Review for Enphase Energy

09/14/2016
Anonymous

do not buy

I had an excellent installer put in 19 panels with m250 inverters. The installation was excellent, in a difficult location in the city. In every way I am very pleased with the installer. I have the technical knowledge and experience in electric and electronic equipment to make this statement. NOTHING wrong with the installer or his installation.<br /> The installer has since cancelled his account with Enphase because of so many failures(they were working just fine for him, then suddenly he had failures all over the place). One "customer service" tech was extremely rude to him over a customer who simply could not get internet service by any method and that was the final straw for the installer. <br /> I am entirely qualified to be a self maintainer. Changing a microinverter is a 5 minute job with my ground mounted rack. Getting the Enphase technician to change the inverter serial number in their monitoring equipment is a huge headache. about 5 days trying to get ahold of them with NO results. <br /><br /> In 4 years 4 inverters failed, 2 this year alone. <br /> Between NO customer support, and a product that fails so often, this is a product no one needs to purchase.<br /> If this fails on your roof, you have to pay a installer to change it out. Yes, the inverter has a 25 year warranty, but you still have to pay a installer to change it out.<br /> Putting electronics out in the weather, particularly in cold climates and on roofs or other expensive to get to locations is the last place you want them. Increased failure rate and expensive to get to in order to replace them. <br /> As long as I can get these inverters replaced by Enphase, I will continue using them. My future plan is to throw them away and go to a central inverter when I can afford it, and am forced to. <br /> Go to the Edison Electric Institute site, and on their documents section look for "disruptivechallenges.pdf". This document describes the absolute intolerance of electric utilities for grid tied solar. <br /> The future of solar electric is NOT grid tied. Which also means that the Enphase microinverter is a dead duck. Look at all the ways utilities are now attacking anything to do with net metering and distributed generation. The above document lays out their manifesto in graphic detail.<br /> Again DO NOT BUY Enphase microinverters. Unreliable, rotten customer service and a product that is already obsolete.