Solar Edge - break thru or what?

[Wenthen]

Hi all,

I've come across a competitive quote that includes Solar Edge products - Solar Inverters, Power Optimizers and PV Monitoring | SolarEdge and it all seems very good. Serious improvements and features are claimed, overcoming many 'inherent problems' caused by adjacent roofs not pointing the same way, shading, unbalanced strings etc, the normal "why can't everyone just have a nice big rectangular roof facing south?" syndrome!
But there doesn't seem much info available except from Solar Edge website, and because in my domestic quote it creates an additional cost, I don't want to add on something that is OK, but not really effective, so not worth the money/possible complication.
Yield measurement is also an issue of course, does it do "what it says on the tin", or is it sales hype camouflaged by some iffy science?

I've read the Photon article too but, for example, I notice that part of it refers to 'optimizers improving efficiency by 1%', not too exciting! So why do it then, - how long do these things last, will the Inverter last longer, etc..?

So can anyone tell me from experience that these things work please? Or, point me to some other hard evidence?

Thanks
V

 

[saint]

we are looking at these this week. do you have any costings yet?

 

[Wenthen]

No, but the 12 panel competitive quote I have seen makes me 'feel' that these PowerBoxes and Inverters are similar, or maybe lower in cost/price to a conventional inverter solution. Inverter overheads annoy me too, so I want this to work!

I have surveyed two roofs in the same property that are at 90 degrees to each other, one twice the length but half of it is in partial shade! So normally I would be considering 3 inverters.
Therefore I deduce/reckon overall SolarEdge may compare favourably technically and cost-wise, to the conventional multi inverter solution. This may, in part, be because the resulting system will be more tailored and less '3 times Big Box Inverter' that would be actually be excessive in terms of a technical solution.

But before I spent ages digging around only to find it wasn't a viable solution, I asked here, - kind of a trowel rather than a spade at this stage. Send me a private mail?

Hope that helps?
V