Growatt, also known as Growatt New Energy Technology, is one of the most stellar and established inverters manufacturing companies, serving some of the most unique, affordable, and high-efficiency photovoltaic inverters and storage systems. While its origin is in Shenzen, China, the company has now embarked beyond its boundaries to countries like Germany, the UK, the US, and recently in Australia. Hence, its recognition is vastly accepted alongside other prominent European inverters. The Growatt inverters review will give you more insight into Growatt’s inverters in particular. It will probably give you the best answer; Are Growatt inverters any good?
Drawbacks of Growatt Inverters
We have put forth this inverter’s demerits before its pros because you can figure out how this company managed to sustain its reputation and receive widespread acclaim while overcoming a slew of challenges.
Growatt entered the solar inverter market intending to produce the entry-level inverters, which bred some reliability issues. One of the most tangible issues was caught up with the Growatt 5000MTL 5kW inverter. Despite showing a seasoned and sublime performance against high radiation (scoring A grade) and medium radiation (scoring B grade), the question was raised: suspecting its reliability due to its first sample failed to sustain in the experiment at Photon Magazine’s labs, requiring a replacement inverter to finish the test.
It also came as a surprise when some of the early-released inverters failed to incorporate with the solar system with the same typical errors, such as “error 117” or “error 102” or “No AC Connection” and also “PV Isolation Low.” The users experienced errors and faults like “PV Isolation Low” due to either a DC leakage or inverters’ failure to comply with one string.
Growatt Inverters Review
Although Growatt hasn’t been in the solar market for ages the same as other renowned inverter manufacturer companies, their improvement of the latest inverters over their predecessors and their establishment of the local offices with the omniscient customer supports are hugely noticeable. Hence, the following information on this Growatt inverters review will encompass all the essential criteria that a perfect inverter should have.
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What is the capacity of the Growatt inverter?
Well, Growatt inverter can be cheaper compared to a lot of contemporary runners, yet their power range of residential inverter is astonishingly splendid, ranging from 1kW to 15kW. Growatt’s TL-X inverter can produce within the range from 2.5kW to 6.0kW, which is massive. The company targets both residential and commercial properties with its extensive support and solutions to both on and off-grid applications and smart home energy management systems.
Will the efficiency match to the CEC requirement?
They do. In fact, their solar inverters’ efficiency ranges between 95 to 98% (as the CEC demands between 97.2-98.4%). Surprisingly, Growatt’s latest MIN 2500-6000TL-XH series has efficiency up to 98.4%, surpassing some of the leading brands in the solar industry. It shows that their uncompromised quality at an affordable price is a trump card.
Are the manpower and research and development world-class?
Having founded in 2010, the company has grown with over 1200 employees as of 2017 and counting. There are currently 150 R&D consummate engineers working in Growatt Company who have 15 years’ experience in the inverter-development field. Their knowledge and expertise were curated to build more than 60 patents, as well as the acme of robust technologies.
As we mentioned previously, the Growatt strived long enough to come this far. It was achieved only because of their commitment to serving premium products, a turnaround in their latest inverter technology, meticulous quality control, and continuous customer service improvement in all the countries. Quality is ensured using the five quality engineering processes, such as
- Design Engineering
- Manufacturing Engineering
- Component Engineering
- Testing Engineering
- Reliability Engineering
This company has developed its own expertise in the manufacture of monitoring systems, EV charging pile BUs, micro-grid Bus, storage systems, string, and central inverters. Therefore, there is no doubt why this company received critical acclaim from all over the world for its innovation and technological advances.
Are Growatt inverters any good?
Ranking and Accolades: Since its establishment, Growatt has managed to ship over 1.7 million inverters to over 100 countries across the world alone, thriving its place through its enormous dedication and dynamic credibility.
Photovoltaic Brand Lab Brand Rankings (PVLB), the only data research report in China, backed up a multidimensional evaluation system, has crowned the Growatt inverter as the No.1 Chinese residential PV inverter brand consistently for three years in a row.
PVLB takes factors, such as marketing strategies, sales policy, and companies’ attribution to its customers, consumers’ propensity towards Chinese photovoltaic brands, and the company’s detail into consideration for making this ranking. According to the IHS Markit’s world inverter shipment ranking, Growatt has been named one of the top 3 single-phase inverter brands as of 2018.
