Alpha-ESS review

Alpha-ESS - Battery Reviews

4.5

Based on 35 ratings

Finn's Alpha-ESS Batteries Review & Verdict

Finn Peacock has been a Chartered Electrical Engineer since 1998, and is ex-CSIRO

Alpha ESS make some of the cheapest battery systems approved for grid connection in Australia. If price is your only criteria when buying a battery system, then they are an option. But in my opinion, a low, low price should never be your only criteria when buying a home battery.

Feedback on Alpha ESS batteries from customers generally falls into two camps: 1) The battery is installed and working and they are happy with how little it cost. 2) They have had problems and are rather frustrated.

If I was looking for a cheaper battery, I'd personally choose to pay a bit more and get a Sungrow.

Alpha-ESS Batteries: Pros & Cons

  • The low price point.
  • A nice looking battery. Everything is behind a unified façade which comes away easily to make for neat installation and easier servicing.
  • The cover arrangement lets you remove a whole brick from the wall and so feasibly run cables in a wall cavity.
  • Models available for DC coupled solar, with blackout protection and "black start" if you run the battery flat overnight.
  • Popularity means they're likely supported by (Virtual Power Plants) VPPs or power-sharing software.
  • Warranty support is proven and acknowledged to be embarrassingly lacklustre.
  • Some AlphaESS models have dismal surge capacity during a blackout.
  • Some models don't offer blackout protection.
  • "Some models" means there's a lot of different options to be confused with.
  • Technical support is poor in our experience.
  • Proper monitoring requires two consumption meters in many cases.
  • Review ratings are in the low four-stars (but trending better).
  • At the bottom end of the market in terms of price, they are more likely to be sold by shonks who don't offer decent after-sales support. Choose your installer wisely!

About Alpha-ESS

Energy storage manufacturer Alpha ESS was established in 2012. A Chinese company, it has offices in Australia, the UK, Germany and Italy.

In Australia, the main Alpha-ESS product line is the Storion SMILE5. This is an all-in-one unit, meaning the system includes batteries, a battery management system (BMS) and an inverter.

The battery modules used in the Storion SMILE5 are lithium iron phosphate chemistry; widely considered the safest type of lithium ion battery technology.  As far as we're aware, Alpha-ESS still sources battery modules from another Chinese company, EVE, which has been in the battery business since 2001. 

The Storion SMILE5 range is available in various capacities and AC/DC/Hybrid coupling options are available. As for power output, the SMILE5 series offers 5kW. This unit does have blackout protection capabilities.

Alpha ESS Warranty

The Alpha ESS SMILE 5 has 10-year product warranty on the batteries themselves, but the balance of the system only has five years warranty.

The performance warranty for Alpha ESS solar batteries guarantees a minimum of 80% of their original capacity after 10 years, assuming the system is connected to the internet and is only used for self-consumption. If the system is not internet connected, the warranty plummets to three years. 

If the system is used for purposes other than self-consumption, assumed to include use as part of a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), the warranty will expire earlier - when total energy of 2.92MWh per kWh of usable capacity has been dispatched from the battery.

As for how strong the warranty backing is, we're aware of a situation where an Australian customer battled for months with Alpha ESS over a Storion OF5 warranty claim; which resulted in the owner sending a letter of complaint to the ACCC and Office of Fair Trading. 

If you're an Alpha-ESS battery owner, we'd really appreciate you adding your review by clicking the button towards the top of this page.

Alpha-ESS has 5 solar batteries in our database

Filter by:

Battery Type 
Usable Storage 
Power 
All-In-One unit 
Off-grid capable 
Product Name
Approx Price
Battery Type
Usable Storage Capacity
Power
All-In-One unit
Off-grid capable
Alpha-ESS SMILE-B3-PLUS
$4,000
Lithium-ion (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
4.79 kWh
3 kW
Yes
No
+ More details
Alpha-ESS SMILE5 10.1 kWh
$7,458
Lithium-ion (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
9.07 kWh
5 kW
Yes
Yes (back-up built in)
+ More details
Alpha-ESS SMILE5 13.3 kWh
$9,372
Lithium-ion (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
13.3 kWh
5 kW
Yes
Yes (back-up built in)
+ More details
Alpha-ESS G3 10.1 kWh
$8,500
Lithium-ion (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
9.6 kWh
5 kW
Yes
Yes (back-up built in), Can communicate with Generator
+ More details
Alpha-ESS T10
$10,692
Lithium-ion (Lithium Iron Phosphate)
7.8 kWh
10 kW
Yes
Yes (back-up built in)
+ More details

Load more batteries Collapse batteries table

 

Alpha-ESS Reviews (35)

Show Most Relevant reviews from All time

  • 5 star 27
  • 4 star 5
  • 3 star 0
  • 2 star 0
  • 1 star 3

View Timeline

Stopped needing to feed in from the grid.

