Based on performance, quality, service and value, from your experience installing solar, what are the best inverters on the market today?
1 Like
Comment from āJohnā on CER article:
I have gone SMA all the way and never looked back.
SMA sunny Boy inverters just connect to their Sunny Island off grid inverter without any issues whatsoever.It all just works.
We ditched all our Lead acid rubbish, 2.5 tonnes of lead replaced by 350 kilograms of lithium by a compny called BYD.
I cannot emphazize how good the Sunny Island with Sunny Boy 5.0TL inverters isā¦forget all the seperate charge controllersā¦blah blah.
So happy with 30kw of Lithium and SMAā¦
1 Like
Does anyone know how are invertors connected together?
In case there are 50 invertors (in 1MW power plant), how are they connected.
I doubt there are 50 cables that go to a transformerā¦
If SMA is used (for example) does it have input from an invertor that comes before it?
My concern is that it cannot just be simply connected in series - since it is AC currentā¦
Hello @miro ,
The way we connect multiples of inverters together is in Parallel.
We normally would have a PVDB, where all the inverters would run to, then a Main Cable from there Through a Inverter Supply Main Switch to the Grid.
We have been using Solar Edge almost exclusively for our projects in previous years.
We have had 14 optimizer failures and 3 inverters . If I would say the customer service is abysmal it would be a compliment. The last inverter replacement took 3 weeks and the customerās system was down almost a month during peak product, and forget about trying to get paid. We are still waiting for payment from 2017 (5). The person who handles this is gone with no replacement. When we call tech service from the field we wait an average of 52 minutes. Donāt go near this company. We have switched to Fronius and are quite happy with this product and the built in datamanager
1 Like
best inverters on the market today in my opinion are Sunpower micro-invertersā¦ 25 year parts and labor warranty. But, you have to be a Sunpower dealer to get them.
When we use string inverters, we generally use SMAā¦ but are seeing a recent rash of failures in M series installed 9-10 years ago. They seem to fail almost exactly at the 10 year markā¦
1 Like
what type of battery management/monitoring system do you use to keep your 30kw of lithium balanced (to prevent un-even or over voltage at end of charging?) Does it have active balancing at the cell level, or just the pak level with cell alerts?
Since I have used micro inverters for most of my residential installations, I have found that Enphase M12s and M250s to be very untrustworthy. I have had to replace 5 at one siteāthey were only 2 years old. And 2 at another siteāonly 1 year old. And, APsystems are not much better. My last installation using APsystems 600s. 4 of them were faulty right from the factory.
1 Like
25 years labour and parts warranty?
Yes, Sunpower has 25 years Parts AND Labor warranty on modules AND micro-inverters! The micro-inverters are Sunpower technology, and pre-installed at the factory. The combination with Sunpower modules (with degradation warranteed to be less than 0.25% annually), gives homeowners the most production, with lowest risk = highest value!
Please get me their number or email address. Thanks.
Sunpower is the manufacturerā¦ They sell thru authorized Dealer/Installers all over the country. visit Sunpower.com, and find a Dealer in your area.
A post was split to a new topic: BYD 24v/200Ah battery setup
4 posts were split to a new topic: Micro inverters vs string inverters
We only use string inverters
Hi @Ekelly234
Iām curious, why donāt you use micro inverters? Do you use optimisers if there are shading issues?
Marty
Yes we use optimizers if there are shading issues usually we try to remove the shading issues thatās why we do so many ground mounts micro inverters have a consistent rate of failure
1 Like
I am somewhat confused with your ātopā list, Photon Laboratories in Germany rate the Goodwe as one of the best globally, they have been voted number one in various countries for example the Netherlands, they have a great start up voltage, great voltage range, they handle network instabilities very well. have a less than 1% failure rate, whereas, a number of your top five have shown issues with certain power networks, it has been noted that one of your top five in particular may have been removed from the CEC approved list for a while and also has 9 times more failures than most other inverters.
Also your top list of panels does not relate to Canadian Solar as being the number one panel on a Global scale according to several sources, IHS Markit, Canadian Solar and several others.
I am confused and would appreciate some clarity
The solar ranking is based on a number of criteria including feedback from solar industry professionals and installers. This is an Australian based site and as such the majority of our feedback is from Australian installers based on the 2 million plus solar installations. From our hundreds of surveys we have compiled, Goodwe has had mixed feedback with some compaints from installers about difficulties claiming warranty and sub-standard service and support. However this has improved over the last year and the new models from Goodwe do look impressive. Time will tell.
As for Canadian Solar being number one? What is this based on, production volume, innovation, warranty, efficiency etc?
Canadian produce mid level lower cost panels using standard P-type silicon and have had several issues with micro-cracking and potential induced degratation over the last few years. While Canadian is still highly regarded they are not currently considered a module or cell manufacturing leader.
Hope this helps
We use Fronius exclusively. prior to this we used Solaredge since then we have had 5 inverter failures and 16 optimizer failure we have discontinued using this product. We have installed 7 Outback systems for either off grid or gird tied battery backup. Recently we had a problem with the latest installation, the customer service was abysmal. I had to go to the CEO of SunRun to get some action as they just ignored my sales person. Watch your warranties.