Performance against the value of Growatt equipment
What features of Growatt makes it a standalone inverter?
- Max efficiency 98.7%
- DC/AC ratio up to 1.4
- Type II SPD on DC Side
- DC switch optional
- Single phase inverters with one or two MMPTs (Maximum Power Point Tracking)
- Three phase inverters with dual MMPTs
- Touch key and OLED display
- Transformerless
- Support zero-export application
- Free online service
- Remote upgrade
- Standard 5 years warranty plus 5 years free warranty extension when you register online
Is it possible to merge a battery with your inverter?
Why not? This is the beauty of installing the most advanced inverters, which can easily be equipped with a battery to increase efficiency. Growatt Hybrid inverter, battery inverter combined with a solar inverter, is the perfect example of how you can back up your daily consumption, especially when the feed-in-tariff rate is low and the sun intensity is low. We won’t detail each Australia’s states in this Growatt inverters review, but you can check it out here: state wise feed in tariff rate explanation.
Does Growatt inverter help to limit the export?
Of course, it does. You will be amazed to hear that most of the latest Growatt inverters are equipped with firmware, enabling you to limit or stop the export of power to help you self-consume when the loads are high. On the contrary, when the loads are low, you can potentially set the export limit to a certain value.
You can easily mount plug and play dongle to your inverter to get all the latest updates, including information like self-consumption, export, and input of power of your inverter on the dedicated app or website. From the datasheet, you can see that this dongle can send data every 5 minutes from a distance up to 100 meters away. Regarding any release of the newer updates, your firmware will automatically notify you to update it.
Growatt Dongle for inverter
Download: Growatt App for iPhone, Growatt App for Android
Is it possible to get all of these high specs at an affordable price?
It’s always been a misconception that cheaper products mean low-end products. Growatt has proved that affordable products can have all the latest features, like any other famous solar inverter brands. You can’t expect the same consistent quality from the Growatt inverter as the same as their European counterparts. It is worth asking your solar retailer for the inverter’s price rather than finding it in this Growatt inverters review. You can get free experts help from Cyanergy easily, just using the form in the right sidebar. So fill-up the form and get instant help, if you are in a dilemma to choosing the right inverter and price concern.
Read about Cyanergy, one of the best CEC Approved solar retailers in Australia.
This is due to long-term research and business of the European inverter market that enabled them to have more time to gain adequate knowledge and skills to change the technical parts, as well as their designs every year. On the other hand, Chinese inverters are in the market for less than 10 years, making them less familiar with the reliability factors.
However, if you reckon that you want to buy a budget-type inverter, then, of course, go for the Chinese inverter provided that the company should give you a minimum of 10 years warranty along with pre and post-sale customer service at no or little cost. In that case, the Growatt Inverter Company can be your reliable choice. You may consider purchasing cost-effective inverters like 5000MTL-S or 5500MTL-S.
How responsive is their customer service and how to find them?
Although originated in China, Growatt has the finest-dedicated team to serve you globally, as well as domestically to provide any maintenance and technical support. You may have seen how most of the Wi-Fi companies handle your complaints by diagnosing your internet system remotely.
Likewise, Growatt’s OSS (Online Smart Service) diagnoses and monitors your inverter’s faults remotely. In this way, they can solve at least 60% of problems to enhance the client’s satisfaction, increasing compliances. It is incredibly time-saving and requires no labour cost.
Australian office has knowledgeable experts who can provide you with the necessary information regarding any query. The Growatt Australian support number is 02 8065 1298 or 1800 476 928
Warranty of Growatt inverter
Any range of inverter of Growatt comes with a 5-years warranty, covering the cost for labor and parts. However, you can register at Growatt warranty extension form to extend your warranty for an extra 5 years, providing you a total of 10 years. Bear in mind that Growatt doesn’t cover the warranty if you place your inverter directly under the sunlight.
Growatt is very transparent and direct when it comes to warranty. They will either dispatch their labors on-site straightway or tell you that they haven’t got the spare components to replace your faulty products. However, when they replace your inverter with a new one, they send the faulty one to China for further research and study to improve their quality and compliance.
