Five Star Energy solar inverters reviews

Solar Consultants Brisbane - also known as Five Star Energy - went into liquidation in 2014. It provided re-badged JFY inverters.

Contact Details

As the firm went kaput more than a decade ago, there are no contact details for the firm. But you can try contacting JFY for support (and good luck with that).

Company Info

Five Star Energy/Solar Consultants Brisbane, shut their doors in November 2014. The exact reasons why are somewhat lost in the mists of time, but the company reportedly paid its subcontractors very little, which encourages shortcuts to be taken and installation quality to suffer. On the hardware front, the firm offered a number of inverter and panel brands, most of which were in the cheap and nasty category - and that included Five Star Energy branded inverters.

Just as an indicator of inverter quality, in March 2018, a JFY unit failed Clean Energy Council testing against AS 4777-2 (Passive Anti-islanding test and other issues). Considering this representative of all JFY solar inverters, all its inverters were de-listed from the CEC's Approved Products List. The company appealed, the inverter re-tested and failed again - so the appeal was denied.

This means that JFY inverters could no longer be used in new grid-connect installations in Australia and they were no longer eligible for inclusion in a system benefiting from Australia's solar panel rebate.

Warranty Information

Five Star Energy inverters were covered by JFY's 5-year warranty, such as it was. Given how long the company has been out of business, there would no longer be any units covered by warranty in Australia. And if yours is having problems, it's hardly worth getting it fixed. Before your next purchase, check out my guide to choosing solar inverters - there are some very good quality budget-priced inverters available in Australia.