GE solar inverters reviews

GE is a huge multinational company with its fingers in many, many pies - including solar inverters.

The firm has also been heavily involved with new build coal power, but in 2020 announced it intended exiting that market and increase focus on its renewable energy and gas power generation businesses. 

GE had some skin in the residential solar inverter game pretty early on in the rooftop PV revolution through GE Power Controls - the SVT series. How long these units were produced for isn't clear, but we've seen documents showing they were available in 2009. GE Power Controls was wound up in 2015. 

The company has also been manufacturing central inverters for solar farms continuously for some years and elsewhere in the renewable space, producing wind turbines.

In 2020, GE announced Chinese inverter company GoodWe would be producing GE-branded devices for the residential and commercial market. 

In 2021, the first GE solar inverters became available in Australia:

• GEP 3 to 5kW, 2 MPPT, single-phase 
• GEP 5 to 10kW, 3 MPPT, single-phase
• GEP 29.9 to 60kW, up to 6 MPPT, three-phase.

These were followed by GEH 8.5/10kW hybrid inverters that feature 4MPPTs, less than 10ms switch over time, and full back-up capability. The 10kW is one of the largest single phase hybrid inverters currently available on the market.

2023 saw the launch of 3-phase inverters in the range of 5/8/10/15/20kW (2 MPPTs).

Just on multiple MPPTs - this is a particularly good feature as it provides greater flexibility for roof layouts and working with different module types.

GoodWe vs. GE - What's The Difference?

GoodWe has a reputation for building good quality budget inverters and has produced millions of them, so that's encouraging - as is GE's long history that dates back to the 1800's.

But these GE solar inverters aren't just re-badged units. They are built to GE specifications and have few differences besides the design; for example, the availability of a 5kW single phase inverter with 3 MPPTs and a few bells and buzzers such as Smart Shadow Scan that GE says minimises the impact of partial shading.

GE Solar Inverter Warranty

The standard product warranty on GE solar inverters is 5 years, but extended to 10 years if connected to GE's monitoring portal.

GE's inverter business has a local presence in Australia (North Sydney), but warranty work is carried out by GoodWe, which has an office in Melbourne.

As this is still quite a new inverter line for Australia, we haven't seen/heard a lot of feedback from either installers or customers. If you're a local owner, please leave a review and share your thoughts on your GE solar inverter with other Australians considering a purchase.