Home Energy Management System Comparison: 4 HEMS

Picking a home energy management system (HEMS) starts with what is already on the roof and what the customer pays per kWh. This page sets out what SolarEdge, Enphase, Shelly and Victron each publish about hardware, batteries and dynamic tariffs.

Last updated: November 2026. Vendor pages were read on 28 October 2026.

SurgePV makes solar design and proposal software. It does not sell or run a HEMS, and this page does not score the four products. It lists what each company says on its own pages, with the date we read them (28 October 2026).

The four platforms at a glance

A DIN rail is the standard metal rail inside an electrical cabinet. A meter that clips onto it fits in a normal distribution board.

Which site fits which platform

These are fit notes taken from the facts above. They are not a ranking.

• SolarEdge Home fits a site where you want one vendor for the inverter, power optimizers and battery. SolarEdge describes its storage as DC-coupled.
• Enphase IQ fits a microinverter system. Enphase’s dynamic-tariff brief lists microinverters as required and third-party batteries as not supported.
• Shelly Pro 3EM fits a site that already has an inverter and battery. It adds metering and a way to switch loads.
• Victron Cerbo GX fits a site where an installer wants to program the controller. Victron lists Node-RED, Modbus-TCP and VRM remote monitoring.

These key facts come from the vendor pages linked in this post. They are not like for like. Enphase lists usable energy, and the SolarEdge page lists 4.6 kWh of storage. Only Shelly shows a price.

How to choose a HEMS in seven checks

1. List what is on site. Note the inverter, battery, meter, EV charger and heat pump.
2. Check the tariff. Is it fixed, time-of-use (prices change by time of day) or dynamic (prices follow the day-ahead market)?
3. Check the country. Several vendor pages here are for one region. The Enphase brief is for Germany. The Enphase bidirectional charger paper is for North America.
4. Check the battery link. Some features work only with the maker’s own battery.
5. Check who sets it up. Shelly scripts and Victron Node-RED flows need an installer who can edit them.
6. Check backup needs. Ask what the system does during a grid outage.
7. Get the full parts list in writing. One meter’s price is not the price of a working system.

What the hardware list looks like

SolarEdge Home

SolarEdge describes the Home Hub inverter as the brain of the system. It works with SolarEdge power optimizers, which are small devices on each panel. The SolarEdge Home page also lists a Home Battery - Low Voltage with 4.6 kWh of storage. The homeowner uses the mySolarEdge app.

Enphase IQ

The Enphase store page for the IQ Battery 5P describes it as an all-in-one, AC-coupled battery. It has 5.0 kWh of usable energy and 3.84 kW of continuous power. It has a 15-year limited warranty. Enphase says it supports backup, self-consumption and time-of-use modes. Backup needs the IQ System Controller 3 or 3G.

Shelly Pro 3EM

Shelly says the Pro 3EM 3CT63 reports energy plus voltage, current, active power and apparent power for each phase. It keeps up to 60 days of data at one-minute steps. It has no built-in relay. To switch a contactor you add the Shelly Pro 3EM Switch Add-on. Shelly says loads can then be controlled by device automation or scripts.

Victron Cerbo GX

Victron says the Cerbo GX can be reached through the VRM portal, a GX Touch display or the VictronConnect app. Its page names Node-RED for automation. Victron’s Modbus-TCP manual says Modbus-TCP is off by default and you switch it on in the settings.

Other brands that connect to a Cerbo GX

Victron’s manual lists four PV inverter brands with a direct LAN connection.

Zero feed-in means the system stops the inverter from sending power to the grid. “No” here means the GX device can read the inverter, but it cannot cut its output.

Dynamic tariffs: what each vendor says

A dynamic tariff sets the price of power by the hour or by the quarter hour. A HEMS can charge a battery when the price is low. The table shows what each company says. None of the pages cited here names Octopus Agile, so ask before you promise it to a customer on that tariff.

Victron’s price formula, with one example

Victron’s manual gives P × 1.21 + 0.11 as an example buy-price formula, where P is the day-ahead price. The 1.21 adds 21% VAT and the 0.11 is a fixed charge of 11 cents per kWh. Say P is 0.10 EUR per kWh. The buy price is 0.10 × 1.21 + 0.11 = 0.231 EUR per kWh. The 0.10 is our example number, not a market price.

