact, look at the waiver I mentioned in the blog: They obviously trust our design and install capabilities.
Talking to an installer here (Tasmania) who reckons their failure rate on the heaps of installations has not been anything out of the ordinary. So what’s going on? Heat? Installation error (this is what he claims)? A bad batch of optimisers? (but then there’s the inverter failures too). Could put it down to one ranting blogger, but what about all the other people here in the comments? Seems to back up what is said. Really unimpressed with the supposed great warranty of 12/25 years, but with the limitations on what it covers is it really any better than a 5/5 that a lot offer? Then there is the attitude of SE themselves. It does not look good. Looks like classic denial and blame shifting. As a potential customer do I want to deal with a company like this?
Hi anonymosse:) I’ll have a guess you were talking to my “good friend” Adrian. I’ve debunked the “installer fault” claim in the blog. SolarEdge trusted us more than most installers by giving us a signed waiver. As time goes on and I hear of failure rates around Australia and the world, it seems it is heat-related. Read the part in I wrote about Arrhenius Equation. I think Tasmania will also have mass failures, it will just take a little longer. Happy to be proven wrong!
We just had 48 Panasonic panels installed at the end of the year, and they’ve been working for a couple of months. I have access to the individual production array, so that’s not the problem. I asked the installer for the ability to monitor production and consumption, so he installed two solaredge consumption meters. I’d like to send you pictures of several days of the graphs to help me understand why or consumption seems to follow the production pretty tightly. For example, I we may have a cloudy cool day and produce 45kwh, and the consumption shows we used 45. The next day, it is equally cool, but clear, so the production is 95kwh, and our consumption is the same. It doesn’t make sense….
Hi Allan, it sounds like your installer has installed your consumption monitoring incorrectly. Is there any days that it is not the same? You should see it on your solar edge monitoring graphs if it exactly tracking.
So I had a StoreEdge SE7600 inverter (without 10kw LG Chem battery for now), with 24, Panasonic 330w panels and optimizers installed a couple of months ago. This morning I hear a bang around 10am and check the output, 0 watts. Was at 500 watts in the previous period, and normally gets to 5.5kw 1pm. The system is 2 strings of 12 panels (I believe) though the advanced display shows one giant string of 24. The installers were there a fifteen minutes later to install the auto transformer and make minor adjustments so the fault timing couldn’t be better. But on inspection there was a code 2xC5 followed after restarting with a 3x.. and turns out transistor case fragments were laying in the bottom of the cabinet and the inverter has failed and a replacement is in process. After just a couple months of operation in mid winter, northern California. The inverter is in a storage room that never goes about 60F. I am concerned about this systems reliability now. I am a SW/embedded HW engineer and this failure rate and that reported by others has me very worried now. Really rethinking whether I want my battery backup solution tied to this unreliable inverter. Here in rural Cali, where farmers have monsterous 3 phase Ag wells going and power is not too clean, I wonder if a generation glitch or load glitch can fry the damn inverter, or even some rogue firmware update being pushed remotely without my knowledge, can roast my inverter. 30 grand later, was happy until this fault and now week, two of no generation, paying pac power… Arg.
Hi Mark This has been a real education for me, thank you. Two weeks ago I had a 9.9kW system installed in Sydney south by a local reputable company, 30 x 330w Q Cells Q.Peak Duo-G5+ panels with Solaredge optimisers and Solaredge SE8000H Wave inverter. I have an array of 8 panels on the east with part shading of one panel early morning and another array of 22 panels facing west with no shading. A significant issue I have is that from between 11am and noon until around 4pm the inverter will shut down every 10min to 30min. I contacted the installer and he told me that shutting down was caused by a high grid voltage surge and there was nothing that could be done. I have a three phase supply with one phase providing power and lights downstairs, another supplying power and lights upstairs and all three for the ducted air conditioning. The voltage downstairs varies from 235v (night) to 245v (day) and upstairs from 244v (night) to 256v (day). I believe the inverter may be connected to the upstairs phase. I was told it has been set to cut out when mains voltage is 260v. My questions are; – is it usual to have a 10 volt difference between phases and is it a problem? – could the 22 panel array be causing my problems with low voltage and high current output from each panel? -should the inverter be connected to the lower voltage phase, minimising high grid voltage shut down? -there is a 17 panel solar system across the road, could it interfere with my system if both inverters are connected to the same phase? Your insights would be greatly appreciated. James
Hi, I am EE from Germany. This article is great and easy to read. My local solar vendor is a fan of solar edge, but for our symmetric W-E roof (almost no shading at all) and 9.5kW from 340W modules I am sceptic, and a simpler 2 string Mpp could be plein better and cheaper. Bye Stephan
I recently installed 6 months ago a Solaredge inverter and while my 19 optimizers report working every day I am only producing approx 4200-4600 DC watts while the system design is rated for 6100 watts…. Quite a loss in production? My PE is inquiring with Solar Edge to locate the problem. Thank you Mark for reporting your and problems with Solar Edge. I would like to know more as I invested 22K in my solar improvements and not very happy with the results.
Hi Wes, There may not be a technical problem here. First, if you have a 5kW inverter, it can never produce more than 5000w. Next, you should not expect to see your system operate at more than about 80 per cent of your solar panel array. 6100 x 0.8 = 4880. Now if you have shade issues or multiple orientations, or depending on where you live, you should expect less than 4880. However, if you paid 22k for that solar system, then you have been ripped off – and those type of companies probably screwed up your design too. (Hopefully !5k of that 22K was for a re-roof!)
Hi Mark, thanks for the interesting discussion. I have been a fan of SE for some time, for two reasons, the monitoring aspect, and their shading capability. Was thinking of their system, plus a battery, but you expose some of the skeletons in their closet, and their gloss is wearing off! Their legal stance seems very threatening as well, with what seems little attempt to address the issues. A shame but maybe that’s the Israel way? Shading is an issue for me (building next door to the West), and I only have East or West orientation. So I may move my existing panels to East side and get a battery friendly string inverter. Regards
24 months my Solar Edge system failed completely. I saw the tech taking temps at almost 300 F before we had to shut it down. They are sending me a new inverter after it faulted 3 times and checked up on the roof for the optimizers. I will be watching closely as my electric bill climbs again which signals trouble is afoot. Maybe my Lawyers will be talking to their Lawyers and we can get some threats going their way. Maybe a class action suit could be one method accompanied with some TV ads for everyone to pile on. After that a few well placed put options could pay for our electric bills once their stock tumbles. There are many ways to fight these guys and they better hope my system doesn’t fail again. I’m a public relations nightmare once provoked. Mike
Hi Mark, Thanks for a very interesting blog entry. You’re right, one of the reasons people buy the Solaredge system is to have individual panel/opitimiser monitoring. I asked my installer to ‘switch on’ that level of monitoring on my account. He refused. I’ve written to Solaredge to ask for the same and they didn’t reply. Is there a work around? Or maybe an aftermarket product I can buy to do the monitoring of the panels? My system is four years old and until now has worked fine. Even though my neighbours from hell keep landing soccer balls on the panels. Thanks in advance. Robin
Interesting Robin. Who is your installer? What have they got to hide?
Hi Mark, I would love to talk to you about the faulty Solaredge Inverter. Read your story and omg it resonated to us what a problem system it really is. Not only is the product flawed/faulty but the technical people are arrogant and will avoid a customers call constantly. I’ve even had to call and choose the technical/wholesaler option to have my call answered, but they were not happy answering my questions telling me that the retailer i dealt with would look after me….well that’s another story right there. The last paragraph of your story is exactly what is happening now! We have had the second system put in just over 12 months. We also had problems with the panels overheating before the 12 months and it’s demise. There was no alert to let us know the system broke down, not even from the installers…it was just an off chance we saw it as we walked past the panel in garage. There’s never been any warnings for anything that went wrong with the system. The app doesnt even show us the panels so we only know how many kws we make a day. I’m ready to smash this inverter with a huge hammer, put it in a box and send it to Solaredge and tell them to stick it, that’s how angry I am. And the installers have lost interest and will make us wait when there’s a problem even though we spent $16,000 on the system. They forget they recommended Solaredge as we wanted Enphase but it wasn’t compatible with LG Neons 365W panels. Sorry for the rant, but after reading your story and seeing the drama you’re going through I thought I needed to get in touch with you as everything you wrote is basically what we’re going through. Would love to chat if you have any time. Thanks for speaking up against the intimidating big boys, you did the right thing! Hope to talk to you soon, take care and don’t go changing. kind regards, Christine Paton. Mobile: 0429010744.