When you receive your replaced products, don’t forget that it won’t give you any additional 10 years, but rather, it will count precisely from the date when you installed the products as long as it’s in the 10-years warranty. The good news is that the new “S” series and the “TL-X” series will come with a standard 5+5 years warranty. It means that if you encounter any fault in the first 5 years, then you will be offered a replacement inverter free of cost.
If something happens in the second 5 years, then Growatt will replace your faulty one with a new one provided that it needs to have a swap overcharge. However, recently Growatt stated that they are trying to convince China to include swap over free with the original price to make it a whole deal for the 10 years warranty.
You have found all the coherent information here in this Growatt inverters review, but to get more up to date information, contact the local Growatt office.
How to do monitoring or prevent shading using Growatt inverter?
Usually, panel optimizers are used to prevent shading and amplify the produced electricity. Since the Growatt company doesn’t manufacture any power optimizer on its own, they recommend you use their half-cell panels to subside the shading problem. In this Growatt inverters review, we won’t go deeper into the half-cell panels topic, but the main concept is simple.
Half-cell panels involve cutting the entire panel into smaller pieces to make them weigh less. For example, each cell in 72 or 60 cells is cut into half to make them 144 or 120 half-cut cells to reduce the marginal error as the smaller cells tend to have less mechanical error. Therefore, restrictive losses are less, and cracking is prevented. Hence, you will have better performance in your solar system without relying too much on your inverter.
Issue about Growatt that could have been improved
PVEL (PV Evolution Labs), supported by the DNV GL, is an independent testing solar panel reliability test which also had started to test inverter since 2019, and their testing method is very accurate and acceptable worldwide.
To do the testing, the manufacturer has to pay the fees to get included, but unfortunately, Growatt didn’t appear on the list only due to their reluctance to pay the fees. Had they done it sooner, the customers would have more faith in their products.
Most Popular Growatt Inverter Series Available In Australia
TL-X (2500~6000) Series
- Efficiency varies between 98.2-98.4%
- 3-6kW, maximum efficiency up to 45 degC
- They are all lightweight and compact, weighing 10.8kg
- They are all IP65 certified
- Dual MPP trackers
- Type II SPD on DC side
- Touch key and OLED display
- Interfaces: RS485/USB/Wi-Fi/4G/RF supported
- They all come with 5 years warranty with additional 5 years warranty
Price is approximately $1,10. For non-battery inverter, option to install optional smart meter for extra $300. By spending extra $600 in installing Growatt BDC adaptor, you can install Growatt 6kWh battery worth $3,650, saving at least half of the cost compared against installing LG Chem 7kWh battery ($6,400). They are all single-phase 5kW inverter. However, the new 6000TL-X is a 6kW single phase inverter.
Growatt MIC (750~3300) TL-X Series
- Efficiency ranges from 97.4 to 97.6%
- 0.7-3kW, Max efficiency up to 45 degC
- They are all single-phase inverters with 1 MPPT
- Touch button and OLED display
- Very compact and lighter, weighing 6-6.2kg
- Transformerless
- IP65 protected
- Nighttime power consumption is below 0.5W
- Interfaces: RS485/USB/Wi-Fi/4G/RF supported
- They all come with 5 years warranty with additional 5 years warranty
Hybrid SPH (3000~6000) Series
- Efficiency ranges from 97.5 to 97.7%
- 3-6kW, Dual MPP trackers
- Anti-islanding protected, IP65 protected
- LCD and LED compatibility
- It’s quite heavy, weighing 27kg
- Interfaces: RS232/RS485/CAN/USB
- Option for Monitor: RF/WIFI/GPRS
- They all come with 5 years warranty with additional 5 years warranty
In conclusion, it can be said that Growatt, although affordable and owning some drawbacks, can still be your best solar inverter if you choose the right model suitable for your solar system. In this Growatt inverters review, we tried to lay bare all the essential information starting from the capacity, features, downsides to all the major updates, transformation, designs, warranty, and uniqueness of each individual series to you. If you still have any questions regarding this inverter, then do get back to us in the comment section below.
