[RE-wrenches] micro-inverters
William Dorsett
wmdorsett at sbcglobal.net
Thu Sep 15 09:04:56 PDT 2016
Brad, which has been discontinued, the SMA 240’s or Trimetric? While we don’t have a large collection of Enphase systems, after they are installed when needed to think of them at all, we have a consensus among owners of satisfaction especially in terms of monitoring and troubleshooting that goes with microinverters.
I’m learning new features on Enphase’s website constantly. For what string inverter can you see a continuous graph of DC volts and input current, AC output volts and current, as well as frequency and internal temp of the inverters at the module level? At this point we may have slightly over 1% failure rate on systems that are up to six years in the field. Keep in mind that while there is talk of capacitors failing, SMA 240’s also uses a row of paralleled caps.
And I sense an uptick in installer support.
There is one area where string inverters have an advantage and that is the ability to place a lightening arrester between the module(s) and the inverter, making micros more vulnerable in that regard.
Bill Dorsett
From: RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Bradley Bassett
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2016 10:02 AM
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] micro-inverters
My SMA micro-inverters have been rock solid for a couple of years. They do not taper off and do not communicate with the Sunny Island. The only issue I've had is that it seems that an internet connection is needed for the monitoring to work, even for the local monitoring. If there is no monitoring ie: power outage for the neighborhood DSL, then there is no direct way to see if they are working or not. Indirectly when off grid, my Trimetric is the best source of information on charge or discharge. A separate kWh would of course provide more accurate info on their status.
I believe that these have been discontinued now though.
Brad
AEE Solar
On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 6:46 AM, Drake <drake.chamberlin at redwoodalliance.org> wrote:
Is it the consensus that Enphase 215 inverters on are the most reliable micro inverters (even though the tech support may be lacking these days)?
Someone on this list mentioned that the SMA micros had a rocky time of it. What were the problems with these?
Do the SMA micro inverters taper charge when AC coupled with Sunny Islands?
Drake Chamberlin
Athens Electric LLC
OH License 44810
CO License 3773
NABCEP Certified Solar PV
740-448-7328
http://athens-electric.com/
At 03:24 PM 9/14/2016, you wrote:
Re 190's.
Not much to learn from dissecting a swollen 190. Most of the time the swelling is caused by electrolytic capacitors that have failed. Some very high current capacitors actually have brackets to bolt them down to minimize swelling.
Frank BZP.
BZ Products INC.
8801 Gravois Rd.
St.Louis MO 63123 USA
314-644-2490
www.bz-products.net
On 9/14/2016 1:58 PM, Benn Kilburn wrote:
You guys should really cut one of those swelled up ones and share the photos with us :)
Benn Kilburn
SkyFire Energy Inc.
780-906-7807
On Sep 14, 2016, at 11:14 AM, Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarage01 at gmail.com > wrote:
The 190's had component issues which case them to balloon up
Jerry
On Sep 14, 2016 10:11 AM, "William Miller" <william at millersolar.com > wrote:
Colleagues:
We have M190s fail in beach installations. Some have had the cases swell up like there is a tumor inside. I haven't cut them open to see what's inside because they need to go back to manufacturer.
William
On Sep 14, 2016, at 9:32 AM, Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarage01 at gmail.com > wrote:
Mike
I also work near the ocean, its all around me here in Hawaii, we have had the 190's fail but not to environmental conditions and very few issues with 215's. Do you have any pics of the damage as l have seen very little salt issues.
Jerry
On Sep 13, 2016 9:11 PM, "Mike Nelson" < mdelectricsolar at gmail.com <mailto:mdelectricsolar at gmail.com> > wrote:
I've had so many Enphase failures it's kind of ridiculous. We install most of our systems near the ocean so corrosion has played a big factor. The newer micro inverters are holding a much better, 215 and 250's. I have learned over the years that SMA makes the best product, and I mostly stick with them. Sometimes micro inverters are requested or really fit the installation particulars, so I still use them occasionally. I haven't yet tried solar edge.
Michael D Nelson
MD Electric & Solar, Inc.
707-684-0064 mobile
707-884-1862 office
www.mdelectricsolar.com
Sent from my iPhone
On Sep 13, 2016, at 6:23 PM, Rebecca Lundberg < rebecca.lundberg at gmail.com <mailto:rebecca.lundberg at gmail.com> > wrote:
Esteemed wrenches,
I'm hoping the experience of this list can help give us a broader perspective on the current market performance and as a secondary concern, tech support (or lack thereof), from solar micro-inverter manufacturers.
Are others having much trouble with micro-inverters? We have had repeated issues with several different brands on our systems in Minnesota:
- 8 Enphase systems with mostly M210 and M215, have had to repeatedly go back to sites to replace units. The new replacement ones seem to be lasting better (we sure hope they will). Enphase is harder to contact in recent years, but we're happy they at least provide a predictable stipend. Are you also having to replace a lot of this brand of product? Are the newer models holding up better?
- We gave a new inverter busbar design concept a try (tenKsolar) and though the micro-inverters were supposed to take turns and be 'redundant,' the ones with APS micro-inverters needed 100% replacement and the ones with Lead Solar micro-inverters have a problem where if one of them fails it appears to send a signal to all the rest so the entire busbar stops working -- in action it's far from redundant. When we purchased the tenKsolar Rais Inverter Bus (RIB) the spec sheet didn't tell us what brand of micro-inverter they would use as the OEM so we couldn't research the viability of the product or company or warranty stipend (or lack there-of) of the micro-inverter OEM. We assumed it was a tenKsolar product and they would provide warranty replacements, service, and tech support, but our experience has been far from that. When something goes wrong tenK says 'it's not our product that's failing' because they don't actually manufacture the micro-inverter (it's an OEM), the micro-inverter company says 'it's not our product' because tenKsolar has it wired and used in a very unique manner specific to the tenKsolar product, so both manufacturers are backing away from any responsibility. A 25-year warranty on the inverter busbar is a great concept but if/when something goes wrong there is no support and no apparent warranty at all except maybe they will send us a new component that needs several hours of work to re-install, so either the installer does the warranty work for free or the customer has a very unexpected expense to get their system back up and running a year or two after it was installed; we think both scenarios are unacceptable (from our installer perspective :-), do any of you have experiences you can share here?
I'm wondering if the climate in MN makes us an anomaly. Based on these micro-inverter experiences we feel like the Rapid Shutdown rule has forced us to use dc optimizers on residential applications whether we want to or not -- is that pretty much what all of you are doing too?
Rebecca Lundberg
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