Hi Christine, Sorry to hear (and sorry for the delayed reply). Not only a bad product but a dodgy install company by the sounds of it. You really do need to hold your installer accountable. Go to Fairtrade and complain if they don’t give you panel level access. They probably don’t want you to see the panel-level monitoring, because then they will have to fix the faulty optimisers. Give the installer a review online. That might help you get some attention. WHo is the installer?
What is a good solid system that complies with module level rapid shutdown? Enphase? SMA with panel level optimizers?
Hi Love2 run. Enphase is your best blog. If you google MC Electrical Enphase review you’ll see my comment on Enphase. THe best of a bad bunch I would say.
I had a SunCity Solaredge system installed Jan 2014. Flawless peformance until this year. Error code 25 popping up. Tesla took a month to get a service call scheduled. they claim they will do a reset and then monitor for 3 months. If problem still exists then order replacement parts that could take up to a year to replace. They said something about the fault occurring after heavy rains. That it needed to dry out then it would start working again… Ok, Not impressed. Peter
Hi Mark. Your article is very interesting. I’m very disappointed with my 7.4kw SolarEdge system. The hotter and sunnier the weather has become since it was installed in June 2019, the more time it spends with the inverter not producing power. It seems that the better the panels produce (between 10am and 3pm) the inventor spends most of its time shutting down and re-connecting. Generally my output is a sawtooth pattern on any given sunny day. My installer changed the cutoff voltage to 258v with no effect and I have monitored my grid voltage and it never exceeds 247v. The installer is no longer responding to my emails or text so I’ve logged a job with SolarEdge but nothing has occurred. If I had my time again I would not have gone with this product there is something very wrong, I have no shading and some panels face NE and the others North all on one string. If I can’t get a reply from SolarEdge I guess my next step will be fair trading. Very disappointed with this product.
Thanks Mark for your informative blog, I had a SolarEdge inverter installed and I discovered that mine failed, I was sold on this system and feel that these inverters are the weak link, hope I can get this resolved without legal action.
We have a Sola edge system (13 mths old) we are being advised to have another optimizer installed as our incoming electric voltage is 2400volts and the inverter says 230volts maximum input. We are being told that if the inverter fails our 25year warrenty is invalid as power input is to high!! Could you please advise as to the best way to go forward……..we have 14 days to decide and we dont want to loose our warrenty
Hi Dave, that doesn’t make any sense to me. You said you have to have another optimiser installed? Do you mean a voltage regulator? (I think you had a typo and your incoming voltage is reaching 240 volts.) Voltage never stays at the same. Google tells me in England it can fluctuate from 216v to 253v. The inverter has to have overvoltage protection. If they are saying voltage fluctuations will void your warranty then you should go to consumer affairs / fair trade or whatever government body England has to protect consumers. If your voltage gets really high (eg 265v) and SE void your warranty (although I don’t think they can), you should get the grid/utility to pay for replacing the inverter. The most likely scenario, you are being lied to.
Thanks for a nice article. If I may ask for some advice about my 20x300W + SE5000 with optimisers: 1. at some point in time, inverter started to go to FAULTY state and reboot very often during the day (see charts). Botched automatic firmware upgrade? Faulty inverter? 2. my N-facing panels generate less than my W-facing panels, and I can’t really explain why. I have 2 strings, 8 panels N and 12 W (see charts). N ones are not really that shaded, they are def less shaded than some W ones but still get on average less than them…. charts here: https://imgur.com/a/6WdQ2WZ (it was a bit of a challenge to scrape the data from solaredge portal, but def possible) any advice would be appreciated 🙂
Hi Marian, trying to understand what is going on can take a lot of time even if we have all of the data. It often needs SolarEdge to give us more data and onsite measurements. I’d be asking for your installation company to explain what is going on.
My inverter stopped communicating and producing new system paid $17,000 to own get no alerts no access. Takes 2 weeks to notice and 3 weeks to address. So july I got inverter Aug stopped working sept new inverter NOV 28 stopped working Dec 3 I noticed and here we go again. I’m ready to cry.
Mark, friend already has SE system installed. He wants a regular string inverter instead. Can he leave the optimizers in place and just swap out the old SE with a new SMA?
Hi John, No, unfortunately all optimiser will have to be removed. It is also likely that new cable will need to be installed to the inverter.
Bought Sun Valley Solar system 5kw plus LG battery with SolarEdge products. Less than 6-months of use, 5-weeks of no monitoring recorded. Installers says it’s the Cat-5 connection. Not a peep out of SolarEdge or SVS until I contacted them. BTW, no battery discharge level visible from SE app, website only. During faulty period, power bills skyrocketed. SVS said it’s inverter. No word from SE. Then without consultation battery discharge went from once per day ( peak 5p-8p) to twice per day to include morning before panels start producing. Would be nice to know what broke, how they want to fix and why beforehand. Zero communication from SE. Simply not going to sit by and allow SE to experiment or change settings without consulting the owner of the equipment, me. If this stuff breaks within first six months, what does next 24.5 years look like. Can I really expect SE to monitor my system, when I didn’t hear a word during 5-weeks of no data? The final straw was a power outage during a storm on Thanksgiving holiday and no battery backup. I Advised SVS and SE that not happy with system and to pull all of equipment off of my roof. Amazingly I heard from SE, unfortunately excuses started flowing. It was a bad communication connection but rest assured system operated normally, despite rising electricity bills. Then it was an installer issue with an improper neutral wire and switches not set properly. Regardless, the system doesn’t work as designed, and they can’t show that it was working nor explain the high bills. Regional manager called and wanted me to take down his email and explain what I was looking for. I indicated that I was repairing a neighbors fountain and unable. I asked him to text it to me. He was busy with his kids at Disneyland, and I never received a text message. I will wait for his promise to set up a meeting with regional Arizona and California managers as well as SVS to discuss options. Concerns; 1. Reliability 2. Monitoring more often than 5 weeks 3. Recouping losses when system failed 4. Cost for system, $30,000 for 5kw + 1 battery when Tesla offers system plus 3 power walls for $32k. 5. Costs associated with repairs to home after removing equipment 6. Adding battery monitoring to app not just webpage. 7. BBB rating of F? 8. Inverter failures 9. How soon can we get equipment removed? 10. Refund check in hand within 24-hours of equipment removal
Mark, Great write up in general. But I think you missed the point of the waiver SE gave you. Notice that it is only for systems 5000W or below. Since there systems never draw more than 5000W (give or take a few 100W), you will never exceed 5700W on a string. And thus, never exceed the current limits for the optimizers. So really nothing special or dangerous in what they are allowing. I just wish SE would allow this for everyone using SE5000H or lower. I put in a ticket with them requesting to use 6000W of panels in a single string on an SE5000H and they turned me down. I am trying to avoid the same voltage blocking issue are you have.
Hi Robert, good point. In my example, I was more than 33 per cent oversizing the inverter which would be uncommon (unless we installed a battery). I’ve changed the figures and we still get to 17.3 amps an optimiser. The point is you need to be careful about blocking both with current and voltage, and as panels get higher in wattage, the problem is more pronounced.
Hi Robert, yes what they are saying is I can put 25 panels in a string instead of 5700W. We generally oversize to 33 per cent.
I can safely say at least 20 % + of the time my system is not working properly.