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW
Go the biggest battery you can up to 30kw for a 3 bedroom house

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW

Installed By

Green.com.au QLD

Installed By

Best Solar and Batteries

An incentive was offered by Green for this review. Learn more here.

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW

Installed By

Kozco Energy Group
Just love seeing the impact it has on our energy bills.

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW
Very efficient and quiet system! Easy to monitor?

Installed By

Green Solar

Installed By

All Green Environmental Solutions

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential VIC

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential VIC

An incentive was offered by Smart Energy Group for this review. Learn more here.

Even though initially it’s expensive

The value of this wonderful product will enhance my life & also for maybe future residents of this house

But right now I’m not going anywhere

Installed By

Smart Energy Group
We have only had the battery for the last 6 months or so, which was purchased and installed by Solar Battery Group but it has had a good effect on our bills as well, lowering them further by allowing us to use the solar energy generated during the day to get us through the peak period between 5pm and 7pm

Panel Brand

Tindo Solar solar panel review

Installed By

Steve Torpy Electrical and Security and Coastal Solar Solutions

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW

Installed By

Smart Energy Group
We installed an alpha ess smile 5 inverter and 13.3kwh battery in September 2022. It has consistently delivered returns, with no issues. This installation added two more 13.3 batteries.

Installed By

AR Energy Consulting SA

Installed By

Smart Energy Group

Panel Brand

LONGi Solar solar panel review

Installed By

RESINC Solar

Panel Brand

LONGi Solar solar panel review

Installed By

Best Solar and Batteries
Works great!! Love it!!

Panel Brand

Winaico solar panel review

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential NSW

Panel Brand

LONGi Solar solar panel review

Installed By

RESINC Solar

Panel Brand

LONGi Solar solar panel review

Installed By

RESINC Solar

Panel Brand

LONGi Solar solar panel review

Installed By

RESINC Solar

Panel Brand

Jinko Solar solar panel review

Installed By

Incredible Solar

Panel Brand

Jinko Solar solar panel review

Installed By

Brightworks Solar Pty Ltd

Panel Brand

Jinko Solar solar panel review

Installed By

Iconic Solar

Installed By

Green.com.au Residential VIC

Panel Brand

LONGi Solar solar panel review

Installed By

RESINC Solar
We bought a house with two Alpha Smile G3-S5 installed with 20 kWh capacity. Four weeks in and we have had 4 faults with this system that has taken multiple reminder phone calls from myself to keep the tickets moving. Each fault lasts a couple of days. Also, their battery backup system involves going to the switchboard and turning it on after the power goes out! In our last house, we had a Powerwall 2 installed and the difference in engineering and quality is significant and if this keeps up I will be seeing if there is a second-hand market for house batteries. My advice - don't buy these. They may be cheap but batteries that don't work most of the time are no good to anyone. Also, the help line is only open from 9am to 1pm Monday to Friday!
Connected via a Goodwe AC-Coupled GW5000s-BP. Used to avoid peak power rates 3-9pm in a fully electrified home, charged mostly from solar but occasionally from grid in winter on a bad day. An installation issue found after a few weeks was quickly rectified. Has run faultlessly for over 3 years since then, no issues whatsoever. My only suggested improvement would be for a software enhancement to automatically switch to grid charge if solar has not been able to fully charge by a selected time.
Installed 6kw system with Smile5 AlphaESS 5kw Inverter plus 10kw Alpha battery. The solar feeding to the inverter in two separate strings (PV1 & PV2). Total cost $13,440 installed.
System installed March 10th 2023.
Took several weeks for Alpha to finalise paperwork in the background which meant we were not getting paid for feed-in.
I compared production to projected estimates and identified that production was substantially lower than it should have been. It took Alpha a bit more than a month to identify that on July 15th one string stopped working meaning about half of our solar production never reached the inverter.
It took 86 days for AlphaESS to replace the inverter, during which we were drawing from the grid when we should not have needed to.
It was June 2024 and again the production was well below projections (April May and June on average 25% below projections). I have raised this with both the retailer (Solar Link Australia) and AlphaESS requesting the PV production of the two strings for 2024 ytd to be able to see if both strings are working properly.
The retailer just wants to engage in a disagreement about what PV production should be possible (bearing in mind I am just comparing actual production to Solar Link Australia own projections!), whilst AlphaESS just ignore service tickets raised. Now the information I have requested would take less than 5 minutes to provide. It is just a matter of downloading the data (which has already been systemically recorded) into an excel spreadsheet (X 2) and emailing it to me.

