Deep Dive - Zeversolar Review
The very lightweight Zeverlution Inverter
The Clean Energy Reviews team met with the crew at Zeversolar Australia based in Docklands, Melbourne, which consists of a team of nine in total across Sales, Marketing and Service. We had an opportunity to speak with Dean Williamson (Sales Manager) and Bob Kostic (Technical Sales Manager) to get the low down on the Zeversolar product range, company structure, service process, and the question on everyone’s mind - what exactly is the relationship between Zeversolar and SMA?
Company Background
Zeversolar is a Chinese inverter manufacturer that came about after a merger between Zof (which made large central inverters) and Eversolar (a string inverter maker) in 2012. In early 2013, things got shaken up further when the SMA Group bought a majority share in the company. Zeversolar, at that point, was one of the largest inverter manufacturers in China, and SMA needed a Chinese partner in order to enter the fastest-growing domestic market. SMA now owns 99.25% of Zeversolar, and this is what gets me most excited about this quiet achiever.
Since the takeover by SMA, a lot has changed for the better. The first thing that happened, according to Dean, was the products were pulled off the shelf for six months and revamped. They report that the fault rate is now under 1%. The service has also been improved, although, as I have reported previously, this year I had my first fault with a Zeversolar, and the service was mediocre at best, with poor contact and very slow turnaround.
The reason Eversolar’s legacy still sticks so closely to the new company is that until now, they have decided not to change any of the products’ model names. The Eversol and Evershine are the same model names that had high fault rates years ago. Dean explains that this is because the company decided rather than distance itself from the roots of Zeversolar it decided to own those problems and move on. We got a look at the new Zeverlution inverters today, which are due to come onto the Australian market in October this year. They appear to be a great product. The 1.5 - 3kW (single phase, single tracker) models will hit the market first, and they weigh in at just 7kg. The lightweight design has been achieved by a new efficient system architecture utilising around 40% fewer components than the current model. When I started working in solar in 2010, the most popular inverters on the market were Aerosharp, and I struggled to lift their 3kW models, which weighed 40kg.
The Zeverlution models have built in WiFi, are small and look great, there is no doubt SMA play a substantial role in the creation of this model. The Zeverlution models are set to replace all of the current single phase and three phase models. The first three phase model on the market (scheduled for release 4th quarter 2015) will be a massive 33kW, which joins ABB as one of the few 30+ kW string inverters available today.
Problems
Not all of our solar specialists are as keen on Zeversolar though, in our discussions with installers we often get very negative feedback regarding the products as well as the service offered by the company. This primarily comes down to Zeversolar’s past as life as Eversolar. Dean and Bob are the first to admit that Eversolar inverters were, to be generous, prone to fail. They had a lot of problems, and to compound that issue, the service offered when there was a fault was dismal. Not only were there not enough staff to deal with the volume of phone calls and emails, but inverters were sent back to China to be repaired. As you can imagine, customers were very unhappy, and installers were caught in the middle.
New models
Since the takeover by SMA the manufacturing process and quality control at Zeversolar have been completely overhauled. In particular, the testing is far more rigorous, with multiple tests carried out on each inverter, simulating use in a PV system and extreme temperature conditions over a four-hour period. Previously, testing was only performed on a few inverters from each batch, which resulted in the release of many dead-on-arrival (DOA) inverters. Unfortunately, inadequate 'batch' testing is still performed by some inverter manufacturers, and in our future Deep Dives into inverter manufacturers, we will focus on testing procedures.
SMA and Zeversolar make a great team whose products cover almost all of the solar inverter market. We look forward to seeing the new Zeverlution models help the company break free of its awkward past and see the SMA Group make big inroads into the lower cost end of the market.
Currently Zeversolar is available in Australia, Europe, Asia and some emerging markets. It is not currently sold in North America.