We’ve just had our solar system reinstalled on our new house ( knock-down rebuild) Since it was reinstalled we’ve had nothing but problems. Production is substantially down on previous generation, and if the day gets sunny (like today), the whole system shuts down a little after noon. We have 12 panels installed in 2 strings – one of 8 (west facing) and one of 4 (north facing), although we seem to have one panel that isn’t working at all (inverter reports 11 of 12 panels generating at best). The whole system is only 3 years old. If I’m reading your article correctly, it sounds like we have a couple of potential issues. I think our dud panel is down to an optimiser failure. But it sounds like we also have a severe blocking issue that’s causing the shutdowns. Techs are coming back out again next week so hopefully we’ll be able to resolve it.
Mark, The letter SolarEdge gave you saying you can use 25 optimizers on a single string does not say explicitly that you can go over 5700W total. It just says you can use 25 if you follow all other rules. Am I reading that right? If so, then they are really not saying anything since they already allow up to 25 per string. If, on the other hand, they are saying you can go over 5700W with an inverter up to 5000W, then that makes sense. An SE5000H will limit power to 5000W anyway, so I am not sure why they even have the 5700W string limit for those inverters!
Just had a local company install an 8kW system with a SolarEdge 7600 wave inverter and 22 of their 370 power optimizers. One string of 10 and one of 12. Right away I’ve been getting RCD errors and panel shutdowns. Likely looking at replacing the inverter, hasn’t even been a week!!
I too have experience an inverter failure on a 40 panel system that was less than 1 year old. Has anyone considered a class action suite?
My SE5000 worked for 3 weeks then died. No notification. Good thing I check my APP. My Dad is on his second SE5000 as well. We both used a very reputable 80 year old electrical company with over 8k installs.
Hi Mark, Just wanted to lend my support for your efforts dealing with the legal threats from an apparently silly company trying to bolster its reputation buy silencing valid criticism. Please keep up your educational posts. They’re so helpful to us newbies trying to grapple with solar choices.
Well done for the courage to write and keep this online. This is important information!! My first Solar Edge inverter failed after 11 months and have just had the new one that was replaced under warranty fail a couple of days ago after 10 months. On my previous house I have a fronius that’s lasted 8 years so far with no performance issues whatsoever. For a system that’s designed in the Mediterranean, it seems odd that the inverters can’t cope with warm weather. The first one failed around noon on a 34 degree day one day after a 38 degree day, the hottest day that year. The current one failed on a 33 degree day… Can’t say I’m very impressed with the reliability of these inverters…
My solaredge inverter went bad 6mos after installation which was may 2017. I didn’t discover this until June 2019. I contacted my installer Main Street Solar in Fincastle Virginia. I purchased the extended 25yr warranty. Too make make a long story short, I am getting a RECORD runaround from Solaredge. I am still without a working inverter. I have been lied to over and over. Do you have any suggestions.
I am looking at a Solaredge 8kw system, do I need optimiser on my panels or can I run staight through with MPPT leads. Looking at installing 8kw solar panels. Does this system need optimisers. At present Solaredge have the biggest inverters to run 7kw +
Hi Andrew, SolarEdge inverters need SolarEdge optimisers. I suggest you read this blog before going ahead with SolarEdge. There are many other (single-phase) inverters that are larger and so much more reliable.
Unfortunately, in engineering, if you go from a centralised system do a distributed one with the same (per unit) reliability, the total incidence of failure increases. Going from MPPT units to 20 MPPT units will increase the instance of “faults” 10-fold. However in a properly executed distributed system, the total system should contiunue operating with the fault in place, while for a centralised system, the whole thing shudders to a halt with a single failure. Solaredge have gone the route (like Enphase) of a distributed system. So a single instance of optimiser failure, or pannel shading shouldn’t take the whole system down. (NB, Always put at least 10 panels on a string to allow for >=7 including a shading event / fault) Another “interesting” thing with solaredge is how the system manages power from multiple substrings for an “oversized array”, how does the system decide which optimisers to switch off once the maximum output of the inverter is reached?? (I have examples of sub-strings in the same orientation and sun exposure generating vastly different power output, presumably due to the fact that the inverter is maxed out (system with standby battery, and array sized to produce reliable minimum power throughout the year – including winter) also- anecdotally – the inverter / system seem to have a fairly slow response with an inability to “power track” to maximum inverter output consistently throughout the day – even in system(s) where they definitely have sufficient sun.
Add one more SE inverter replacement to your total Mark. My HDWave 5000 died less than 16 months after install. Replacement approved Friday
Noted. Apologies James 🙁
“However, if the four northern panels were not “blocked” by the 60 volts limit, they could have produced the same power as the other group of 10 panels. We worked out the production due to blocking to between $6 and $9 per quarter.” I am curious why the western panels would not drop to a lower voltage? If they dropped to 12V, the amps would jump to 4.4 for the string, and the northern panels would be operating correctly? So either the setup was done badly, or the software for the inverter was done badly? Unless there is a minimum voltage for each optimiser?
I have a SolarEdge system that malfunctioned five months after installation. The company has denied any problem with their equipment and So Cal Edison has done likewise. Unfortunately, I did not discover the problem until I received the end of the year bill from SCE, so I lost $4500 in energy that was not transmitted. Can you provide any information about filing a claim under the warranty? Thank you.
“However, if the four northern panels were not “blocked” by the 60 volts limit, they could have produced the same power as the other group of 10 panels. We worked out the production due to blocking to between $6 and $9 per quarter.” I am curious why the western panels would not drop to a lower voltage? If they dropped to 12V, the amps would jump to 4.4 for the string, and the northern panels would be operating correctly? So either the setup was done badly, or the software for the inverter was done badly? Unless there is a minimum voltage for each optimiser?
Hello. I just wanted to confirm that optimizer failure is real and significant. I have a 56 panel ground installation each with individual optimizer. In 3 1/2 years I have had 4 optimizers fail that’s nearly a 10% failure rate. I am trying to see what my installers are going to do about it.
I have had a SE 5000 installed about 19 july this year. Today it has been removed and replaced with another manufacturers model. The problem was that the unit shut down on sunny clear days when the temp. got over 18c. I am fortunate enough to have a older 18 panel system that works fine and does not shut down. The SE inverter reached 253 volts and then shut down, I believe the unit to be faulty, and will be pressuring them for a full refund.
Hi Mark, great article on Solaredge inverters and very timely for me. I’m getting quotes for Solar power, and a few companies are listing Solaredge inverters 3Ph. After reading your articles I am more inclined to ask for a Fronius Sumo inverter. Choosing panels (you get what you pay for?) Is also a challenge. LG, Sunpower (expensive) or Trina, CanadianSolar? Cheers, David
Hi Mark! One question regarding the failure rates: you posted an optimizer failure rate of 1,64%. Could you tell me in which period of time? 2015-2018?
Hi Leo, yes that’s correct, our last SolarEdge install was in November 2018 and we had an optimisr failure with that job already. I seem to have a clear memory of SolarEdge telling me at one point that they fixed the issues with a “gen 4” manufactured in February 2017 from memory. But they have since told me that didnt tell me that. All very confusing. Either way, we are still seeing failures from the batch of optimisers manufactured with the particular week number written on it. Are they telling you they have now fixed the issue?
Since my system (HD Wave) was installed on my roof starting in April, there have been multiple optimizer replacements and at least two inverter replacements. The system was finally approved by the city inspector and the switch was turned on at the first of September (5 months later). I am still paying the same electric bill that was before the system was installed. The installers keep troubleshooting the system and can not explain why we are not supplying electricity to even power our house. We have contacted Curtis Development/Home Smart Solutions on this situation, but there is no remedial solutions on their part.
My Solaredge HD 5000 became defective after 3 months. My install company Trinity Solar said they needed to order a new unit. I asked why they don’t have replacements in stock and their rep told me that each install needs a different inverter to which I cried BS, as the are programable. I hope this isn’t going to be an ongoing problem.
