How to file a solar warranty claim, brand by brand

A solar warranty claim goes through your installer, not directly to the manufacturer, in almost every case. You need four things before you start: the serial number of the failed part, the model, the installation date with something that proves it, and evidence of the fault. What differs by brand is the evidence, the start date of the term, and whether any condition had to stay true.

The fault is the easy part. The paperwork is what kills claims.

The process that works for every brand

1. Work out which of your three warranties this is.

A solar system has a product warranty from the equipment maker, a performance warranty from the panel maker, and a workmanship warranty from the installer. Ringing the wrong one wastes a week. A dead inverter is the manufacturer's problem. A leak where they drilled is the installer's. See the three warranties explained if you are not sure which one you have.

2. Identify the part.

Serial number and model, from the sticker on the unit. Photograph the sticker as well as typing the number out. Transcription errors on serials cost days.

3. Prove the date.

Your installation invoice usually does it. Keep it, because for several brands the invoice date is not just proof, it is the thing the term is measured from.

4. Evidence the fault.

Error codes, monitoring screenshots showing the production drop with dates, photographs of anything visible. Give the date the fault started as well as the date you noticed it, and label which is which.

5. Ring your installer, not the manufacturer.

Manufacturers want a trade diagnosis. A homeowner describing a red light gets a longer queue than an installer sending a fault code.

6. Write down every contact.

Date, who you spoke to, what they said, what they promised next. Claims that stall get unstalled by someone producing a timeline.

The warranty claim checklist turns all of that into a list you can work through, per brand.

What changes by brand

Now the specifics. These come from each manufacturer's own document, with the date it was read on each brand page.

Enphase

The 25 year IQ8 term runs from activation in Enlighten, not from install. So the first thing a claim depends on is that activation happened and the system is in Enlighten under the right address with the right serials.

Enphase is the only brand in our catalogue that pays a stated rate toward labour. In the United States it reimburses $200 per truck roll plus $25 per replaced microinverter. That does not usually cover the whole bill, but every other brand below pays nothing at all. Details on the Enphase warranty page.

Your best evidence with microinverters is the per panel view in Enlighten. One unit flatlining while its neighbours on the same roof plane keep producing is a diagnosis in a picture.

SolarEdge

Twelve years standard, nothing to register. Cover starts at the earlier of installation or four months from shipment, so a unit that sat in a warehouse expires earlier than you would guess from the install date.

Registration is automatic through the commissioning app, which means nobody verifies it. Before you claim, confirm your site and serial exist in the monitoring portal. See the SolarEdge claim page.

Tesla Powerwall

Registered at commissioning. The condition to check before claiming is connectivity: the 10 year term needs the unit to stay connected to the internet, and if the connection drops and is not restored within 45 days of Tesla's written request, cover ends at 48 months.

If your Powerwall has been offline, deal with that first. Details on the Tesla warranty page.

GoodWe

This one has no deadline but a condition that quietly halves the term. The 10 years applies only while the inverter is connected to the SEMS portal and uploading generation data, and on a hybrid running a Lynx battery, both serials have to be registered. Miss either and the term is five years, and nobody tells you.

So before you claim on a GoodWe inverter, check it is on SEMS and has been. See the GoodWe warranty page.

Fronius

Fronius has the one genuinely dated registration window in the Australian residential catalogue. The free 10 year Warranty Plus requires registration in Solar.web within 30 months of delivery ex works, and registering also moves the start of cover from delivery to commissioning. Units installed before 1 October 2024 use a 24 month window from installation.

A claim on a Fronius unit therefore starts with the question of whether Warranty Plus was ever applied. See the Fronius warranty page.

Sungrow

Refreshingly simple. No registration requirement and no deadline. The 10 year term runs from the installation date either way. EV chargers are the exception, where the installer registers within a month.

Which means the whole claim rests on proving the install date. Keep the invoice. See the Sungrow warranty page.

Jinko

No registration. The term starts at delivery or 180 days after manufacture, whichever is earlier. A claim wants the warranty certificate plus the purchase and installation invoices, so those three documents are the claim file. Keep them together. See the Jinko warranty page.

Trina

No registration. The term starts at installation or three months after delivery, whichever comes first. Invoice plus install date is the whole file. See the Trina warranty page.

BYD

No registration exists at all, and the trap is the start date. Without written proof of delivery, the 10 years runs from six months after the production date. A delivery note moves the start to delivery plus 30 days.

BYD claims also want product, module and inverter serials, which means three numbers, and getting the module serial after the fact means opening the enclosure again. See the BYD warranty page.

REC

The standard product warranty needs nothing. ProTrust, the cover advertised on the sales brochure, exists only if an REC Certified Solar Professional installed the system and registered the installation in ProPortal or the SunSnap app. No deadline is published for that registration.

So a REC claim can hinge on something your installer did or did not do years ago. See the REC warranty page.

The pattern underneath all of that

Read those together and three things stand out.

Deadlines are rare. Conditions are common. Most brands in the catalogue have no registration deadline at all. What they have instead is something that must be true: a portal connection, a certified installer, a delivery note in a file. Conditions are worse than deadlines, because a deadline at least announces itself.

Start dates are often not your install date. Delivery, manufacture plus a period, shipment plus a period, or the invoice date. Warehouse time comes out of your cover, and no one sends a letter about it. The warranty deadline calculator works out the real date from what you know.

Almost nobody pays labour. Across the brands above, one pays a stated rate toward labour and the rest pay nothing. Free part, your electrician.

What to do before you ever need to claim

Do this once, this weekend, and a future claim becomes an email instead of an argument.

• Photograph the sticker on every piece of equipment. Panels, inverter, battery.
• Save the installation invoice somewhere you will find it in ten years. Not just in your email.
• Note the installer's company name and licence details.
• Log into whatever monitoring portal your system uses and confirm the system is there, under your address, with the right serials.
• Write down which brand made each part. Most people cannot name their own inverter.

That list is the difference between a claim that gets paid and one that gets argued about. The longer version is in what to keep so a claim actually gets paid.

If your installer has gone out of business

The manufacturer warranties survive. The workmanship warranty does not, and neither does your free route to filing a claim.

Another accredited installer can take the job on and file it, but they will charge you for the visit, because no one is paying them for it. Get the paperwork above in order before you ring them, because their time is now your money. See what happens when your solar installer goes out of business.