Six months, three companies, and a battery that will not charge

What happened, in short

In March 2024 my electricity retailer, Nectr, sold me a solar and battery system as part of a power plan. I am paying it off through my electricity bill. For six months that worked. Then the battery stopped doing the one thing it was bought to do, and since then I have been passed from company to company. Here is the whole story in six points. The detail and the evidence for each is further down the page.

1. I bought a $29,882 solar battery through my power company — and I'm still paying for it

• Sold by Nectr as its "Nectr Bee System Bundle", installed by Online Air & Solar, made by Enphase.
• $25,854 is financed by Nectr's finance company and repaid at $430.90 a month on my electricity bill. $13,357.90 is still owing.

2. Since about April 2026, the battery won't charge from the grid when it's scheduled to

• It's set to charge overnight on cheap power so the house runs on it during the expensive peak. Instead it sits empty, and I buy peak power from the grid.
• Documented on 18 May, 20 May, 18 September and 30 September 2026. The proof is below.

3. The proof: the settings say "charge", the battery says "no"

• 18 September 2026, two screenshots fifteen seconds apart: grid charging on, scheduled from 9:05 pm, target 100%. Eighty-two minutes in, the battery is at 10% and has charged 0.0 kWh.
• Enphase's own technician had already confirmed in writing (28 May 2026) that during that window "it will pull from the grid". Months later another Enphase representative told me it shouldn't charge from the grid at all.

4. Six months of "it's fixed now" — and it isn't

• Remote firmware updates, again and again. One installer visit, on 2 October, was spent on the phone to Enphase, and the promised fix failed.
• No Enphase technician has ever come to look at it.

5. It has cost me $1,269 in extra power — and they offered $150

• Grid use is up 91% on the same months last year. The figures are below.

6. Each company blames another — and all three ignored my formal demand

• Nectr says it's Enphase's problem. Enphase finds "no active fault" remotely. The installer defers to Enphase.
• A letter of demand to all three on 16 October asked for a reply by 30 October. None of them replied.
• I can't simply walk away: if I leave Nectr, the finance balance can be called in.

1 — The contradiction

On 28 May 2026, a Customer Service Technician at Enphase Energy wrote to my installer about this exact system:

“Currently, it is charging from the grid since it is between 9:15 and 2:45 p.m settings. During the charge from the grid time, it will prioritize charging the batteries and won't discharge, and it will pull from the grid as it would be charging the batteries anyway.” Enphase Energy, Customer Service Technician — in writing, 28 May 2026

In October 2026, on a three-way call between me, my installer's technician and Enphase, an Enphase representative told me the battery should not charge from the grid at all.

2 — Two screenshots, fifteen seconds apart

These two images were captured at 00:27 on 18 September 2026, both carrying embedded capture metadata. Together they remove every explanation I have been given.

IMG_7078.png · 18 Sep 2026 · 00:27:39 SETTINGS CORRECT

IMG_7079.png · 18 Sep 2026 · 00:27:54 AND IT DID NOTHING

The first: the battery settings page

The second, fifteen seconds later: the system in that window

And then my schedule changed, and I didn't change it

The start time moved from nine at night to nine in the morning. I did not make that change, I was not told of it, and nobody has explained it. Its effect is to exclude the entire overnight period — the only hours in which grid charging can do anything, because there is no sun.

Every device reports perfectly healthy

Nothing is offline, missing or faulted. The hardware reports itself healthy and does not do what it is told. That is exactly why five months of remote telemetry checks keep returning “no fault found” — and exactly why somebody needed to physically look at it.

3 — How it was sold to work, and what happens instead

My tariff, from the same portal: off-peak 00:00–15:00 and 21:00–24:00 at $0.287/kWh; peak 15:00–21:00 at $0.493/kWh.

4 — Their marketing, beside what I was told

These are published descriptions of the product I bought, set against what I was told when it stopped working.

5 — Every claim, tested against the record

6 — Why “all microinverters reporting” answers nothing

This is the technical heart of it, and it is why a system can look perfect remotely and be unusable in the house.

The correlation nobody drew

The unit that failed to pair is the unit that would not charge. Both facts sat in Enphase's own telemetry, two days apart, against two serial numbers, seven minutes apart on the day. No one connected them.

7 — The full timeline

• 20 March 2024System purchased

  8.8 kW — 20 × DAS 440W panels, 20 × Enphase IQ8AC microinverters, 2 × Enphase IQ Battery 5P. $29,882.00, financed $25,854.00.

• April – September 2024It works

  Self-consumption, Full Backup, Storm Guard and scheduled off-peak grid charging all functioning. October 2024 bill: 663.70 kWh for $188.70.

