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Due to electrical safety standards, hundreds of 8kW Growatt solar inverters sold in Australia will be recalled.

On Friday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) issued a recall notice on its Australian Product Safety website, involving Growatt 8.2kW 8000 MTL-S inverters manufactured between January 18, 2021 and February 26, 2021 Device. These equipment are sold/installed by multiple companies in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

The serial numbers of the affected inverters can be found here-there are approximately 500. The serial number is located on the label on the left panel of the inverter.

The reason for the Growatt 8000 MTL-S recall was the installation of connectors of the affected inverters of different types and manufacturers, which did not comply with electrical safety standards. ACCC states that incompatible connectors may overheat or melt, and there is a risk that the connectors will catch fire.

ACCC recommends that the owner of the affected equipment should shut down the inverter (if you are not sure how to do this, please consult your installer for the correct shutdown procedure).

Growatt New Energy Australia will contact the owner to arrange free on-site repair of the inverter. Owners can call Growatt New Energy Australia on 1800 476 928 or via [email protected]-but see below for more information.

Except for the ACCC's recall notice, at the time of writing, Growatt's Australian website or social media channels appear to have no information on this issue. This seems to be the first recall of Growatt inverters in Australia.

Founded in 2010, Growatt has a 200,000 square meter manufacturing plant in Huizhou, China, with an annual production capacity of 20GW. In addition to residential, commercial, and utility-scale photovoltaic inverters, the company also produces battery systems, microgrid systems, and smart energy management solutions.

According to reports, the previous generation inverter supplied by the company to Australia was very common, and then the company abandoned Australia for a few years; returned with a new inverter. In the past 12 months, Australian customers have generally very positive reviews of SQ's Growatt solar inverters.

The company is currently not listed in SolarQuotes's chart of recommended inverter brands.

Regarding getting in touch with Growatt, we commented last week in an old blog post from the Australian owner that tried to contact the company on an unrelated issue via the 1800 support phone number within 48 hours. He mentioned that there are 3 options, all of which point to a complete voice mail box. This is before the announcement of the recall.

"Because no one answered the phone, you can't talk to people, and you can't leave a message," the commenter said. "My email asking for help was not answered. (Not answered)."

I tried to dial this number this morning. Although it is outside of business hours, the recording also illustrates this point, but it also says that if I want to call back, please press 1 to leave a message. Doing so will only result in the same recording being repeated-there is no option to leave a message.

In the best case, this is not a good situation, let alone a recall campaign.

Related: How to choose a good solar inverter.

Michael discovered solar problems after purchasing modules in 2008 to piece together a small off-grid photovoltaic system. Since then, he has been covering Australian and international solar energy news.

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