Hi Harry, that sounds right. Most inverter manufacturers will replace your faulty inverter with a refurbished one. Some state the time period until they can use a refurbished instead of new. I can’t blame SE for that one.
Mark, I have a question, Trinity came out and replaced my inverter with one that doesn’t have the monitoring panel on the fron, just a plain faceplate. Is that a new design or an older unit? Thanks Harry.
Hi Harry, that’s a newer model.
Good day, Not sure whether i shall be sad reading this post or happy to finally see i am not the only one. We installed only 2 systems with Solar Edge: one for R&D purpose and a second system comprising two inverters on behalf of an other EPC company. On the three inverters installed none are working correctly. On the R&D project we use a Carlo gavazzi datalogger to gather all data from the site (several installations mixing multiple inverters brands). The Solar Edge is the last one still not able to communicate over RS485 Modbus despite trying everything. Moreover the inverter trips from time to time: disconnect from the grid then reconnect right after. So far we have been disappointed by the support received – we however are ready to change or correct this statement shall any new development occur. On the second site, we installed two three phases inverters and face the same issue of disconnect/reconnect since commissioning was done two weeks ago. This is a recent event and we are still expecting feedback from the technical support team. Our experience with Solar Edge so far: Positive points: the inverters are nice and compact, easy to install thanks to a reduced weight, efficiency appears high thanks to the optimisation on each module/pair of modules. However: on 3 inverters installed on two different sites, none are working properly due to the disconnect/reconnect, and it is currently impossible to get the SE-6000HD to communicate over Modbus RS485 while the Solar Edge documentation states it is possible and the datalogger used on site can connect to te other inverters easily.
Mark, I have a 9.4kW solar roof system installed by Solar Source here in SW Florida. I also had a 7.2 kW ground array installed this January 2019 and in mid August 2019, my Solar Edge inverter fried. I have SolarEdge optimizers attached to 360watt Mission Solar panels. There are 20 panels on the ground mount. Solar Source sent out their technicians a few days after I called alerting them my ground array wasn’t producing any electricity. They inspected the inverter, a SolarEdge single phase inverter with HD-Wave technology for North America, model number SE6000H-US. So, we’re talking about 8 months or less of use before the inverter fried out, and, according to Solar Source, the 20 panels they tried to do tests on, etc. had “some of the craziest readings” they had ever seen. The head electrician will try to make it to my house to personally take a look at the system so he can figure out what is going on. The inverter got replaced under warranty, but he said the optimizers and cables and perhaps even some of the panels may need replaced and may not be under warranty. Then, he mentioned the optimizers are $60 each to replace, labor is $179 the first hour, $80 for each hour after that, and I may have to pay that to get the ball rolling if it isn’t covered under warranty….. this system was installed 8 months ago!!! My Solar Source contract/paperwork states the Solar Source non-transferable warranty includes: 5 years full labor warranty, 10 years workmanship warranty and 10 years roof penetration warranty. Thoughts? Advice? Another statistic in Solar Edge’s “infant mortality” of shoddy manufacturing and R & D. (At least their lawyers can’t threaten me for telling the truth behind their questionable “quality products”.) Solar Source got 10 of the 20 panels up and running again (pretty sure the cables got replaced as did the optimizers. I know the inverter got replaced). Pete Senchyshak
Hi Pete, Am i missing something? Why did they say it’s not covered by warranty? If the cables are fried I’m guessing you had a lighting strike?
Hey Mark, I’m just adding to the chorus by letting you know that your hard work and putting up with legal threats is helping so many people all over the world. This is a big investment so anxiety is high, your efforts mean a lot. I live in Arizona, USA and I want to thank you for helping me make informed choices. No need to reply, you’re clearly a busy man!
I have read blog and all the Comments, Just checking if the heat has a big impact on the SE optimizer failure rate..I called Matte Vella from MPV Solar base in Sydney …seems no issue with his 98 installation since last 3 years. worth a survey as SE has some cost effective solutions for some designs specially with adding battery storage. thanks again
Hi Maz. SolarEdge says the heat is not an issue but I believe heat is the after talking with installers around Australia. My concern is, if products are failing because of heat after 1 or 2 years in Brisbane, they are likely to fail after 3 or 4 years in Sydney. I explain in the blog “The Arrhenius equation is a rule of thumb that asserts every 10°C increase in temperature reduces component life by half.” I would also suggest if MPV tediously looked at every panel’s production (not just alerts), they would find failed optimisers.
We installed a 24kw SolarEdge system for our business in 2014 in Darwin. Your blog was recommended by our installer, Country Solar. We have had no Comms since 2016. Early on Solar edge replaced the Comms board once and one of two inverters on warranty. When the Comms unit quit a second time support ended and we haven’t had any since. If it’s a surge issue (and we get plenty here in the wet season) I’d accept the cost of replacement. The problem is that our installer hasn’t been able to get any to provide us, so we have had to install a Solar Analytics monitoring system at our own cost. It works well, but doesn’t give us the panel by panel monitoring which is why we chose Solar Edge in the first place. We have tried putting in a claim directly to Solar Edge on a couple of occasions and got pawned off back to our installer. I know we have four panels not working out of 96, which might not be too bad, but we should have been able to identify them and do the repair on the optimisers. As a customer in this part of the country, I would warn everyone off of Solar Edge. I am looking for a communication board to buy. Then I’ll be putting some good surge protection before the next wet/build up. I’m guessing I’ve got about four weeks before the storms start. Is there a class action suit against Solar Edge? No company should be allowed to shirk their warranty responsibilities so blatantly.
We operate outside of Los Angeles and I really appreciate your blog. We have used SolarEdge for about 3 years and it has been a disaster. We have had only 2 optimizer failures but half of our inverters have failed and had to be replaced under warranty. Getting paid a small stipend for the work adds another Level of insult to the process and it takes them 2-3 months to reimburse at that. Until they can improve reliability, I will not be using them.
We have only been installing , and recommending Solaredge for the perceived advantages of 1V safety, individual monitoring etc for the last 3.5 years thou we have been in the industry for nearly 40 years. Albeit now Solar is a relatively small part of our business these days as we offer long term support which does come at a cost. We thought, wrongly, that SE could have given us reliability and less component failures with subsequent adequate profits for our efforts. LOL. SE phone support is broadly OK if you can get thru. The ring back works OK. However for some reason the phone support always appears to have LOOOOOONG queues no matter what time of day. Suffice to say they either don’t have anywhere near enough support personnel or have a huge demand for support. Forget about creating a support case online as it can take weeks for a reply if you get any response at all. usually not! A support phone call needs to be made if you want action at all. Usually having to go to site at your own cost also. This is the expensive part as distances can be long. 1/. The web interface is so slow it is almost a waste of time. Poorly thought out and certainly not modern or even accurate for that matter. many times it doesnt even load. They obviously have not spent any money on R&D on this part of their business to see what works or doesn’t. Maybe that is the key so one doesn’t see any faults or failures. 2/. Warranty can be a long drawn out affair costing trips to site to do measurements that clearly as an experienced installer and electrician shows the device has failed yet they want you to go thru hoops to try to discredit your findings. They don’t trust installers to actually identify failures. 3/. Optimiser failures are very common. We always allow for extra optimsisers in our quotes as the time it takes to claim warranty is MORE expensive. I have given up on claiming optimiser warranties. 4/. Inverter failures are common also and in this regard you need to be prepared to go to Consumer Affairs (Fair trading) to get a resolution. Here again we keep in stock one of all models we install so at least we can keep the customer happy when a failure occurs. They cant even get a link to attend a training seminar application to work so what hope have you got to to get a quality reliable product. I could go on some more but then I would be accused of being too negative. Solaredge could be a real solution if only they would listen, and fix the problems they have. Certainly would not recommend them if you want long term reliability without call backs. You would never consider a SE product for a customer that requires traveling some distances to attend to a problem as you will go broke! Especially considering it is somewhat more expensive than more reliable alternatives. I have not seen too many systems that last longer than 7 years without failures. The original MLine product, now rebranded has not changed its spots. Solaredge has a loooong way to go if they want to be a market leader, and at current quality and support rates will never get there as more and more unsatisfied people are willing to comment. Bad news travels fast, far and wide.