• ~April 2026Scheduled grid charging stops

  Full Backup begins reporting a battery service error.

• 15 May 2026First report

  “Despite having our system set to charge every day during off peak times our battery has stopped charging and discharging this month.”

• 18 May 2026The app names the fault

  13:15 — both batteries Idle at 9%, both “Error Needs Service”. 18:12 — Full Backup, battery 0%, grid importing 4.0 kW, battery Idle. 18:18 — SN …895: “Control communication FAILURE”.

• 20 May 202624% and 100%, seven minutes apart

  13:21:07 — SN …895 at 24%, “Error Needs Service” in red. 13:26 — SN …911 at 100%.

• 25 May 2026“No active fault detected”

  Enphase, via the installer: the batteries “recharged on the 20th”, therefore “no active battery fault requiring physical service attendance.” A site visit is refused on a finding that was wrong on the day it was made.

• 28 May 2026Ticket #19981529 raised — and grid charging confirmed

  The installer calls Enphase twice, selects a callback both times, receives neither. Enphase's technician writes: “it is charging from the grid… it will pull from the grid”, and admits a battery calibration fault mis-reporting 90% as 100%.

• 4 June 2026$150 offered

  Against a measured excess of $1,269.10 — under 12%. Reported as still not applied three weeks later.

• 9 June 2026“Boots on the ground, not middle-manning”

  I ask, in writing, for someone to come and look at it in person. Nobody does.

• 11 June 2026“I'd much rather just get the thing fixed”

  Repair requested in writing, in preference to any legal route.

• 16 June 2026Five claims from Enphase APAC

  Batteries operational with no errors · all microinverters reporting · possible shading · AI optimisation “experimental and not recommended” · revert to self-consumption. I reverted. The faults persisted.

• 18–22 September 2026The circle closes

  Formal VCAT notice given. Nectr acknowledges “around six months” of issues, acknowledges the installer refuses onsite checks, and refers me back to Enphase.

• 1 October 2026“I won't sit on the phone for hours troubleshooting again”

  After another call, I decline further remote troubleshooting on a work day and ask for someone to attend: “Any other troubleshooting will need to be done onsite by yourselves where I can clearly demonstrate that the battery does not charge from the grid during off peak as designed and configured in the Enphase app.” The installer confirms it will not send a technician until Enphase provides its assessment first.

• Friday 2 October 2026A technician finally attends — and Enphase identifies a fault

  An Online Air & Solar technician attends and spends about 90 minutes troubleshooting with Enphase by telephone. Enphase tells him there is an issue, that it looks like firmware to them, and that an update being deployed over the weekend should fix it.

  I say at the time, in front of him, that I have been given that exact answer before, and that I suspect a deeper hardware fault. He says the diagnosis is inconclusive, but that if the firmware fails they will continue troubleshooting at the hardware level.

• 6 October 2026It was not fixed

  “The proposed update Enphase attested would fix our system over the weekend has not resulted in it charging from 9pm to 3pm.” Third firmware promise, third failure. A hardware solution is requested. None has ever been offered.

• October 2026Back to first-level support — and the fault is denied

  The hardware troubleshooting never happens. Instead the next step is another Enphase first-level technician, wanting me to open the app and change settings with him — who has not looked at any of the three months of historical settings and screenshots I had already supplied.

  He tells me there is no problem, it's charging from solar, and the battery should not charge from the grid at all. I am then asked to reset the system to factory defaults — which would erase the configuration that proves the fault. I decline.

• 16 October 2026Where it stands

  I log into the portal and find my grid-charge schedule reading 09:00 am, where it read 09:05 pm in September. No Enphase technician has ever attended. No hardware has been replaced. The matter has never left first-level support. No finding was issued after reading the evidence file.

• 16 October 2026Letter of demand served on all three

  Sent to Online Air & Solar, Enphase and Nectr together, with five attachments (timeline, diagnostic report, configuration audit, claims against evidence, screenshot catalogue). Written response required by 30 October 2026.

• 19 October 2026Consumer Affairs Victoria

  Complaint lodged — reference C2026/10/007957.

• 20 October 2026The ombudsman declines — on the wrong question

  EWOV declines the complaint as being about a "faulty solar product". But the respondent is Nectr — an EWOV member — which sold the system as part of its electricity plan and bills the repayments, $430.90 a month, on the electricity bill. Reconsideration requested 2 November.

• 30 October 2026The deadline passes. Silence.

  No written response from any of the three companies. Enphase: an automated ticket and a satisfaction survey. Online Air & Solar: a marketing email. Nectr: the next bill.

