An inverter is the one piece of equipment you cannot easily change later. Panels can be replaced and a battery can be expanded, but the inverter has to match both, sit correctly against your switchboard and handle your backup circuit. Getting it wrong is expensive.
Every hybrid inverter we install does three jobs in one box: it converts solar into usable power, it charges a battery, and it keeps the house running when the grid goes down. We fit SolaX and Sungrow units because both publish Australian warranty terms and maintain local support, rather than figures that only apply in another country.
Single phase or three phase: the decision that matters most
Most Australian homes are single phase, including almost all of Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Check your switchboard — if it has a single main switch, you are single phase.
| Single phase | Three phase | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical household | Most Brisbane and Gold Coast homes, and newer Ipswich estates | Larger homes, heavy air conditioning, pool plus EV, some older Ipswich properties |
| Output | One live phase | Balanced across three phases |
| When it matters | Standard household loads | When your loads are large and running at the same time — ducted air conditioning, EV charging and a pool pump together |
Three phase spreads load across all three phases, which reduces the current on any single one. That is what your network connection is sized against. If you do not have three phase now, a single-phase system with a sensibly sized inverter is the right route.
SolaX X1-Hybrid G4 — single phase, 5 kW
- 5 kW rated AC output with 2 MPPT trackers
- Accepts up to 10 kW of DC input — up to 150% PV oversizing
- MPPT range 70–550 V, maximum DC input 500 V, maximum DC current 16 A
- Level 3 whole-home backup with automatic switchover on outage
- Full-load operation down to −30 °C
- Built-in Wi-Fi for SolaX Cloud monitoring, no extra hardware needed
- IP65 rated, 10-year warranty from installation
Best for: the standard single-phase home that wants solar now and a battery in a few years. Buying the hybrid from day one avoids replacing a string inverter later, which is the expensive way to add storage.
SolaX X3-Hybrid G4 — three phase, 5 / 8 / 10 / 15 kW
- Two MPPT trackers
- Up to 20 kW of DC input on the 10 kW and 15 kW models
- Level 3 whole-home backup
- IP65, built-in Wi-Fi, 10-year warranty from installation
Best for: three-phase homes with substantial simultaneous loads. Size it by phase behaviour rather than kilowatt rating — 5 kW suits modest loads, 10 kW and above suit heavy air conditioning plus EV charging.
SolaX X1-VAST — single phase, 5 / 8 / 10 kW
- Four MPPT trackers — the most inputs available on any single-phase hybrid in this class
- Up to 20 kW of DC input on the 10 kW model
- V2G and V2H ready for smart home integration and bidirectional EV charging
- VPP ready, speaking OpenADR, IEEE 2030.5 and FCAS
- Smart Schedule and Smart Scene with 24/7 time-of-use support
- IP66 rated, whole-home backup without additional devices
- 5-year standard warranty, extendable on registration
Best for: roofs that are not a simple rectangle. If your roof has a dormer, a second pitch, a west-facing section or late-afternoon shading, four trackers give every panel its own channel and let it harvest what it can. Two trackers would leave part of your array idle for most of the day.
Sungrow SH-RS and SH-RT — single and three phase
- Single-phase SH-RS and three-phase SH-RT hybrid ranges
- Pairs with the Sungrow SBR battery platform, 9.6 to 25.6 kWh, modular
- Whole-home backup through the inverter, switching in under 10 milliseconds
- 10-year warranty from installation
Best for: households already running a Sungrow system, or who want a brand with a long Australian track record and a local office. Note that the SBR battery requires a compatible Sungrow hybrid inverter — it cannot be added to a non-Sungrow inverter without replacing it.
Battery compatibility is not optional thinking
Most home batteries sold in Australia are DC-coupled, which means they need a compatible hybrid inverter to work. This is the most common surprise for people comparing quotes:
- SolaX Triple Power batteries require a SolaX X1 or X3 hybrid inverter.
- Sungrow SBR batteries require a Sungrow hybrid inverter.
If you are building solar now and considering storage in two or three years, the inverter decision is really a battery decision made early. Get it wrong and adding a battery later means replacing the inverter too — an extra few thousand dollars.
How we size the system, and in what order
- Your actual usage curve, taken from a bill rather than an average. Households vary enormously in shape, not just in total.
- Roof area, orientation, pitch and shading — this caps how many panels you can physically fit.
- Array size, then the inverter that matches it, allowing for reasonable oversizing.
- Evening load — this determines battery capacity. In Queensland, peak tariffs run 30–45 c/kWh between roughly 4pm and 9pm, and that window is where storage pays.
Oversizing the array is deliberate, not an error
A 5 kW inverter will happily accept 10 kW of panels. That is intentional on our part. A slightly oversized array costs very little extra in racking and labour, earns more across the year, and keeps the inverter spending more time near its efficient operating point rather than clipped. The real constraint is roof space, not inverter capacity.
Why CEC accreditation is not paperwork
Small-scale Technology Certificates are created only for systems designed and installed by a Clean Energy Council accredited installer. This is not a quality badge bolted on afterwards — it is the mechanism the federal discount runs through.
Use an unaccredited operator and there is no discount at all, however good the price looked. Manufacturer warranties also commonly require accredited installation and are void otherwise. Ask for the accreditation number and check it before you sign.
Questions worth asking any installer
- What is your CEC accreditation number?
- Is my battery compatible with this inverter, or will I need to replace the inverter to add storage later?
- Why this inverter model for my roof and usage — and what would you change?
- Will you itemise the federal discount as a separate line on the quote?
- Does your workmanship warranty cover the installation itself, and for how long?
- What battery size do you expect, and how did you arrive at that number?
1300 712 020 | Brisbane, Gold Coast & Ipswich
SolaX and Sungrow hybrid inverters, fitted by CEC-accredited installers with a 10-year workmanship warranty.