Enphase Micro Inverters

This was a historic meeting as it began the discussions to bring Enphase micro inverters to Australia. REA Solar then began testing micro inverters and developing a roadmap here in Brisbane, Australia to reduce the capital cost and make them competitive with conventional solar inverter technology. As REA Solar were working with Enphase to get the product certified for use in Australia, we experimented with other micro inverter brands that were already certified here. REA Solar worked with many micro inverter manufacturers such as IEnergy, APS, Renesola and NSP, however, there were issues with the product mainly relating to the communication and monitoring platforms of the micro inverters. REA Solar were the only company in Australia and Brisbane at that time installing micro inverters so we had to problem solve a lot of the issues ourselves with the exception of APS who assisted in resolving the micro inverter development issues. This was due to the fact that string inverters only show you overall solar performance as the panels are connected in series, and the micro inverter gives you the ability to see the panel’s individual performance, so there is a lot more data to collect and display. In addition to this, reactive power control was introduced as a mandatory requirement and many micro inverter manufacturers could not get this feature to work.

Enphase, on the other hand, were the world leader in micro inverter technology, boasting the world's lowest failure rate for solar inverters and featured advanced technology that could easily deploy rapid shutdown and many other grid agnostic features. With no single point of failure in a microinverter system, overall reliability and product longevity are improved. Even if one panel or micro inverter were to become damaged or faulty, the rest of the solar panel system can continue to operate at full capacity.

In 2015, after years of rigorous testing in Australia, Enphase finally entered the Australian market and REA Solar became one of the first solar installation partners of Enphase in Australia and has now installed more Enphase micro inverter systems in Brisbane and Redlands City than any other solar company. REA Solar is the leading Platinum Installer for Enphase in Queensland and continues to work closely with the Enphase Engineering team to improve the micro inverter technology and maximise the solar performance from our industry leading solar panel systems.