380 V DC to SolarEdge inverter. Is that an Australian regulation limit? I have found out that I have 750 V DC to my SE17K inverter in Sweden with 3 phase system. Is 380 V on extra design problem with a smaller design window than with 750 V for voltage/current limit problems and so on? My system is just started up with 40 280W panels in one string and 2*14 panels in parallel in East and West. P300 optimizers. I try to find out if my supplier has designed it right.
Hi Matt, Yes in Australia we are limited to 600v for residential and 100volts for Commercial. Our three-phase SolarEdge inverters also operate at 750volts. Either way, having a fixed string voltage means there will always be the same fight between voltage wanting to buck higher than it can voltage bucking so current operates higher than the optimiser can. This is why SolarEdge has issues with medium shade and split orientations.
I can cofirm the voltage blocking with my SE8K E series. Have in one string with p500 optimizers: 8 Panasonic HIT N330 panels at orientation 45 degrees, elvation 12.5 degrees 8 Panasonic HIT N330 panels at orientation 225 degrees, elevation 12.5 degrees 7 Sunpower X21-350 panels at orientation 225 degrees, elevation 60 degrees, shaded I see voltage blocking 2 times a day: – morning – evening the sunpowers when they come into the sun end of the day have their optimizers at 60 volt (minus one partly shaded) and outputting just the double power of the same orientation panasonics (at 30 volt) and 4 times the other orientation panasonics (15 volt) so 5×60 + 1x 30 + 8×30 + 8×15 = 750 volts. The sunpower does 300 watt, the same orientation HIT does 150 and the other orientation HIT does 75 watts. So the shaded panels limit the max performance of the non shaded panel as the current needs to be equal in the whole string. There is always a relation and it is not so that every panel performs at its maximum. I live in Netherlands, Europe, so not one of your customers, but was just looking for some issues i see when i have shading. I tend to believe i need to say goodbye to the 3 phase unit and split the system up into 3 different 1 phase inverters. I can than hook up my current orientations and elevations to each his own inverter and add expantion as additional string to a unit which does not see light at the same time (our east side produces to 12:00 am) and than west is beginning, so these kind of strings on one hdwave 3680 (max 16 amps at 230 volts here)
Hi Mark, Thanks for a very informative article. I hope SolarEdge (the company) are not giving you further grief! I think I have a similar blocking problem. My system has 20 Sunpower 327 W panels, with SE P500 optimisers and HD Wave inverter. String 1 has 3 N(orth facing) + 8 W, string 2 has 4 E + 5 W. Production per panel over 14 months from string 1 ranged from 260 to 311 kWh. String 2 ranged from 183 to 197 kWh per panel, i.e. only 64% of string 1. Interestingly there is no significant difference between panels within a string according to orientation, just between strings. The W panels in string 2 also produce 64% of those in string 1. It seems the combination of W and E in string 2 makes the panels work against each other. Is there a way of wiring the panels to reduce this effect? Would stringing all 13 W panels together help?
Mark, great info on Solaredge and I completely agree with all of your points. We switched from installing Enphase products because their Micro-Inverter failure rate is upwards of 10%, however over the last few years, we’re seeing our install base’s optimizer and inverter failure rate on the rise. The one issue I’m most frustrated with is with “Firmware” updates. We’ve had way too many problems with failed Forced Firmware update attempts which have disabled communications completely or caused intermittent problems that require a ‘Onsite Visit” by the installer to manually update the firmware. My gripe? No labor compensation for these trips!! It’s despicable they expect the installer to fix issues caused by their firmware bugs. To add salt to the wound, when we initially started installing the New NO LCD HD waves, there ware several several cases requiring us to return to the sites 2 or3 times to get the inverter operational. Once again, no labor compensation! We have also seen a rise in what SolarEdge considers to be a “Thermal Event” requiring an initial site visit to document that some part of the inverter has “fried”. This means two trips. One to document what I believe they already know and then a return trip to replace the inverter. That’s a whopping $75 a trip for 5-6 hours of total travel and labor. It’s sad these companies are OK with biting the hand that feeds them.
Dear Marc! Thanks for your great article! Does SolarEdge Optimizer work with third party brand inverters? Can you recommend the optimizer brands flexible and reliable to use for different brand inverter with or without panel monitoring option? Do I need to consider over rating them for lower operating temp possible for longer life? I’m considering to use SUNGROW SH6.0RS new Residental Hybride Inverter (20% over rated). The reason choosing it is: it has battery and second AC power source input backup in case main power grid fails. I believe it is very flexible system except not best in built quality.
Hi Tin, SolarEdge MNicros only work with SolarEdge inverters. Best try Tigo optimisers. (read my blog on Tigo)
Thank you for your research and informative article. Over the past two years, by neighbor and I had Sun Bug Solar install large dual trackers and both of us have experienced frequent monitoring alerts and inverter failures.
We went live in Jan 2019 and Inverter quit mid July 2019. Waiting patiently for replacement (its not 8/7/19). Sounds like this may be the first of many problems we could anticipate. Do you recommend we ask our installer to do something different? Thanks, for your helpful post. – Todd
Hi Todd. Probably not. It would be expensive to change from SolarEdge to a string system. You would probably have to lift every panel, change a lot of wiring and replace the inverter. I would just keep hassling your installer for warranty. If the delay is too long, report your installer to Fairtrade. It may not be their fault but that’s a good way to get action.
Solar edge sucks. Installed system Oct 2017, the inverter (SE6000H) went out July 11th and still waiting for them to ship the new inverter. In the meantime I am eating a huge electric bill running my air in the hottest part of the year. I called just today to be on hold for 45 minutes before being hung up on. Called again, was on hold for about 35 minutes and hung up on again. Thinking of suing. Customers with the same situation as me starting at about mid 2017: https://www.solarreviews.com/manufacturers/solar-edge/#readreviews. Question: my neighbors is installed on the wall and sits in the shade generally. Mine sits directly in the sun. Would it make sense to put a box around it to keep the sun off it when I do finally get a new one installed?
Hi, I am having major dramas for 2 years now with my solar from solaredge is there someone I can talk to to help?
We have installed over 60 commercial SolarEdge 3phase Inverters along with over 4000 optimizers across six different sites. Most of the inverters were 33.3kW. We have had a terrible experience. 12% inverter failure rate and 2% optimizer failure rate. Their customer service is awful, with over 1 hour wait times. Their monitoring platform is awful and slow. Compared to the detail and accuracy of Tigo’s platform there is no comparison. They are very quick to issue you an RMA. Which proves to me that they know their product is bad. The time it takes to diagnose a faulty inverter, go out and test and replace it is very expensive. These issues may sink our company… We have stopped using them. All of our SolarEdge projects were installed within a couple of years so we did not have time to see their problems. I am writing this while on hold with their customer support… We like Tigo much better.
Hi Marc! Thanks for this great article! I live in Hungary, plan to install my solar system at the moment, but it was really hard to find reliable info on the more advanced solutions. I was thinking about solaredge, but now decided against it. Shading is not an issue, so i guess i will skip tigo also, for now. But im thinking about getting maxim panels, seem to be in the same price range than normal ones. Would You recommend them? Do You have some field experience with them? Regards, András
Hi András, Maxim had issues with TV reception and pulled out of Australia a few years ago. We installed the first shipment of Jinko/Maxim in Australia and had heaps of tv reception issues. Recently they have handed over their optimiser to JBox manufacturer Zerun. I’m not sure what Maxim integrated panels are currently on the market. But yes I prefer maxim technology in theory to any other optimiser – we just need reliability and to stop the interference issues.
