A recent survey showed of 32 residential solar installers over a two-month period showed that micro inverters were able to reduce soft costs compared to conventional central inverters. In fact, major micro inverter manufacturer, Enphase claim that installation using their TRUEAC modules have can reduce labor costs by up to 48%!
They also claim that installers in the US had to walk away from 1 out of 4 jobs if they weren’t using micro inverters (which are easier to install on difficult roofs). I find this really hard to believe, but if it’s true I can only put it down to the prevalence of online quoting without a site visit over in the USA. You really do need a site visit if you want a high performing solar system properly designed for your roof. You simply can’t do it with Google maps (even with micro inverters)!
Read more about this here.
RSS - Posts
Bull shite. The labour costs are actually higher with having to mount an inverter per panel and then making the very fragile and primitive comms work – powerline comms is a nightmare with every inductive load within 5kms interfering with it and customer DSL based internet connectivity also proving to be problematic. Then add in voltage rise with AC breakers (even terra saki or Schneider) tripping left right and centre and it’s a complete nightmare.
9 out of ten quotes I received were done using Google maps or similar and only one told me that our shading problems were uneconomic to install solar even with micro inverters. So beware.
Have to remember in the states the DC has to be in steel conduit, which is time consuming and difficult to work with. The DC isolators they use over there are basically massive knife switches and cost a fortune. So it is believable in the US that install costs could be severely reduced by using micros but it doesn’t relate to the Australian experience
Thanks Adrian, great point – I did not know that about US install codes.