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. One of their solar inverters is for single-phase residential use and has a built-in EV charger but this page is about the stand alone SolarEdge Home EV Charger.
The stand-out feature of the SolarEdge Home EV Charger is that it's 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.
Single Phase
It's a single-phase charger. As most homes only have single-phase power, this is usually not a drawback. If you have 3-phase power you can still install a single-phase EV charger. It supplies up to 7.4 kilowatts (kW) of 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 all 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 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. I don't know why the warranty is so short when SolarEdge is happy to give their inverter that has a built in EV charger a 12 year warranty. 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're being short-changed Down Under.
Cost
Like most smart EV chargers it's not cheap. At the time of writing, the SolarEdge charger is likely to set you back around $1,900. Installation will add considerably to the cost. While a basic EV charger installation may only cost a few hundred dollars, the SolarEdge Home EV Charger installation will usually involve setting it up to communicate with a SolarEdge inverter and this makes it more complicated. You are likely to be charged over $800 for installation and it could be considerably more.
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
Filter by:
SolarEdge Reviews (21)
Show Most Relevant reviews from All time
- 5 star 12
- 4 star 8
- 3 star 1
- 2 star 0
- 1 star 0
View Timeline
09 October 2024
16 October 2024
06 September 2024
23 July 2024
An incentive was offered by Select Electrical and Solar Solutions Pty Ltd for this review. Learn more here.
08 July 2024
21 May 2024
16 June 2024
21 August 2024
11 July 2024
08 July 2023
02 June 2024
11 May 2024
Can be set to use excess solar only or to charge from the grid.
24 April 2024
11 January 2024
There is a simple to use app and good alignment through the app between inverter functions and car charging functions.
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! :-)
04 September 2023
21 August 2023
07 August 2023