After one year of a successful solar system install, my Solar Edge inverter failed. It was replaced in February, 2019 with a Solar Edge HD Wave inverter. As of June 3, 2019 this inverter has failed and I have not received help from installer as of June 16th. What other inverter options are out there?
Wow what a read! We’re finally taking the plunge after years of ‘yeah we’ll get solar soon’. We are looking at the maxeon 360 panels – 5 facing east, 5 facing west and 9 facing north (5 on one north facing section, and 4 on the north facing section). We have zero shade problems. A lovely lady came today and recommended solar edge with optimisers…… I wasn’t aware of the optimiser option until they were recommended. I mentioned I’d look into them and now have serious doubts. My original plan was to go with Enphase and am now looking at this option again. I really feel for some of the people here and appreciate their input. These systems cost a huge amount of money and the last thing that should be happening is faults with optimisers that have 25 yr warranties. Terrible. Was I originally on the right track Mark going with Sunpower and Enphase or should I be looking at another set up. Thanks again for the info, very much appreciated! Chris – Nowra NSW 2541
Time to time I came back to this post to see what happens. Let me allow to say that we also have a system with blocking issue, so in my oppinion its not rare a case… We made everything correct in their designer tool but one string loses power when in heavy shade. SolarEdge says that we need to follow their instructions, meanwhile we made their extended training too and there is no example when a shade can cause blocking. What I learned is when you design SolarEdge, you must take attention on the minimum optimizer rule. Not writen anywhere, but for example you want a small system with 8 x 280W panels and an SE2200H inverter. The 8 panel is the minimum for an SE 1 ph HD inverter. But MAYBE you choose SolarEdge because YOU HAVE SHADE AND YOU READ THAT THIS PRODUCT IS GOOD AGAINST IT. So what will happen? Yes, you install minimum one panel in shade, so you will have a minimum of 7 panels on sun and 1 in shade, and at this point your system may lose perfomance. I learned that the minimum optimizer is a rule for minimum sun affected panels. My problem with SolarEdge that they dont write it down to the datasheet, that this minimum value is for this, not for any shaded situation… The other problem is that they have 100 kind of optimizers … and some of them seems to me useless. For example you try to avoid the limitation and use P404 optimizers because its for short string and it has a bit bigger VOC. Yes. It has, but it also has lower Isc value than for example P370. But it can work with bigger watts! Holy sh*t, thats cool, but you cannot attach a Canadian CS3W 400W to P404, because of the Isc value, nor Q Cells DUO 325W, because of this. So P404 what would help to solve this problem is completley useless because of its lower Isc value ….. Why, why we need P300 ; P370 ; P404 ; P500 ; and now the newest P505 ? Why they dont make for example a P600 version with an Isc of 20 amp and 150V VOC ? Is it worth it? Wouldnt it be simplier and these high perfomance optimizers would be able to handle any shaded scenario? I also have saved old .sesd files where the designer offers string solution WHICH IS NOT POSSIBLE BY THE DATASHEET: https://imgur.com/a/K2f0eK5 You cannot put 12 kW in one string only 11,25 kW, but the design tool offers it to you. I use the two following rules to avoid the crap: 1., minimum optimizer number is the number of minimum sunny panels on the roof (despite of none mentioned this before to me) 2., use their new online designer tool to avoid bad system design Sorry for the angry comment.
Hi mark, we purchased LG panels (16) and have a solar edge inverter. The system was installed Nov 2017, started off well.but in April this yr, It effective shut down. Electrician/installer claim that the power coming into property from transformer at road was too high a voltage, causing the investor to shut down for safety reasons(went into night mode). The lines company came out spent a day checking systems, say there is possibly an issue as old transformer, but not likely to to updated anytime soon. However 2 weeks ago the invertor was replaced ( we only found out after the fact) seemed to work for a while and now back to switching off, and restarting. been in contact with installer about , wants us to follow up lines company re transformer. does this sound like or do we have crap and need to chase supplier/installer. Thanks in advance ( NZ)
Thanks Mark for your hard work and experience, it is good to be able to go to a site for info on Solar. I am going to build a house and looking into different things I need to set up ready for Solar, I will be putting 3 phase on to give more flexibility. I was told by an installer over the phone that I should consider going to 8kw as I was trying to get a quote for 6.5kw and to go all electric. I am looking at getting refrigerated ducted heating and cooling and he said to go Solar electric boosted hot water as we were going to have gas Solar, and he also suggested to go induction cooktop. Would this be a good idea or should we stay with gas? I was looking at putting a Solar Edge system on, but with what I have read I think I might skip it. I am thinking of an LG Neon R 365w or a LG Neon 2 335w, I am not sure which one to choose and on the price but I was hoping to save up and pay for it. If I cant afford the above which one closest would you recommend? I was thinking of a Fronius to back it up, thanks in advance, Pam
Hi Mark. Thanks for the write up. I am just in the process of purchasing solar for my home and SolarEdge is being presented by one supplier. I think you have helped me decide the best option is not going to be SolarEdge bit I am still stuck with so many options being offered. One of the other option I have is for a 12.6Kw system that has 36 x REC twinpeak 350w panels with a Fronious Symo 10Kw inverter or a 10.44kW Emphase IQ7+ with the same panels. I was actually edging towards enphase but I don’t have shading so it it worth the extra expenditure for what I am going to get? I note you saying in one of the earlier posts that there is no point putting MLPE on the roof unless you really need it. Make me wonder why such a solution is even being offered to me. It really is a mine field with everybody telling you that their system is the best system. Any advise is welcome. Thanks!
Hi Ollie, While Enphase has proven really reliable, I’d go with Fronius. I think for best reliability, we shouldn’t be putting “Module level power electronics” (Micro’s or optimisers) on the roof unless we absolutely need to.
my system was installed 12 months ago. on original installation on inverter would not power up………replace with another one 3 weeks later. 1month goes by an inverter has no display and stopped reporting….techs out replaced a week later 3 months go by an the other inverter does the same thing …no display , tech needs to replace….down again during peak months 5 days ago noticed a drop in production on one of the inverters checked the inverters and guess what no display on the inverter replaced 10 months ago. Solar Edge has either no quality control or something is drastically designed wrong. I have an EE background and have started researching this my self. FYI- my system has 2 arrays – one with 30 panels rated at 310w ea. and one with 27 on the other. Its a purchased system(60k) which I was hoping for a faster payback
Good question Marc. This is one of the problems with SolarEdge. If you went solarEdge you will need to remove every solarEdge optimiser if you want to change brands. But if you don’t have shading, it may be worth doing that. I’d go with Fronius – and match it with Tigo if you have partial shading. I’ve done reviews on both of these – just use the search function at the top of this page.
Dear Mark, SolarEdge answer was “dont know” to my question, “does the optimizers use the bypass diodes?” I think its a realy important question, because if in shaded scenario the optimizers everyday use the bypass diode – which I think sure they use – then an optimized system will also cause bypass diode failure and this can lead to problems. What is your oppinion or knowledge about my question? Thank you.
Hi Gergely, It’s a good question. No solarEdge don’t have bypass diodes. But from testing I did a while ago if the panel is optimised, the diodes will not activate until a lot more shade is on the panel. This is why LG solar panels state in their warranty that panels are not covered if installed in the shade UNLESS the panels are optimised.
Hi Mark ,,, thank you for the info here … it is hard for people who don’t know much about solar to get the info to make the right decision because everyone has there own opinion … I have been looking at solar and have come down to three system that look to be ok , but would like your opinion if you can … • Install a Solahart / Solar Edge Battery Ready 6.6kW photovoltaic solar power system onto the property’s roof see Nearmap report. • System comprises of 22 x 300W Solahart Black panels and 1 x SolarEdge inverter SE-5000H with Optimisers, plus all ancillary components to complete the installation to your main board, with an Australian Green Energy accredited electrician. • System will also be supplied with SolarEdge Meter and a CT’s on all phases to allow full system LG NeON 2 panels and Enphase micro-inverters system or a Installation of 5.1 kilowatt Enphase REC Solar System .. any help would be appreciate…….. thank you
Hi Lawrence. I’m guessing you didnt read the blog if you are considering SolarEdge! Also, I don’t know what an “Australian Green Energy accredited electrician” is. Did you mean CEC accredited electrician? Anyone who installs must be CEC accredited. Go Enphase. Both panels are good. Also, look up my blog about “Solar Company Background checks”.
