I found this on LuxPowerTek:
https://cdn.website-editor.net/8c0e262fa6904aab919bc2e033ee6178/files/uploaded/LUX_2020_W%201.0.pdf
Personally, I have no interest at all in GSL, but I’m interested enough in LuxPowerTek to want to suss-out the relationship between them and Huayu.
All of the products pictured in this presentation are rebadged versions of the products Huayu has had in their catelog for about 2 years now, so my suspicion is that Huayu is the manufacturer for most of the inverters LuxPowerTek s promoting.
On the other hand, LuxPowerTek also offers this new DC-DC converter:
https://luxpowertek.com/lsp-100k-dc-dc
I can’t find any indication of a similar product on Huayu’s website so this is almost certainly a product that LuxPowerTek is having manufactured by someone else.
Here are more details on Huayu’s history:
https://m.huayu-solar.com/company
If you scroll down to the ‘Milestones’ slide, you can see how Huayu started in 2012 with a focus on Microinverters and only branched out to hybrid inverters in 2021 with an ambition to be also be the world’s leading energy storage inverter brand by 2023.
The LuxPowerTek ‘Team apparently started in 2005 developing the first Chinese String Inverter resulting in ‘one of the most famous Chinese Inverter Brands’ by 2010 with sales of more than 10GW.
This is followed by a ‘Nee Beginning’ in 2017 when LuxPowerTek was founded to focus on a ‘New Product’: energy storage products which resulted in a first Hybrid Inverter released in 2018.
They claimed that they released a ‘high quality inverter’ in Japan (notably not call a Hybrid Inverter) in 3018 as well as ‘Sales’ of more than 300 pieces per month to Asia and Europe (of this same inverter released into Japan or something else) in 2018.
Then in 2020 they planned to release a new ‘Off Grid Inverter’ expected to ‘get bigger market.’
So if we take all of these representations at face value, the core team at LuxPowerTek likely started at one of the earliest Chinese string inverter companies 18 years ago which they left in 2017 to start LuxPowerTek with a plan to developers storage and hybrid inverters.
I’m guessing LuxPowerTek is a string engineering and product development team that needs to rely on manufacturing partners to actually produce their products.
The timing of when Huayu makes first mention of a new focus on ‘Hybrid Inverters’ in 2021 fits well with that initiative being catalyzed by a relationship with Luxpower (who brings most of the know-how Huayu lacks).
So the idea that the Huayu battery inverters and hybrid inverters were truly co-developed with LuxPowerTek passes my smell test.
Huayu is almost certainly the manufacturer of these products but LuxPowerTek likely has at least equal if not deeper technical understanding to support them.
GSL is just a reseller/channel that was probably approached by LuxPowerTek to resell their products and then decided they could get GSL-branded versions of those same products at lower cost by approaching Huayu directly.
If the relationship between Huayu and LuxpoweTek blows up, LuxPowerTek could be vulnerable, but as long as they establish enough sales volume to represent a sizable % of Huayu’s sales volume of this new class of products, they are probably the best option for technical support and warranty of the product.
If we see LuxPoweeTek either set up a credible US marketing and sales organization or at least choose a Solark-level parter for US sales (would love to see Midnight Solar expand their new ‘DIY Inverter’ lineup with rebadged versions of these LuxPowerTek products), that will likely be the channel I focus on.
Signature Solar could be another attractive alternative.
