[RE-wrenches] Solar Edge v. micro inverters

SwingJunkie swingjunkie at gmail.com
Sat Jun 15 04:25:00 PDT 2013


Marco,
We installed our first Enphase system in December 2009, and our last in December 2011, when their high failure rate became a problem. (Currently 10%+ for us).  We were only installing the Enphase units on sites with shading issues, as a means to mitigate conditions. 
     After moving away from Enphase, we selected SolarEdge as the solution of choice for those sites.  The installation labor is comparable to the Enphase solution, separate device under each module. One clear advantage is that there are no custom trunk cables required, just the standard USE-2 cable and connectors. 
   Our field experience has been better than expected production, and 1.4% failure rate.  In December we installed a SolarEdge system just down the street from a site where we had previously installed an SMA string inverter on an unshaded site. The  SolarEdge system has some shading. Both arrays have roughly the same orientation and pitch.  To date the SolarEdge system with shading continues to out produce the unshaded SMA system by 5-8% kWh/kWp. 

I agree with your intuition on fewer components making a better solution and "IF" there is a reliable solution that accomplishes this that would be preferred. 
   I just priced out the Mage AC module (SolarBridge technology) side by side with the Mage - SolarEdge combination and the later is less expensive equipment wise but I think that advantage would be erased by labor savings on the install. 
   All that said I'm still a fan of the old fashioned string inverter solution unless the site shading conditions and or array geometry require an alternate solution. 

Cheers
Carl Adams
SunRock Solar

On Jun 14, 2013, at 9:15 PM, "Marco Mangelsdorf" <marco at pvthawaii.com> wrote:

I’ve been educating myself on the Solar Edge product v. using micro inverters.  If you click on the link below, you can read the pitch that they make for using their product over micros. 
 
Any opinions out there on how convincing their strategy is?  As well as any experience in the field with the product?
 
Intuitively, it seems to me that if you can accomplish what you need to accomplish (DC power from the PV mod to usable AC power) with fewer parts (as in a micro inverter instead of a DC-DC converter and a separate inverter), then that approach makes more sense.
 
http://www.solaredge.us/groups/us/technology/microinverters
 
thanks,
marco
 
 
_______________________________________________
List sponsored by Home Power magazine

List Address: RE-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org

Change email address & settings:
http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org

List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org

List rules & etiquette:
www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm

Check out participant bios:
www.members.re-wrenches.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20130615/c5069bf9/attachment-0003.html>


More information about the RE-wrenches mailing list