Hi Mark …. Yep I read the every word (even the posts people put up) and was grateful for what you said …. I was going more in favour with Solaredge before I find your blog which I am happy I did. I have been searching about solar for months now and as I said everyone talk there systems up and put the others down, you talked about facts and didn’t try to sell another system. I was told the Enphase was old technology by the Solaredge sales man which them made me second guess Enphase technology.. but was lucky to find this blog so again thanks for your great help .
Hi Lawrence. I see! We don’t sell a lot of Enphase, but we do use it in the right situation. If you need significant a shading solution, if you prioritise safety to the Nth degree, or if you just really want panel monitoring and have the cash: then go Enphase, it’s a great product. I tend to avoid MLPE (power electronics) on the roof unless it is necessary because I’m concerned about reliability in 10 and 20 years. But Enphase has proven particularly reliable so far. (Check out the jump in Enphase share prices recently, the company has had an exciting road map of future products!)
I have 41 300W panels with a Solaredge SE 10000HJ-US inverter unshaded in so CA. I suspect the inverter is over stressed by input current or system is very non optimum. I am retired EE, MSEE with extensive design experience in high rel military and space work. DE rating components and Hermetic sealing are KEY to reliability. I am concerned about plastic encapsulated components failing in less than 20 years, and junction temperatures over 110 C. none of that info available. I have designed equipment to operate in un inhabited -55C to 125C with extreme vibrations, sand dust humidity…..also some experience in ham radio design (Swan Radios). I am aware of consumer design standards and they do not apply to 25 year lifetimes. Whats your impression of this inverter in a 41X300W system?
I’m no solar expert, but an enthusiast. Here is a comparison of Enpahse IQ7 6.30kW vs SolarEdge 7.800kW – 6km apart. https://pvoutput.org/compare.jsp?sid=66948&sid1=66686&c=1 The two systems are not quite the same but very close. SolarEdge setup – 7.800kW Panels: 18x300W (North) + 8x300W (West) SolarEdge PV300-60MMJ Inverter: SolarEdge SE6000H Orientation: 18 panels North 0.0° / 8 panels West 270.0° Array Tilt: 25.0° Enpahse IQ7 setup – 6.30kW Panels: 21x300W – JKM300M-60 Jinko Inverter: 21 x Enphase IQ7 – Total invert 5.04kW Orientation: 21 panels North 12.0° Array Tilt: 22.0° I know that it’s not an apples for apples comparison, but looking at data the Enphase 6.30kW system is more efficient and generally produces more power than larger 7.80kW SolarEdge system.
Hello Mark. My installation consists of 712 solar panels, each panel with a peak power of 365 Wp. All of them connected to 2 x SE100K SolarEdge Inverters. So I have a peak DC power of 259.88 KW at the roof and an A.C Inverter Maximum output power of 200 KW. Every 2 panels are connected to a SolarEdge P730 Optimizer. Every SE100K Inverter consists of 3 x 33.3 KW Inverters. So each 33.3 KW inverters has 3 strings connected to it, most strings are 20 optimizers long (40 solar panels). Under optimal solar conditions my Inverters produce 200 KW but cannot sustain it. All of a sudden, their output power drops considerably, most of the times down to half power (100 kW). The power recovers in a few minutes but continues happening. If I look into the Software Power Curve, it looks as if the whole power drop from 200kw to 100kw happened on a 30 minutes time lapse. I also measured the incoming D.C voltage from each string and it is around 960 Volts. I would like to know if the sudden power drop could be explained by the fact that D.C Installed Power is around 30% higher than the A.C Inverter Installed power? Could it also be explained by the fact that the nominal D.C voltage indicated by the Solaredge Inverters is 850 Vd.c (Maximum 1000 Vd.c) but the actual incoming D.C voltage is 960 V?
Hi Jose. Interesting one. Oversizing by 30 per cent should not be a problem. Neither should long strings be a problem (960 volts). What have SolarEdge said about the issue? I’d be curious if more people have had this issue. If you are on Facebook, you could post the question on a group called “crap solar”. There is a lot of knowledge in that group.
Hi Mark, what a relief to find a source of objective information. We are lucky enough to have a very large clean north-facing roofline (23 deg tilt, newly tiled), not shade affected. Our brief to potential installers has been that we want a quality 6kW system, backed up by quality installation and an EFFECTIVE minimum 25yrs warranty on panels and 10yrs on inverter (with option for battery and EV in future). However, we have received very conflicting recommendations on our quotes – some using optimisers. Is a string system sufficient and what would your preference be – 1. SUNTECH 275W STP275-20/WFW panels with GOODWE 5KW 2MMPT 1PH inverter 2. Solar Edge inverter with an option for either Canadian / REC / LG Solar panels 3. Fronius inverter and LG Neon 2 panels If you operated in Victoria, we’d be getting a quote from you guys, or alternatively if you know someone reputable here in Victoria? Thanks.
Hi Rob, Thanks. That’s an easy one. The Fronius and LG option is miles ahead and should be more expensive than the other quotes. Don’t use optimizers if you don’t have shade. Putting power electronics on your roof for 25 years when you don’t need to is asking for trouble. If you need optimizers I would suggest selectively optimising Tigo. One of the better companies in Victoria is Gippsland solar. (I believe they do most of Victoria). Good luck!
Hi Mark. Thanks for the blog and opportunity to ask questions. Only new to looking for solar for our house. We have shading issues from 2pm onwards. Most available space on east side, and some north. I’ve had quotes and positive advice on production for string systems with inverters. Then someone took the time and suggested Enphase micro inverters. Then today came the Solar Edge quote and confidence from them in reliability and production. I’ve read about poly, mono, PERC, split cells, various wattages, sizes, even colours. Most from China, some US, some EU, other Asian. It’s got to be the biggest can of worms on the planet. I’ve become quite cynical at an industry that is tripping over itself to sell me whatever, with absolutely no consideration for my circumstances or needs. My very lay thoughts, given our future expected increase in daily usage, suggest the Enphase micro inverters over optimisers and string inverter. I have 3 phase to the meter box which increases the single inverter cost so in terms of cost I have to consider that as well. I’ll be giving SE a wide berth but any advice you can offer given my shading issues would be appreciated. Thanks Mark
Hi Craig. Enphase is a good option. I would just make sure your panels are not too much bigger than the maximum output of the micro-inverter. If you don’t need to optimise every panel, then I often suggest Fronius and Tigo. Read my blog on Tigo if you haven’t looked into that already.
I have solar edge system with optimizers installed in 2017. Since then so many of the optimizers failed . The inverter failed and they replaced a board. Soon after that solar breaker failed. They changed the breaker and after one week the new breaker failed again . Now the whole system is not working. Both invertors aren’t working. I spent a lot of money on this system.what is my course of action? What about the lost opportunity is solar production? Do I get to recover those lost opportunity? If I read this article before I installed my system using solaredge , I wouldn’t have picked solaredge.
Hi Mark, What do you think of Sunpower Series P (E18) panels compared to E20, E22? If roof space is not a problem, do you think it is more cost effective to buy E18 as they are all from the same manufacturer and have the same warranty? Do you install E18? How does E18 compare to LG NeON panel which also has 25 years product warranty and similar dimension? Regards Stephen
Hi Stephen, the Jury is currently out on the Sunpower P Series. We won’t install them until we are satisfied with their independent test results. Our recent blog titled “PERC SOLAR PANELS – DEGRADATION THROUGH LETID” explains the problem. As a result of that blog, Sunpower put their panels through independent LETID testing. Preliminary results are ok and we should hear back from the full accelerated testing results soon. Either way, I would recommend E-Series panels (327W).
