The NEP phantom inverters

So last fall, I noticed something strange about some of the listings I was seeing. I saw that NEP got into the ring of selling large commercial string inverters that…looked suspiciously like rebranded Solis S5-GC and S6-GC inverters…

To be honest, that’s not super new to the industry, people sell inverters all the time that are just reskinned inverters from other brands. Not a big deal.

In fact, when I went to check for information on NEP’s website, they even had OND files that were explicitly for Solis inverters, which— I mean usually companies try to hide it better than that, but you do you.

Anyway, I was looking for datasheets for like, 10 Neptune inverters, based on Ironridge and PanelClaw’s 3741 addendums, but most of them had no representation on NEP’s website. This happens sometimes, there are inverters that are older and get replaced and removed from manufacturer’s websites, but I couldn’t even find them on the open web. Nowhere existed the mythical 25kW Neptune inverter, nor the 36k, 40k, or 60k. I basically abandoned putting them on the website at the time, making a note to look into it later.

Today, I realize what probably happened. All the inverters that don’t exist are rebranded from Solis’ SC-G6 line, and guess what all models Solis makes? Not just a 33k or 50k, but also the elusive 25/36/40/60k.

Given how little effort NEP appears to put toward making commercial inverters, I bet here’s what happened:

• NEP reached out to the racking manufacturer and was like “hey, we want our stuff on people’s radar, can you put this in your installation addendum?”
• Racking manufacturer was like “yeah, let’s do it, send me your datasheets”
• And then NEP probably just sent them Solis’ datasheets because it was more convenient and was like “just use this, the specs are going to match these”
• And the racking manufacturer had no idea NEP wasn’t going to make all of them, so they just listed all the sizes.

Alternatively, it’s possible NEP was going to make all those sizes, and for some reason decided against it later, leaving these phantom inverters in a bunch of solar structure installation addendums.

Either way, the only NEP inverters that exist, as far as I know, is the 30k-LV, 33k, 50k, 75k, and 100k.