I’ve had a lot of people ask me about the pros and cons of microinverters recently. I have written a long and detailed description of microinverters, but for those who would rather learn about them without ploughing through 1000 words of my ramblings (and who can blame you!) I created this infographic about micro inverters vs string inverters. Hope you like it 🙂
Micro inverters vs. String Inverters (AKA Central Inverters)
On 26th Nov my microinverter monitoring showed 45kWh generated. Woo Hoo!
Microinverters… In my experience, Aussie solar installers either love ’em or hate ’em. Seriously! I honestly don’t think I’ve talked to an installer that is indifferent to them.
How many panels can you connect to your inverter?
It is common practice, when designing a solar system, to ‘undersize’ the solar inverter, by connecting more panels than the inverter appears to be rated for.
This can freak out some solar customers when they see, for example 3.25kW of panels proposed to be connected to a 3kW inverter in their solar quote.
Confused?
Let me explain the nuances of solar inverter sizing… [Read more…]
Follow the money…
The big news in solar energy this week was the acquisition of Power-One — manufacturers of the fable Aurora Inverters — by the Swiss energy giant the ABB Group for one billion dollars. For those among us who will never see $1,000,000,000, to give you an idea of its worth, its about half of what celebrity Oprah Winfrey charged for her recent Australian appearance. [Read more…]
Power-One has been sold to ABB for $1B
I’m a big fan of Aurora inverters. These thoroughbred Italian inverters are manufactured by a company called Power-One and are the second best selling inverters on the planet. (The best selling are SMA in case you didn’t know)
So news of Power-One being sold, lock, stock and barrel to Swiss engineering conglomerate ABB, made me sit up and take notice.
Why?
Two reasons: [Read more…]
How do you choose a good solar inverter? It’s a really important question. If you choose a bad inverter, it may turn out to be noisy, inefficient and unreliable. If you have a look at the inverter reviews that are coming in to SQ, some inverters appear to have an awful failure rate. For example at the time of writing the Beijing Kinglong New Energy (KLNE) inverter reviews report 7 failures from 13 reviews! Ouch!
Here is my attempt to answer this important question. And I’ve provided a transcript of my rantings below the video. [Read more…]
I got a great email the other day:
“One solar installer has told me that it is best for the inverter to be as close as possible to the panels and NOT to the meter box as your checklist indicates. Is he crazy?”
Short answer. Yes – he’s crazy.
Longer answer:
As close as possible to the panels? Whatcha gonna do put it on the roof?
I get a lot of stick for this advice in one of my solar installation videos:
Sometimes I get heat for recommending that you put your solar inverter as close to your fusebox as possible.
Photon Magazine July 2012 Awarded good marks to the Growatt 5000MTL
The latest issue of industry bible: Photon International has an in depth Growatt inverter review of the 5000MTL. A popular 5kW solar inverter from China.
It performs well in the efficiency tests, scoring an A grade at high irradiation (i.e. strong sun) and a B grade at medium irradiation. It ranked in the top third of all devices tested by the magazine over the past few years.
So to cut a long story short – Growatts are one of the better Chinese inverters out there. And they are certainly a lot cheaper than the European inverters on the market.
But there is a question mark over the quality control in the Growatt factory. [Read more…]
Solar Infographic : If Inverters were Cars…
The current edition of industry bible “Photon Magazine” (June 2012 issue) has a glowing review of the Chinese made Samil Power Solar Lake 15kW inverter.
A couple of years ago if you were investing in a 15kW solar system your default choice would have been a European inverter – think SMA, Aurora or Delta. It would have been a very brave engineer that specced a Chinese inverter on such a big system!
However in a few short years the Chinese have learned from any mistakes made and are producing some world class solar inverter hardware.
A solar inverter is like any other electronic device in your home and it will produce some Electromagnetic radiation and potentially Radio Frequency interference. There is a standard that all approved electrical devices in Australia are required to meet (C Tick) but it does not guarantee zero emissions.
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