I just had a 10kw solar edge inverter blow up in my face. It was functioning fine for a couple years but was called to site because the breaker tripped. I checked for wire issues, turned the breaker on went to the inverter to see the screen. My face was 1’ away from the inverter when it exploded. A capacitor blew off the board like a canon which ripped the cover right off smashed me in the face and I went flying about 10’. I had to go to emergency and was there 6 hours getting scans and 12 stitches on my forehead, face and lips. Now what! I don’t want to go near a SE inverter again!
FAR OUT ROB!!!! that’s extreme. I have heard of a few explosions where the cover damaged the ceiling, but that’s another level!!! What did SolarEdge have to say about that?
Thanks Mark for the enlightening article, Did you see improvements in last few month when it comes to the new optimizers shipped from H2/2018 onwards?
Hi Shahar, last we checked we had failures in that batch, but considering our average failure time is about 22 months, we really would need to wait another 6 or 12 months to see if the pattern continues.
Hi Mark Kudos for doing for the general, do you know if the so called gen4 solved the reliability problems you mentioned? How do i know my optimizers are from the new gen?
Hi Mark, If only everyone would leave reviews of their life experiences, the world would be a better place. I sell solar and am trying to figure out the truth about inverters. Unfortunately there isn’t much information out there yet. I would like to know If you would recommend Enphase micro inverters 1Q7 and 1Q7+ over Solar Edge?
Hi Heshy, Thanks. I’ve found Enphase to be really reliable – and I don’t know of anyone who would dispute that. I do prefer using Tigo with Fronius in most situations though.
Hi We have had solar installed 3 years ago and have received very little savings. Solaredge invertor melted internally within 6 months and we are still having issues in getting this system to work like we were promised. If anyone is purchasing a system stay away from solaredge. We got a lemon and solaredge not interested in fixing this and now costing us our business
Hi Pia, It sounds like you are having problems with your installer! Your installer can’t pass the buck to SolarEdge, they have to get the system working regardless.
I’m in the UK and am experiencing terrible service from Solar Edge. An Optimiser failed in October last year and despite numerous phone calls I’m still waiting for it to be fixed. They sent me the Optimiser on 22nd January but apparently they are unable to agree labour and scaffolding costs with the company they have chosen to fit it. Yet again, today I’m waiting for a call back as the one promised two days ago didn’t happen. Appalling service I’m sorry to say!
Hi Mark, I have a SE15K with 315 watt panels with SE optimizers. On the first day of install the production was great. Since then my production has decreased about 30%. Until I read this blog I had not considered that the optimizers could be the source of the problem. I have panels facing east, south, and west. What would you consider to be a possible solution to the above problem? I am disappointed to learn that SE has sent lawyers to you. I hope you will have an opportunity to be heard and present your case in court. It is a pity when a company’s response is to send the lawyer team. It shows a company with a dissapointing reaction to customer’s problems. For your information quality control at the assembly level from the same line has variations, and when the engineering is watered down to lower costs issues arise and compounds the problems. You should seek an expert in manufacturing and quality control issues to prove your point. You might need to open up a few products to show assembly differences and quality of components.
have a 22 Kw install with 33 SolarEdge P700 Optimizers (1:2) serving 65 LG 335 watt panels. We went live last April (10 months ago). I had 3 optimizers fail while I was in out of the country for 7 weeks in July (90 days after installation). They were replaced under warranty but 3 of my 4 strings turned themselves off for 7 weeks. Costly. Last month I had a 4th inverter fail. It hard shorted to ground and turned off the entire Inverter with a ground fault notice. I was able to figure it out and replace it the following day (snap, snap, snap is not a sound you expect to hear on your roof – so easy to find it – the 1 volt being produced by the other 7 optimizers in the string kept jumping to ground inside the failed optimizer). So, 4 failures out of 33 optimizers. Far too many and far too expensive if you don’t have a spare on hand (I now keep 2) and if you aren’t in the country to fix them (this is a self-install). This is in the Cayman Islands where the weather is 29 degrees C every day of the year.
Hi Mark, Which is better to pair with 18x sunpower X-22 360W? Fronius primo or solaredge hd wave 5KW inverter? I’m planning to get a system but undecided on which inverter to get. Cheers
Hi Zeus, I always recommend Fronius as the first option. If you have shading issues, I would couple Fronius with Tigo.
Hi Mark, Thank you for the reply. No partial shading as far as I know but not sure if there’s a possibility of shading depending on the position of the panels. Hopefully the design will be ok. At first I’m leaning towards the solaredge due to the technology but if it’s not that reliable even with 12yrs warranty, the problem will be the downtime and I’ll just get the most reliable one. Are there anybother inverter that you can suggest aside from fronius? I really want the most reliable one. Thank you again. Cheers
Hi Zeus, If you really like the individual panel monitoring, go Enphase instead of Fronius. In my experience and the general consensus from the industry is that Enphase is really reliable. But if you are looking for a string inverter like Fronius – a distant second would be SMA. The problem with SMA I think is the cost and complexity of consumption monitoring and rumours of reliability issues. The plus for SMA is that the fan is quiet.
Hi Mark, If you were to choose, which one are you going to buy, sunpower e20 or x22 with enough roof space? Cheera
Hi Zeus. If roof space is not a limitation, I would go with E20. E22 is normally what we suggest when roof space is limited, or money is not the problem. The small improvement in temp co-efficiency is not worth the cost.
Hi Mark, I’m planning to get a 6.48KW Sunpower X22 system with solaredge 5KW hd wave with p500 optimisers. Just saw your review and now I’m worried that the system will cause me problems when claiming warranty and reliability issues along the way. Is it best to just get fronius? Please advise which is the best inverter to get with the sunpower x22 series. Regards, Zeus
Hi Mark, I wish you all the best in your fight with Solar Edge and hope you beat them. It is amazingly refreshing to find someone who has tons of real world installation experience sharing their views. This is much better than an internet warrior smashing the keys. If you are being honest and factual, the law should be on your side. Your blog was instrumental in me better understanding shading issues with SolarEdge and choosing the right optimisers. My installer had no idea about the issue and I had to provide him the info on how to do it right. In the end we ended up going with Enphase to avoid the issue altogether. Keep up the good reviews.
Thanks for a great post, as I am considering installing a SolarEdge inverter. While the lawyer response seems a bit heavy handed, I don’t think listing the cons will necessarily put me off purchasing one, but it’s good to go in with both eyes open, as now I know what to look out for.
Hi Mark, thanks for your review and do allow me to share my experience with you. As it turns out I am also having a similarly disappointing experience so far with SolarEdge at my residence in Sydney. First, an 8kW HD wave inverter failed within 24 hours of installation, then took weeks to have it replaced by a representative of my installer, Soltek. Second, one particular string began underperforming many months after installation. SolarEdge’s technical support team maintain the design is compliant with their standards – a split orientation with three 335w panels on the north and five others on the east – yet concede afternoon shading on the east-facing panels is causing the remaining north-facing panels to underperform relative to adjacent north-facing panels that belong to a separate string. Daily production of the affected panels is reduced by around one-third or 1.5kWh in total, which is material. I have been in regular contact with Soltek the installer and SolarEdge since October 2018 to resolve the matter (it’s now February 2019), given the apparent breach of Australian Consumer Law. Thankfully SolarEdge’s Australian country head Gavin Merchant has just now agreed to investigate after previous attempts to reach a solution became futile. Gavin assures me that SolarEdge products are indeed fit for purpose, and specifically suitable for shaded conditions including split orientation strings such as mine, consistent with claims in SolarEdge’s published advertising material and documentation. The odd part is that the particular string worked fine at first (May to August 2018), but has since underperformed from September 2018 onwards. Meanwhile the two other split-orientation strings and another single orientation string remain fine; all very perplexing. Wish I knew about this “blocking” effect you have coined before installation as I would have insisted