Are Fronius solar inverters noisy?
Yes. In comparison to the competition, yes they are. Fronius solar inverters are sometimes so noisy that we have even had neighbours call us up and pay to replace the offending solar inverter on their neighbour’s property. No joke!
While we still believe Fronius solar inverters are the best inverters on the market, people really do need to understand that Fronius make quite a noisy inverter also.
Below is the video of the noise that the Fronius solar inverters make.
This is an 8.2 kW Primo solar inverter. It usually makes this noise in the peak of the summer day. We do believe that the 5 kW solar inverters are a lot quieter than the 8 kW variants, however they have been known for making a sound too.
If a solar inverter is installed on a wall that backs onto either an office, shiftworkers’ bedroom, or inside a garage where work is done during the day, unfortunately you are going to have a noise problem if it’s a Fronius solar inverter installed.
Fronius inverter fan noise – The earmuff joke
Here at Queensland Solar and Lighting we often joke that we give out free earmuffs with every Fronius solar inverter we sell.
While the Fronius solar inverters have the best data monitoring app, coupled together with their Smart Energy Meter (not for long though – as I have heard Delta is brewing up something pretty special in their cauldron at their Taiwanese Headquarters – Stay tuned) , the Fronius do come in between one third and half the price of the silent, and now good Chinese solar inverters. The truth is you can now get yourself a higher-performing Chinese manufactured solar inverter that not only will be silent in operation, but can save you some money too.
Cooling Solar inverters – Fans Vs a cheap old Heat-sink
Fronius inverters are noisier because they seen all the failures from the earlier developed solar inverters and thought that it was the heat sink that needed tweaking. They went about this in such a drastic manner, they punted the thing and put several small computer fans in it instead. The result is the Fronius Primo, Symo and Fronius Eco (the Commercial solar system inverters we use) all have a low failure rate. However, it’s now 2021 and the Chinese Solar inverters are nearly all now just as reliable.
In terms of solar inverter reliability, we can now say that it obviously makes no difference if there are fans in your inverter keeping it cool, or if there’s a big massive heatsink backed up to it – The reality is they’re all as reliable nowadays. Another fact is that the cheaper Chinese inverters with the big heat sink, being completely silent is of stark contrast in what we see of the noisier Fronius inverters.

The Chinese solar inverters are also now coming with a full 10 year warranty. Many have been in Australia for over 10 years now, such as the Growatt and Delta solar inverters. It appears the Chinese are so confident in their products that their chosen method of heat-sink is doing a fantastic job. Our installation statistics also can make claim to this is well.
The good thing is we give our customers a choice on what inverter they can have in the solar systems we sell. They can take our advice and get a cost-effective, reliable inverter or they can keep doing their best at keeping up with the joneses and whacking a Fronius in, the choice is entirely all theirs.
If you are wanting a solar inverter to be silent, and it is absolutely necessary that you have an inverter that makes absolutely no noise, unfortunately you just cannot consider the European built Fronius solar inverter. However you can still grab yourself a great Chinese solar inverter which will be silent and has nearly all the bells and whistles.