Finn's SolarEdge EV Chargers Review & Verdict
Finn Peacock has been a Chartered Electrical Engineer since 1998, and is ex-CSIRO
SolarEdge is a big company in the solar world. If you've got a SolarEdge inverter, get a SolarEdge EV Charger. It's a no-brainer. They can talk to each other out of the box and that will make your life easier.
SolarEdge EV Chargers: Pros & Cons
- Part of a quality ecosystem
- Good integration including dynamic solar harvesting
- Not seamless with all EVs. For example, currently there are issues with Tesla Model Y, awaiting a firmware update
About SolarEdge
SolarEdge is a large solar inverter manufacturing company with headquarters in Israel. In addition to inverters and home batteries they also sell Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers. If you have an EV or plan to get one, this device will let you charge it far faster than a normal power point.
The SolarEdge Home EV Charger is smart. This means it can be set to charge a car with only surplus solar energy that otherwise would have been sent into the grid for a feed-in tariff. But to take advantage of this feature it will need to be paired with a SolarEdge inverter.
I'll quickly outline the features of the SolarEdge Home EV Charger below.
Single Phase
It's a single-phase charger. If you have 3-phase power this may be a drawback, but most homes have single-phase power so this will be all they need. It supplies up to 7.4 kilowatts (kW) of charging power.
Charging Times
At its full 7.4kW output, with typical losses, it can fully charge a flat 50kWh battery in around 7.5 hours. The average car is driven less than 40km a day, so a daily average of under one hour of charging is that's required to keep the typical EV topped up.
Smart
When combined with a SolarEdge inverter and energy meter, the EV charger can use only surplus solar to charge your car. This allows for low-cost charging with clean energy. The effective cost per kWh will be equal to your solar feed-in tariff.
Installation Location
Like almost all EV chargers, SolarEdge's can be installed indoors or outdoors. It's made to be wall mounted but can also be placed on a pole.
Cable Length
Unlike some EV chargers, it comes with a charging cable. At 7.6m it's longer than most. This extra length is convenient if the vehicle you want to charge is behind the one parked in front of the charger.
Warranty Length
Its warranty is only three years. While not long, it's still better than 2 years some EV chargers have. But what gets my goat is SolarEdge sells an identical looking EV charger in the US with a 5-year warranty. This makes me feel as though we've had our trousers changed by Peter Dinklage -- short-changed Down Under.
Cost
Like most smart EV chargers it's not cheap. At the time of writing, the SolarEdge one is likely to set you back around $2,000 or potentially more including installation. Looking on the bright side, if you can afford a new electric car there's a good chance you can also afford a high-end charger.
If you want to check out the SolarEdge Home EV Charger's tech specs and compare it to others on the market, that's what the SolarQuotes EV Charger Comparison Table is for.
While the warranty isn't long given its price, SolarEdge generally makes reliable products, so I would expect -- or at least hope -- that it will last well beyond the end of its warranty. If you have a SolarEdge inverter and energy meter or intend to get them, then a SolarEdge EV charger is definitely worth considering, so long as it's within your budget.
Because SolarEdge makes inverters and batteries we're happy to recommend, we're currently happy to recommend their EV charger, despite not yet having information on how they perform long term.
If you've purchased a SolarEdge EV charger and would like to leave a review, we'll be glad to have the extra information.
SolarEdge has 1 EV charger in our database
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SolarEdge Reviews (12)
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27 June 2024
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21 May 2024
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08 July 2023
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29 September 2023
Although it was quite expensive, I wanted to have an EV charger that integrated into the inverter and the SolarEdge app, so I could charge my Model Y from excess solar energy whenever possible.
My installer did a great job and have been very helpful, but from the start the SolarEdge 'solar excess' charging feature didn't work properly.
After several emails back and forth in May and June, between the myself, the installer and SolarEdge AU, I was told there was an issue specifically affecting Tesla Model Y's which means the solar excess feature didn't work, and a future SolarEdge firmware update would be released to fix the issue.
As this was over winter, with little excess solar, it wasn't a major issue. The SolarEdge EV charger worked well in normal mode, and the integration with the app is very good.
After waiting several months however, the SolarEdge firmware update was still not available as of September 2023 (as I write this review), but by luck Tesla updated their car software in August which seemed to resolve the problem.
To their credit, my installer offered to swap the charger for a Zappi charger at no cost to me back in May, either as a permanent replacement, or until SolarEdge released the firmware.
I didn't take this up at the time as it seemed a little unfair to burden them with this cost when it's not their fault, and I would have preferred for SolarEdge to release the firmware update.
Now that the whole thing is working properly, I'm pretty happy overall. Time will tell if it's worth paying a premium for SolarEdge, which I hope translates to reliability and longevity. The 'Solar Excess' mode works well and the app integration is good, however the responsiveness from SolarEdge AU was mediocre. They did get back to me promptly, but couldn't really do much to fix the issue, which is probably because the firmware is produced elsewhere and the local AU team have no ability to influence this.
In hindsight, I should have had the EV charger installed at the same time as the inverter, as this would have saved me some money on installation costs.
Knowing that I am charging my EV using my own excess solar is very cool, and watching it all happen on a single, integrated, slick app is great. I'm not totally sure that this is worth the premium over a dumb charger, but it's too late to have regrets now! :-)
11 January 2024
There is a simple to use app and good alignment through the app between inverter functions and car charging functions.
24 April 2024
11 May 2024
Can be set to use excess solar only or to charge from the grid.
02 June 2024
16 June 2024
Easy to use.