Victron adds two limits. If your provider has hourly prices that the ENTSO-E data source does not cover, the manual says “you are out of luck for now”. You also cannot upload your own price list today.

Batteries and coupling

DC-coupled storage charges the battery straight from the panels. AC-coupled storage takes AC power, then converts it. SolarEdge says its DC-coupled design avoids an extra conversion. Enphase’s IQ Battery 5P is AC-coupled. Both are valid designs. See our guide to AC-coupled and DC-coupled battery systems for the trade-offs. To compare battery makers, read Tesla Powerwall vs BYD vs Sonnen.

Vehicle-to-home (V2H)

V2H means the car battery powers the house. Both big inverter brands have published plans.

Neither page tells you what you can buy in your country today. Check with the company first. Our guides to vehicle-to-home solar and bidirectional EV chargers cover the design side.

Tibber and Home Assistant

Home Assistant is free home automation software. Its pages say:

• The Tibber integration gives you a price sensor if you are a Tibber customer.
• The Shelly integration talks to the device directly and does not need the cloud.
• The Enphase Envoy integration connects to the IQ Gateway on your local network.
• The SolarEdge integration is cloud polling, which means it asks SolarEdge’s servers for data.

Of the vendor pages cited above, only Shelly’s guide names Tibber.

How a HEMS fits into your solar proposals

A HEMS records what a home really uses. That helps you check the numbers in a proposal. SurgePV’s public scope covers roof modeling, layout, shading, energy yield, financial modeling, electrical workflow support, bill of materials and proposals. See the generation and financial tool and solar proposal software. For other tools in this area, read our list of the Top 11 Best Solar Energy Management Tools Reviewed.

To see how SurgePV handles home projects from roof model to proposal, book a demo.

Sources

All pages were read on 28 October 2026. Vendor pages can change. Prices are quoted as shown, in the currency shown.

• SolarEdge Home: The Smart Energy Ecosystem for Your Home
• SolarEdge ONE and the 4 June 2024 launch notice for Germany
• Enphase technical brief TEB-00109-2.0-EN, October 2024 and the IQ Battery 5P store page
• Shelly Pro 3EM 3CT63 product page and Shelly dynamic price guide
• Victron Cerbo GX page, Dynamic ESS manual and GX Modbus-TCP manual

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a home energy management system?

A home energy management system (HEMS) is the software and hardware that decides when a home uses, stores or sells electricity. It reads meter data and can switch loads, a battery or an EV charger. The inverter turns DC into AC. The HEMS decides what to do with that power.

Which home energy management system is best?

None is best for every site. SolarEdge Home is one vendor stack built around its Home Hub inverter. Enphase works with its own microinverters and IQ Battery. Shelly adds metering and load switching to hardware you already own. Victron’s Cerbo GX is a programmable controller. Pick by your inverter, battery and tariff.

Does Shelly work as a home energy management system?

Shelly gives you the meter and the switching, not the inverter or the battery. The Shelly Pro 3EM reports voltage, current and power for each phase. It can reach other systems through Modbus, MQTT, HTTP and WebSocket. Price-based control in Shelly’s own guide comes from a partner service, clever-PV.

Can a Victron Cerbo GX control a Fronius or SolarEdge inverter?

Victron’s manual lists Fronius and ABB inverters as direct LAN connections with zero feed-in support. It lists SMA and SolarEdge as direct LAN connections without zero feed-in support. So the Cerbo GX can show data from a SolarEdge inverter, but it cannot cut that inverter’s output for zero feed-in.

Does Enphase support dynamic tariffs?

Enphase publishes a technical brief for Germany, dated October 2024. It says the system works with the EPEX SPOT exchange and needs an IQ Gateway Metered. It also says third-party batteries are not supported for this feature. Check what your own country and gateway version support before you promise it.

How much does a home energy management system cost?

Of the four, only Shelly shows a price on the page we read: 130,90 EUR including VAT for the Pro 3EM 3CT63 in Shelly’s German shop on 28 October 2026. SolarEdge, Enphase and Victron sell through installers and distributors, so ask for a written quote for the full set of parts.

Does SolarEdge offer vehicle-to-home charging?

SolarEdge announced a bi-directional DC EV charger on 14 June 2023 and said it expected to sell it in the second half of 2024. The announcement we read does not say whether it is on sale in your country. Ask SolarEdge or your distributor before you offer it to a customer.