Phocos PSW-H-5KW-120/48V

[Russel Delainey]

Hey Rob,

Tell us the story behind this one: https://www.solacity.com/product/phocos-psw-h-5kw-120-48v/

Your site mentions it is not CSA/UL listed. Really curious how it ended up in your shop!

Have to say I'm really tempted to pick it up and put a system on my garage. Concerned that the electrical company might give me trouble even if it's stand-alone (not grid tied).

[Rob Beckers]

No story Russel. Phocos (a German company) initially decided to not certified their inverters for the North American market due to cost and sales volume. They are certified for Europe, and in fact you can sell back to the grid with them over there. Due to pressure from distributors (and one of the vocal ones being me) they did go the certification route for their 6.5 kW version, which I'm happy about.

For us there's no point in keeping the 5kW around with a certified 6.5kW being available. Hence the discount sale on what's left of the 5kW inverters. I'll keep the 3kW for now, despite not being certified, since there are those with RVs and small cottages looking for an economic solution that will never get permitted/inspected anyway.

They're actually nice units and their price is really good considering you are getting an inverter/charger, and solar charge controller all in one. For sure they are built to a price-point, these are not Magnum or Conext heavy-duty (in a most literal sense) inverters. But they work well enough. Due to the way they work internally you can even run them without batteries (though Phocos no longer approves, but it does work), as long as there's enough sun you can run 120V loads, but the inverter will of course switch off when there's a cloud and PV output no longer suffices.

-RoB-