I know that in Australia we have Australian Consumer Law protection.
But in reality its a toothless tiger and it will require the engagement of a lawyer at my own cost to pursue this.

In summary.
The equipment has been unreliable and substandard.
The service from the retailer/installer has been beyond disappointing.
The back up support and service from AlphaESS is literally non-existent.

Knowing what I know now, if I could wind the clock back I would never use Solar Link Australia, nor would I accept AlphaESS hardware to be included in any system.
The system may work for simple out of the box solutions, however not for us. It trips multiple times a day due to overcurrent, and if we remove circuits as recommended we lose our fridge, freezer, lights and garage doors - all needed in power outages. We can't heat our home because it trips out. We can't wash dishes and clothes because it trips out. And it doesn't balance the phase loads as promised - because it's not fit for our installation. Would not install again.
The install is now 9 months old, but unfortunately I had ongoing issues for the first 6 months.

I reported the issue to both AlphaESS (via the installer) and to Amber (the electricity retailer) on a number of occasions, and as always happens they were both pointing the finger at the other.

The issue from week 1 was the battery would decide to discharge at a trickle and import from the grid instead, this would typically happen weekly, at random intervals for a varied amount of time. I was lucky to even notice it at times. So
I set up alerts and logging in Home Assistant to be able to prove the issue, at the same time turning off Amber SmartShift for a month to avoid finger pointing. With the logs in hand (and getting Anthony at SolarQuotes to be a second set of eyes) I then logging a ticket with AlphaESS... Lo and behold they admitted there was an issue and a firmware update was needed, a week later (after a false start) this finally happened. The system has now been fine for the past 2 months.

Moral of the story: As you can't always rely on the installer doing an update, log a ticket via the app and get AlphaESS to check/update the firmware as required at the first opportunity. Theres nothing lost by doing so.

AlphaESS are know to be a "challenge" for support in AU. What worked for me was: log a ticket in the app with as much info as you can, give them a few days to respond, when they don't, call the help line (which will go unanswered), send them an email saying you called, and then update the ticket with those actions. The good news is we got there in the end.

Since then, couldn't be happier. If you want modbus access for Home Assistant, make sure you get a wired LAN connection, WIFI won't cut it I'm told.

The battery will discharge at about 4.8kw, so its not an "all-of-house" system. Backup failover works seamlessly, however they only backup 1 light and 1 power breaker, just make sure they get the essentials (internet, entertainment, fridge). With a full battery, I can get approx 20 hours backup.
I had an Alpha ESS 13.3kw Smile 5 battery topped with the accompanying 5kw hybrid battery inverter that comes with the battery. This was installed in September 2023 and AC coupled to our existing Solar PV that was installed in 2019. As our home is over 100 metres from the power pole we needed to run 2 cables for power to our switchboard but that was good,as our power is then dual phase (2 single phases) as so we were able to push out twice the allowed exports and this was handy. We also have no real North facing PV and so we have 6.6kw as 2 strings of panels on East and West facing roofs and these were coupled to 2 x 3kw Fronius Primo snap inverters. So, the process of getting the battery installed was a little interesting in as much as some retailers would not install the battery unless we doubled or added new panels as a way to provide sufficient power for the battery, many did not like our choice and would only offer their choice of battery and others would only provide a Tesla, Sonnen or other battery citing the Alpha as not being suited or their choice in our application. Many suggested we would not be able to fill it in any low light or overcast day and that for 3 or more months a year we would have no battery at all.. So, after we examined arbitrage and load shifting options, we chose the Alpha and it has been fantastic, in Winter and low light days, I simply top up the battery using off peak power and use that at a reduced rate in peak hours rather than pulling from the grid.. Sometimes I have used 1 kw or less peak power for a month or so and my off peak power is low. Basically, with my own self use, filling the mattery each day, I still manage to send some feed in to the grid..
Load more reviews
X
 To get your quotes, please enter your postcode: