Samil Power Inverters in Australia

 

 

Samil Power is a solar inverter manufacturer with production plants in China and sales offices in Australia, Germany, UK, Italy, France, USA and China. The company specialises in all aspects of design, innovation, manufacture, promotion and service of photovoltaic grid-tied inverters. Samil makes a range of high-tech solar inverters for residential and commercial solar applications and has been producing inverters since 2008 (available overseas since 2009). The company currently offers three series of grid-tied inverters: the 1-5kW SolarRiver, the 10-17kW SolarLake, and the 100-500kW SolarOcean for large-scale solar photovoltaic (solar PV) installations. Also available are a number of solar PV system accessories: power managers, system performance monitors, and solar array string combiners.

(A number of accredited installers in the Solar Choice installer network use Samil inverters. Get a free comparison of solar quotes of the installers who operate in your area!)

The range of Samil solar inverters

Samil SolarRiver Solar Inverters: 1100TL 1600TL 1700TL 2300TL 3000TL
Samil SolarRiver Solar Inverter

SolarRiver: For residences and small businesses

Transformerless inverters for nominal solar PV system sizes: 1.1kW, 1.6kW, 1.7kW, 2.3kW, 3.0kW, 3.3kW, 4.4 kW, and 5.2kW (single phase grid infrastructure)

SolarLake: For medium-sized installations and solar farms

-Transformerless inverters for nominal solar PV system sizes: 10.0kW, 12.0kW, 15.0kW, 17.0kW (three phase grid infrastructure)

SolarOcean: For large-scale and commercial applications

-Transformerless inverters for nominal solar PV system sizes: 100kW, 250kW, 500kW

-Transformer-based inverters for solar PV system sizes: 100kW, 250kW

Samil Solar Inverters: Points of Difference

Rated ‘best Asian inverter’ (pdf) by Photon Magazine.

Price competitive: one of the most affordable quality inverters on the Australian market

Broad range of transformerless (TL) inverters means high-efficiency using the the most modern inverter technology available–it also means that inverters are light and easy to install. (What is a transformerless inverter?

Peak Efficiencies of up to 97.6%, Euro efficiencies of up to 97.1%, depending on the model. (Read about types of inverter efficiency.)

Wide Maximum Power Point (MPP) range allows for flexibility in PV array design–important for getting the most out of your solar PV panels where irradiation on solar panels is uneven or where shading is a problem. (What is MPP?)

Can be installed indoors or out

Wide range of inverter sizes for flexibility in system design.

Over 30,000 inverters installed in Australia since 2009

Low failure rate at <1.5% (as of 18 Sept 2011)

Up to 25 year extended warranty

-Customer service support: Samil Power Service Centre fields technical inquiries free of charge (1300 134 793)

-Remote monitoring possible with installation of Samil’s PowerManager. An RS232 cable may also be connected directly from the inverter to a computer for monitoring from your home PC.

Component standards met/awards

-All models of Samil SolarRiver and SolarLake inverters are on the list of CEC-approved components

CE mark– Samil inverters are compliant with European Union regulations

-TUV Certification means that claims made by Samil about their inverter specifications have been independently verified by TUVRhineland

Photon magazine review of Samil (pdf)

Warranties

-5 year standard warranty for short circuit, overload and under-voltage, underloading issues. Warranties can be extended to a maximum of 25 years.

Other products by Samil

Samil also manufactures a SolarPower Manager to keep track of inverter performance via a WiFi connection so that real-time diagnostics and system monitoring are possible on any computer with an internet connection.

About Samil

-Headquarters and factory-

Marketing and Sales Centre: Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China

Australian head office: Lidcombe, NSW

Manufacturing plant: Jiangsu, China

-History in the industry

Samil has been manufacturing inverters since 2008.

Written by James Martin

Solar Choice Analyst

© 2011 Solar Choice Pty Ltd

Resources and link:

Samil SolarRiver Series spec sheet (pdf)

Samil SolarLake Series spec sheet (pdf)

James Martin II

Comments

  1. it looks like we did well with our Samil inverter – it failed in January 5years and 2 months after installation. I thought it was inbuilt redundancy – but maybe they are just a cr*p product. So we have lost 2 months of feed-in tariff and paid extra power bills, and now need to pay for new inverter and installation. There goes the $ income from power generation that was meant to pay off the system. Useless. Angry.