• 2 November 2026Billing dispute and rejection

  The system is formally rejected under s 259(3) of the Australian Consumer Law as a major failure. The instalment is disputed. Nectr's finance company is held to account as a linked credit provider (s 278). Response required by 16 November 2026 — then VCAT.

8 — The evidence, screenshot by screenshot

Forty-one files. Thirty-one carry the capture date embedded by the phone at the moment the picture was taken — not the date they were sent. The dates verify each other: image5.png has an embedded time of 20 May 2026 13:21:07, and the Enphase app prints “20 May 2026, 01:19 pm” inside the same image.

Beside each one is a single line: what it does to the complaint.

18 May 2026 — the fault appears, and the app names it

image1.png · 13:15:43 CONTRADICTS ITSELF Both batteries at once: Idle, 9% charge, “Battery is Operational” and “LED Status: Error Needs Service”. Why it matters: this is how the wrong answer gets made. A remote operator reads the top line and reports “operational, no errors” — ignoring the fault line directly beneath it.

image15.png · 13:27:16 BACKUP NEARLY EMPTY Profile Full Backup. Charge 9%. Grid importing 1.5 kW. Battery charging 0.2 kW — and that 0.2 kW is from solar. Why it matters: the house is buying power from the grid while the battery sits nearly empty. That is energy we should already have stored.

image14.png · 18:12:51 EMPTY, IDLE, IMPORTING Profile “Full Backup”. Charge 0%. Solar 0.0. Grid importing 4.0 kW. Battery “0.0 — Idle”. Why it matters: the battery is at 0% at 6 pm, the start of the expensive peak, and the house is drawing 4 kW from the grid. A battery bought to cover the peak has nothing to give.

image13.png · 18:18:27 THE FAULT, NAMED SN …911: “Control communication pairing complete”. SN …895: “Control communication FAILURE”, red ✗, 0% charge. Why it matters: Enphase's own software names the fault, on a specific serial, on a fixed date. Control communication is how the battery is told to charge. If that link fails, no setting or firmware can fix it — it needs a technician.

20 May 2026 — the afternoon Enphase certified “no active fault”

image9.png · 13:19:07 WRONG ON THE DAY

System62%SN …89524%Available1.20 / 5.00 kWh

Why it matters: this is the afternoon they certified “no active fault detected”. One battery three-quarters empty. Their finding was wrong the day they made it — and it was used to refuse a site visit.

image5.png · 13:21:07 SERVICE ERROR SN …895 — Idle, 24%, “Error Needs Service” in red. The app's own clock inside the image reads “20 May 2026, 01:19 pm”. Why it matters: a live service error, on the afternoon Enphase found “no active fault”, two minutes after another screen said “Normal”.

image2.png · 13:26:08 ONE FULL, ONE NOT

SN …911100%Available5.00 / 5.00 kWh

Why it matters: one battery full, its twin at 24%, seven minutes apart. Paired units should move together. Never explained.

18 September 2026 — the decisive pair

IMG_7078.png · 00:27:39 SETTINGS CORRECT

Charge from gridENABLEDBelow reserveCHECKEDSchedule09:05 pmCharge up to100%

Why it matters: the system was told, correctly, to fill itself from the grid overnight. Nothing was misconfigured. It removes “user error” entirely.

IMG_7079.png · 00:27:54 AND IT DID NOTHING

Battery charge10%Imported1.3 kWhSolar produced0.0 kWhCharged in0.0 kWh

Why it matters: no sun, battery nearly empty, grid power flowing, charge window open — and it charged nothing. Every alternative explanation removed.

30 September 2026 — four months on, unchanged

IMG_7170.png · 14:57:13 THE COST, IN ONE FRAME

Battery charge11%Imported10.7 kWhSolar produced6.3 kWhDischarged0.7 kWh

Why it matters: the panels made 6.3 kWh — they work. The battery still sat at 11% and gave back 0.7 kWh, so we bought 10.7 kWh at retail instead. This is the fault turning into money.

9 — What it has cost

Same season, year on year, which controls for winter heating. The comparison understates the loss — the 2026 window contains four bills against five in 2025.

The control case: October 2024 — 663.70 kWh for $188.70. Almost identical grid import to my pre-fault average, at less than a third of the cost, because the battery was charging off-peak and covering the peak. That is what I paid for, and it is exactly the function that has failed.

10 — What I'm asking for

I would still much rather have a working system than a refund. I said so in writing on 11 June 2026, and I asked, repeatedly, for one thing: for someone to come and look at it.

11 — The schedule of claim

Under s 259(4) of the Australian Consumer Law a consumer may recover damages for loss reasonably foreseeable as a result of the failure, in addition to the primary remedy.