China’s Sungrow launched its latest inverters and batteries for the Australian residential and commercial market at the Solar & Storage Live Australia event held in Brisbane last week.
Founded in 1997 by University Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow established a presence in the Australian market in 2012 and has earned a reputation here for good quality equipment at competitive pricing points that installers generally seem to like working with. While the company has been manufacturing inverters for decades, energy storage is a more recent addition.
And on that note …
SBH200-400 Battery
A high-voltage battery with Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) cells, the new SBH range starts out with the SBH200 as the base model. Boasting 20kWh useable capacity, it’s made up of four 5kWh modules, a battery management system (BMS) and offers a very respectable 14kW of power.
The dimensions of the SBH200 are 675mm x 900 mmm x 350 mm.
The SBH200 weighs in at 196 kilograms, with each 5kWh module weighing 45kg; light enough to be easily carried by two people. With no cabling between modules, adding extra is a simple task and another four can be added to a single unit; making it an SBH400 with 40 kWh of useable capacity and 28.16kW of power. Up to 4 units with 8 module stacks each can be in parallel, for a capacity of 160 kWh.
A datasheet for the SBH battery can be found here. As for how much these batteries will set you back, I wasn’t able to determine at the time of writing. But the cost of Sungrow’s other home battery that has proven popular, the SBR HV, is competitive. You can compare solar battery prices and specs here (SBH yet to be added).
SH Hybrid Three-Phase Inverter
Also launched locally at the Solar & Storage Live Australia event were Sungrow’s SH15/20/25T three-phase hybrid inverters: 15kW, 20kW and 25kW respectively. Sungrow says these units have a built-in 63A bypass for whole home backup and a 10 ms seamless switch.
An interesting feature of the SH is three independent Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPTs). If a home has solar panels on multiple roof areas facing different directions, a solar inverter with multiple MPPTs is often needed to maximise performance; unless the roof areas face east and west and the same number/capacity of panels are installed on each side. Most inverters have two MPPTs, but in the case of the SH (all models), there are three – which will be handy for complex roofs.
A datasheet for the SH range can be found here.
Commenting on the launch, Vice President of Sungrow APAC Joe Zhou said the new products were suitable for a wide range of applications.
“As the world increasingly turns to renewable sources of power, Sungrow remains at the forefront of innovation, committed to providing its customers with the most advanced and reliable solutions for a sustainable future.”
In other recent news from the company, the firm reported Sungrow inverter shipments eclipsed 130GW last year, bringing the company’s overall total to 515 GW as at December 2023. Sungrow battery shipments are ticking along, with 10.5GWh of batteries shipped in 2023.
About Michael Bloch
RSS - Posts
I went to the show, interesting. These Sungrow units seem to be a good thing. We are in a Rural Area and quite few people have Genset for back up power. For the price of a 10kVa generator you could put one these in and have both the backup and something that you can use at other times.
Hi Craig,
You make a really good point. Best thing about solar hybrids is that they’re always plugged in and you don’t have to be there to start it. Far more reliable than a generator in any case and capable of propping up a weak grid connection.
We even wrote about it recently. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/swer-solar-batteries/
cheers
Any detail’s of backup power capacity? The existing batteries are only 28A for backup, assuming these would be more?
The backup capabilities of the inverters are their rated capacity. (SH15T = 15kW, etc)
The batteries max discharge is 50A, and their maximum power output is based on their module size.
Looking to replace my 4 yr old inverter. 3phase.
I have 17.76kw of panels. 4 strings.
2 mppts
Can the 15kw inverter run with no string attached to the 3rd mppt? Or would I have to add some panels on that mppt. I can fit 6 facing west.
Hi Steve,
It’s mainly down to current ratings. While there’s no problem leaving an MPPT vacant, Sungrow aren’t always good for parallel strings compared to Fronius for instance.
What’s also important is getting the “voltage for rated power” correct. They have a broad operating window but getting full performance needs things to be well balanced and in a tighter range.
See this link.
Hi Anthony
Did Sungrow give any reason why the SBH batteries start at the 20 kWh model? Not everyone needs this size and would have been more interested if starting with SBH100, or even the SBH150 model.
Been told as per below quote the SH15T inverter will be restricted to 5kW maximum per phase. This is really disappointing as Sungrow themselves insinuated that it would be at least 50% in the video link below they released just last month:
“Our tech specialist has just confirmed that unfortunately these 3-phase inverters do not support phase sharing. The maximum draw per phase cannot exceed the rating of the phase. For example the 15kW model will allow a maximum draw of 5kW per phase.”
@Anthony the new inverters are compatible with the existing Sungrow SBR battery stacks.
We are looking to replace our existing two Sungrow single-phase inverters (master/slave setup paired with SBR battery stacks) with one of the new SH15T inverters and get whole home backup.
See page 32 of manual below:
https://info-support.sungrowpower.com/application/pdf/2024/05/13/SH5.0-25T-UEN-Ver13-202403.pdf
I have also confirmed with our local solar provider.
cheers
Thanks for that. Any update on when the AC Single Phase EV Charger will be available in Aus?