Pros and Cons of Solar Panel Micro Inverters [Video]

[loadedman1991]

Id rather have one inverter that can fail, and be accessible in my basement then 20 little ones on my roof.

[CybershulDotCom]

He is talking nonsense and babbling

[KyleCarrington]

at 1:00 He states solar panels have MPPT technology and that they "look at the type of light, and optimizes, to produce the best type of electricity, from that type of light". Ok, hold on a minute, either I am completely misinformed, OR - MPPT is charge controller technology, NOT A SOLAR PANEL TECH, and it does not look at any light, it looks at the voltage and amperage. Light is Light. The sun doesn't change types of light every two minutes. MPPT finds the best point on the IV curve.. huh!?

[leckmeamoarchs]

@KyleCarrington

You are wrong about that!!

google that Maximum_power_point_tracking

[hazeyfla]

Sorry but the Enphase micro inverters don't even come close to the SMA products. Why do they want me to use a 240 watt panel to get close to the 190 watt output of the M190? Out of the many central inverters that we have installed, zero problems. We have replaced 3 Enphase inverters on 1 job alone. I will wait till SMA releases their micro inverter.

[MySchizoBuddy]

@hazeyfla that 240W is peak power at 1000W/m2 and 25C temperature. You will almost never get that much radiation. your 240W panel will be producing less power than that. It's best to use 800W/m2 to find out the realistic numbers which will give you around 200W-190W peak DC in real world situations. M190 takes 230W DC as input and outputs 190W AC

Enphase also has a 210W inverter that takes 240WDC as input and output 210W AC

[lancerooke]

This was supposed to be pros and CONS... He mentioned ZERO cons. How about this? At 200 bucks a piece, micro inverters are LESS efficient than the traditional centralized box inverter. This may very well be the future of sustainable energy, but not until the cost comes down.

[MySchizoBuddy]

@lancerooke Enpahse microinverters are 95% efficient which is the same as a central inverter. You probably meant to say they are more expensive per watt than a central inverter

[zzz12345678a0]

Microinverters are the way to go. You use 240V wiring, and the microinverters are warranteed for 15 years. If they fail, you just replace the bad microinverter, not a single large conventional inverter. The array still produces power even if there are failed microinverters.

[Decebal825]

what about in 20 years when you start having to replace each as they start to fail? do you need to get someone to do that one by one as they fail. big bucks for the solar companies instead of just replacing one normal inverter

[MySchizoBuddy]

@Decebal825 According to Enphase the Mean time to failure is 115 years. by the time 20 years have passed you will almost certainly have a robots do the repair work for all and replace the inverters. these robots will be be solar powered themselves, so no worries

[carlrodcor58]

I think it is good to hear about the advantages of microinverters but what about the disadvantages? Aré there more than the cost?

[wsugaimd]

I have the "old tech" big box inverter and looking at microinverters as I increase the capacity of my SunPower 8 panel unit. Thanks for the video and information.