SMA Solar Technology Reviews 

NEVER AGAIN SMA
Fifteen years ago, I had solar panels installed with a "Sunny Boy" inverter. (Belgium)
The Sunny Boy came with a 20-year manufacturer's warranty, provided by SMA.
Now the Sunny Boy is defective.
I have the invoice, the quote, the inspection report for this electrical installation...
SMA refuses to honor the warranty because I cannot find the warranty certificate.
So I have to buy a new one.
And if I have to buy one, naturally not from SMA again.
Indeed, one big scam.

I have no complaint about the products and believe them to be high end. However I find the customer support not just poor but dismissive and arrogant.
Apart from there being very few sma registered installers in the UK and none in my area only 80 miles from London! I recently emailed every single one of them listed in sma UK website for a quote to install an echarger. Not one would look at it. I reached out to sma support and was brushed of with repeated references to the approved installer list despite telling them none will quote.
Next I asked if a non sma registered electrician could be used. They responded "yes" but when asked for the installation manual to show my electrician so he can confirm his willingness to undertake, was again brushed off stating it comes with the device! So to see if I can find a non sma installer I must first buy the device ?

Until sma get their act together in the UK I would urge anyone thinking of sma products to think again. The mere fact that they have so few registered partners and not all areas of UK are covered (even none close to the capital!) tells you all you need to know about sma commitment to the UK market.
Solar edge are probably their closest rival with a much wider installation network and marginally better customer support. I will await their bidirectional charger launching later this year, and wish I had waited for their islanding inverter. Now I am stuck with sma (which works brilliantly btw) and their abismal support. It would be so easy for them to do so very much better. So disappointing.

SMA, has one of the worst customer support.
I have a10kW Sunny Tripower Smart Energy Hybrid inverter. It has chaotic behavior, on PV generation. In sunny day, without clouds, it changes the pv generation between 0kW to 10kW, from second to second, with nothing to obstruct the PV panels.
It measures with approximately 3V more on the AC input, than any other multimeter( I have made AC measurement with 3 different multimeters, all have same readings) or even than the SMA Energy Meter. From this reason it enters verry often in Standby mode from over overvoltage event.
Every 2-4 weeks it changes by its own, the data logging from "on" to "off", without human intervention.
If there is an AC grid failure, sometimes the backup output is also shutoff - the main purpose of an hybrid inverter is to have power on the backup output in case of grid failure.
It changes the value measured for consumption from 0w to 5-6kW on the house from second to second, even if the load is constant of 500W. Should this be normal behavior?
The SMA Energy Meter... from time to time, you need to disconnect it from the grid, to reset it, because it measures the power consumption way off.
The site for technical support, does not work properly, it allows you to make tickets for support, but then you can not access the content or read the replays from SMA. Some times you get an email with the response, and so you can see the answer, but most of the time the answer is not accurate or not for the current topic, or they give you link to the manual.
Not professional at all in my opinion.

Not to mention that this invertor is 100% Chinese design from Sungrow, sold as German design and technology, with double the price of the original one. I fill that I am being lied and taken as a fool by them.

SMA Home Manager 2.0 is not working properly with their new portal. In the old portal you can access more configurations like "Time window control for charging the battery-storage system", unfortunately this is also not working. I set the charge to be done between 12-13, and at 10AM the battery was already 100% charged...
To summarize, the system is not working properly, I have no solution from SMA.
I will never buy SMA again until they improve the customer support, and applications.
It is better not to have than to have something that is not working properly.

SMA Solar Technology Review:

SMA is often regarded as a premium brand, accompanied by a premium price. My experience with their devices spans over 5 years. Recently, about 12 months ago, I upgraded from a 3-phase single cluster to a 9 x Sunny Island Multi-Cluster with a Grid Connect box. Initially, we encountered a Q9 error when connecting their multi-cluster to a third-party grid connect box, an issue SMA would not support. Consequently, we purchased an SMA Grid Connect Box, only to face the same error, unresolved for the past 3 months. Despite several complaints, there has been no progress update on the case.

Moreover, SMA sold us an incorrect control board and has not responded to our requests for a return.

In summary, SMA products may perform well in basic installations. However, if you require support, I'd recommend considering other brands first. At least until their reviews on service significantly improves!

Product rarely works out the box. Customer support is laughably bad. The product is overpriced and I strongly recommend they are avoided

SMA Sunnyboy inverter failed few months before end of warranty. Despite evidence of installation date, company was reluctant at first to value warranty, leaving us with no solar power for nearly 2 months. Eventually, they reluctantly agreed to replace, apparently with a reconditioned unit, but we were not happy with this, as the new unit has no new warranty, and might possibly fail early again. The company even refused to add a warranty to cover the nearly 2 months the first unit was out of service. Until then, the unit had worked well, but this failure to cover the lost energy period is, in my view unacceptable.
The reluctance to provide a new warranty isn't, in my view, a good sign of the company's own view of the reliability of their products!
In addition, the company was very very slow to respond to all communications, regardless of whether I contacted the UK division or the German parent company. They were also reluctant to communicate directly with domestic customers, but even when my installer was involved, they were still slow, and kept wanting more and more details of the failed unit, rather than asking for all they needed at the first point of warranty claim.
I'm still trying, without success so far, to get the warranty extended, even for the lost power period until the replacement unit arrived. Even if they do that, I'll have suffered nearly 2 months of generation and had to pay £216 to an installer to replace the old unit for the one provided by SMA. I'll report back if the situation changes