  2. We had a Samil inverter installed in 2011 which failed after 3 years. Still under warranty and was replaced but 3 years later and that has also failed. We have been quoted $990 to replace it with a different brand (one I have never heard of) so we are thinking of going with another company and getting the best, SMA, Sunnyboy. I would never touch Samil again.

  3. Well my Samil Inverter just packed it in after 4 years , logged Warranty Claim today , hopefully my experience will be better than the others listed on this site!!

    With Rogers’ ( No relation ) comments in mind I am screen shotting
    the responses from their help desk and saving them.

  4. You would have to pay me to have a Samil Inverter.
    Solar River model installed with new grid connect system packed up after less than 3.5 years. It took 7 weeks for it to be replaced under warranty and service from Olympic Solar Energy Pty Ltd was abysmal.
    The replacement unit packed up about 1.5 years later and neither Samil nor Olympic Solar Energy even respond to emails or answer questions about it, they just don’t want to know and have altered records to deny any warranty claim

  5. I had a solar river [2300] inverter installed 4 years ago after 2 years it failed and it said [ relay failure] , it was replaced and now the replacement one has failed with the same problem ! but this time there will be no replacement as according to the supplier SAMILPOWER will no longer honor the warranty ! be careful of the future when buying these inverters !

  6. Our electrician inspected our Samil inverter and agreed that it wasn’t working and needed replacing. He contacted Samil immediately that was 4 months ago and is still waiting for a new one to arrive. We have not had any rebate in this period so are out of pocket. He has advised that they are not answering their phone. I have spoken to Fair trading and they have told me to lodge a complaint and they will follow it through. I am also going to contact ASIC

    1. Hi Billy,

      As a comparison service for full solar & battery installations, we do not sell individual components. Please try to get in touch with Samil directly (or consider a different inverter manufacturer).

  7. Stay away for Samil
    We have a inverter fail(installed Nov’2014). I have gone through the warranty claim and received a claim number. I was contacted 24hrs later by Jack Li (Australian rep’) to say I will receive inverter within 10 days.
    As of yet I have not received new inverter. I can not contact Jack nor will Samil return my messages.
    I have been informed by a leading solar installer he has waited 9 weeks on another failed inverter and still no inverter.
    Very disappointing and will be taking my claim to Office of Fair Trading.
    If anyone has any other course of action I can take to have Samil fulfil their warranty obligations please let me know.

  8. lucky you on your inverter i had mine installed about feb 2012 inverter broke down feb 2015 i contacted green engineering archerfield qld they refered me to the surply department for a replacement under warranty no one has contacted me after about 10 calls to them always getting sent next week not happy

    1. Hi Frank
      I am having the same problems. (please refer to my posting on reviews)
      Have you had any luck getting a new inverter?
      Cheers
      Jason

  9. I had a Samil for 30 months and then it dveloped an consistant error and kept switching off. They replaced it under the warranty, but the Samil Logo label was installed, without punching out the two holes in the label, which cover the green and red indicator lights. I rang and spoke to a guy with an Indian accent. He required me to send a photgraph showing the problem which I did.
    No further communication from them but they sent me a replacement lid. This also had he two lights covered. I rang again and again and have spoken to Ewan (Scottish), Gerard (American) and also a Yorkshireman about the problem. I spoke with Gerard on the 5th March 2015 and I then received another lid which also has the indicators covered by the label. I found out that the matter has been passed to their Service Engineer, (Mike Zank) to handle personally. However Mr. Zank does not answer his phone. A mobile number, which simply says he can’t come to the phone but will ring back (not).
    It appears that whatever number you ring for Lidcombe, you finish up in Germany to where all calls are routed. You wonder how an incompentant compny like this can make a profit. No wonder the CEO keeps a low profile.

  10. Hi We have been using Samil Inverters for some time now with good results and no failures so far. Trying to read as much information as possible on the inverter. Some claim it to be German technology and design and that the company is actually Australian owned are any of these claims true or is it just sales talk? They do seem to be a very good inverter but I would like to sell the truth in the sales pitch.
    Regards
    Michael

    1. Hi Michael,

      Samil is apparently Australian-owned, but the CEO keeps a low public profile for personal reasons. We will update this post as appropriate when this information becomes clearer. I have not heard any claims that Samil inverters are German technology or German-designed, however. Glad to hear you’ve had good luck with their products!

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