Growatt

Who is Growatt

Growatt is a Chinese solar inverter manufacturer headquartered in Shenzhen. Its founder set up an initial holding company in Shenzhen in May 2010. The operating company that still designs and manufactures today’s Growatt-branded products, Shenzhen Growatt New Energy Co., Ltd., was established in March 2011. Growatt’s own current company materials cite 2011 as its founding date.

Growatt built its reputation as one of the first Chinese inverter brands to push into export markets early. It reportedly held a sizeable share of Australia’s residential inverter market within its first year abroad. Over the following decade, it expanded into string, hybrid and microinverters. By the end of the 2010s, it was shipping several gigawatts of inverter capacity a year. In addition, it sold products in well over 100 countries.

Growatt moved into home batteries later, entering that market around 2019 to complement its existing hybrid inverter line. The company manufactures its energy storage products itself, including at its own plant in Huizhou, Guangdong Province. It does not outsource battery production to a third party.

The Growatt product range

Growatt’s home energy storage falls into two quite different product lines. It is worth being clear about which one a particular model belongs to. The first is the ARK battery range, a modular, stackable LiFePO4 system. Growatt designs it to pair with its own MIN-XH, MOD-XH and SPH-series hybrid inverters. It is not meant to work as a standalone unit.

ARK batteries come in low-voltage (LV) and high-voltage (XH/HV) variants built from 2.56 kWh modules. Installers can stack these modules up to around 10 per string, depending on the inverter. That gives whole-home systems from roughly 5 kWh up to about 25.6 kWh nominal.

Growatt’s catalogue also lists a higher-capacity APX HV line built from 5 kWh modules, scaling up to around 30 kWh. However, the ARK LV and XH families appear to be the more commonly stocked option through solar distributors and installers internationally.

The second line is Noah, a smaller, plug-in balcony and apartment storage system. It sits in a different market segment altogether. The Noah 2000 stores about 2 kWh (2,048 Wh) per unit. Users can stack up to four units for roughly 8 kWh. It uses the same LiFePO4 chemistry as the ARK range. Unlike ARK, Noah has no built-in inverter of its own. It charges from solar panels through its own MPPT input, but needs a separate microinverter, such as Growatt’s own Neo, to feed power into the home.

Growatt sells Noah in continental European markets such as Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. However, its availability does not yet extend to every market Growatt reaches. In the UK specifically, it does not appear in Growatt’s installer network or on any UK solar distributor’s or retailer’s listings. By contrast, solar distributors widely stock the ARK batteries and hybrid inverters there and in many other markets.

Key technology behind Growatt batteries

Both the ARK and Noah ranges use lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) cells. This is a cobalt-free chemistry generally regarded as more thermally stable than older lithium-ion formats. Growatt designs ARK batteries around its own hybrid inverters. As a result, capacity and output depend heavily on the inverter model a system is paired with, not on the battery alone.

Growatt’s own ARK LV datasheet rates the modules for more than 6,000 charge cycles at 90% depth of discharge. This figure is backed by a 10-year warranty. That warranty document also caps cover at a minimum lifetime energy throughput of 6,670 kWh per module, whichever limit is reached first. In practice, this means a household that cycles its battery hard every day could use up that allowance well before the 10-year mark. At 90% depth of discharge, a standard 2.56 kWh ARK module gives roughly 2.3 kWh of usable capacity. Both the ARK LV and ARK XH datasheets confirm this 90% figure consistently.

Monitoring across the range runs through the Growatt ShinePhone app and the associated Growatt web portal (sometimes referred to as the Growatt Server or OSS). Together, these cover inverters and batteries, with live generation, consumption and charge data.

Noah units add their own stacking and heating-film frost protection for outdoor, balcony-mounted use. Growatt rates them IP66, which is notably more weatherproof than some rival plug-in units. ARK modules, by contrast, carry an IP65 rating for outdoor or garage installation. This is confirmed on both the ARK LV and ARK XH datasheets.

Strengths and limitations

As with any brand, Growatt’s own marketing understandably leads with its strengths. Here is a more balanced picture.

Where Growatt fits the market

For whole-home storage, Growatt’s ARK and hybrid inverter ecosystem competes most directly with other inverter-plus-battery brands that solar installers sell internationally. These include GivEnergy, Sunsynk, Alpha ESS and Fox ESS. Within that group, Growatt tends to sit as a value option. Its inverters are long established in the trade, but its battery range is a comparatively newer addition. As a result, buyers should weigh Growatt’s lower typical price against the longer installer track record some rivals have built up in a given market.

If you are deciding what capacity suits a whole-home system like this, our capacity guide and free calculator can help. Both cover that ground independently of any one brand.

For the Noah balcony storage line, the comparison shifts to the plug-in and apartment-friendly segment that brands such as EcoFlow, Anker and Indevolt cover. Within that group, Noah is generally a budget-friendly option. It typically costs less than premium rivals such as Anker’s balcony systems.

However, Noah also does without some features that rivals include, such as a built-in inverter or an emergency power mode. As a result, it usually appeals to people who already have a microinverter. They typically just want to add storage to an existing balcony solar setup.

Common questions about Growatt