SMA Solar Inverters
A look at SMA’s single phase Sunny Boy and three phase Sunny Tripower solar inverters.
Fronius is one of the most highly-regarded (and oldest!) brands in the renewable energy industry.
Originally founded in Austria in 1945 and specialising in batteries and welding, they also eventually started producing solar inverters and still specialise in those three technologies today.
You won’t find many people in the renewable energy industry that would have a bad thing to say about Fronius. Their solar inverters are extremely high quality and still produced in Austria (not Australia!) today.
It’s also nice to see that Fronius seems to be focussed on ‘doing as they say’ when it comes to sustainability, with only renewable energy being used for manufacturing and 100% recycled aluminium being used for the heat sinks in GEN24 inverters.
Fronius has an Australian sales and support office in Melbourne with team members in the field around the country. One of their big selling points is the ability to send and repair/replace individual solar inverter components in the field, as opposed to removing the whole assembly to send to them.
It could be argued that Fronius’ premium price point for their solar inverters has presented a challenge for them in terms of retaining their market share in Australia in the face of many much cheaper Asian competitors.
Despite facing such competition from these cheaper solar inverter brands, they still have a strong local following and great onshore support. Installers love the product and many will not recommend anything else when it comes to choosing an inverter.
The GEN24 and GEN24 Plus are Fronius’ all new solar inverters that supercede the extremely popular Snap inverter range. Cosmetically, they’re a bit ‘different’ looking compared to the old grey Snap inverters, with the very prominent front ‘active cooling’ fan and a lighter coloured case.
Both the GEN24 and GEN24 Plus are hybrid inverters, meaning adding a battery is a breeze. This brings us to the main difference between the two models - put simply, the GEN24 Plus offers backup power supply for the whole house if a battery is fitted, whereas the GEN24 only has what Fronius call PVPoint, where a small amount of power is available from one powerpoint available during a blackout.
PVPoint is still a cool feature and probably worth having if you aren’t planning on getting a battery any time soon. That said, if you’re looking to get a battery but unsure which model you’ll get, the GEN24 Plus is likely the safer bet.
In terms of warranty, it comes with Fronius standard 5+5 (ie. 10 year) warranty for registered users - simply pop your details in the website after install. In the unlikely event you have a warranty issue with your inverter, Fronius’ Australian support usually makes claims relatively straightforward, with individual components readily available for repairs in the field without removing the inverter altogether.
In Fronius’ terminology, a Primo inverter is a single phase model inverter. A Symo is a three phase inverter. In many instances a single phase inverter is perfectly fine to use on a three-phase property and does not affect your savings benefit whatsoever.
The largest single phase Primo inverter available is 10kW. Beyond this, the range is exclusively Symo three phase inverters.
Primo GEN24 3.0 3kW
Primo GEN24 3.6 (3.6kW)
Primo GEN24 4.0 (4kW)
Primo GEN24 4.6 (4.6kW)
Primo GEN24 5.0 (5kW)
Primo GEN24 6.0 (6kW)
Primo GEN24 8.0 (8kW)
Primo GEN24 10.0 (10kW)
Primo GEN24 Plus 3.0 3kW
Primo GEN24 Plus 3.6 (3.6kW)
Primo GEN24 Plus 4.0 (4kW)
Primo GEN24 Plus 4.6 (4.6kW)
Primo GEN24 Plus 5.0 (5kW)
Primo GEN24 Plus 6.0 (6kW)
Symo GEN24 3.0 (3kW)
Symo GEN24 4.0 (4kW)
Symo GEN24 5.0 (5kW)
Symo GEN24 6.0 (6kW)
Symo GEN24 8.0 (8kW)
Symo GEN24 10.0 (10kW)
Symo GEN24 Plus 3.0 (3kW)
Symo GEN24 Plus 4.0 (4kW)
Symo GEN24 Plus 5.0 (5kW)
Symo GEN24 Plus 6.0 (6kW)
Symo GEN24 Plus 8.0 (8kW)
Symo GEN24 Plus 10.0 (10kW)