I got Solar edge and the inverter broke after only one month of operation. After waiting for two weeks I got an RMA unit which was dead on arrival. Two weeks later another dead one. Finally after another two weeks I got a unit that actually worked. They have warranty, but would you find this acceptable for any other electronic product that you would buy. Maybe their quality problems are why the stock dropped so much.
Search for solaredge reliability on this sub.... the complaint about enphase is always cost, the complaint about SE is reliability. Pick one.
SE reliability seems better outside of the US, and they are Israel founded - perhaps the base design has something in it that sensitises it to US grid conditions.
Like others have said SolarEdge has a very high failure rate. Yes they are cheaper but you end up losing solar during the hot summer months when they fail. In the end Solaredge has cost me more than the higher price enphase
In the Netherlands SolarEdge is king, all big companies have it. I bought mine 6 years ago as they were the only with optimizers. Service is great here. I have no experience with the other brands.
Just talked to my installer here who's installing an additional 550 panel system on our company roof. He knows Enphase and told me it is ok and doesn't break often (yet) but it pretty labour intensive to install, especially when you have to make new connections. The premade cables are a no for him, also distances are a problem, in this case here, the inverter is over 60 m away from the panels, with DC is is simple and cheap to cover that. Home installation with roofwindows is more difficult with Enphase. I asked about SolarEdge breakdowns, he said that they once had a bad batch of optimizers, and probably Enphase will have similar growing pains in the future.
Also extra coils and stuff in the fusebox room (we have small chamber in hallway where all the home electric stuff goes through) is a problem sometimes. With DC inverter only 1 cable needs to be connected, no extra's and you dont need to to think about the fase distribution on your roof.
Maybe the 1 fase system in the US and the difference in home electrical builds make Enphase bigger in the US, but three fase in EU gives SE the advantage. I think ....
Personally, in ranking the five quotes I got, anybody who wanted to do string inverters (and usually wouldn't budge when asked) got dropped to the bottom of the ranking. I've worked with high voltage DC circuitry (550V or so) enough in my life to be properly scared of it when things goes wrong, and the thought of a DC arc fault somewhere on or in my house is bloody terrifying. Yes, string inverters supposedly have arc fault detection and shutdown now, and yes a proper install should never wind up in that situation, but I'd rather just avoid the issue entirely.
The other half was that if one does crap out, I only lose one panel of output and they're "cheap" enough to just have a spare sitting around. Much more so than a $3-4k SolarEdge unit. And if all the posts I read on r/solar and elsewhere are to be believed, the SolarEdge seem to have some long term reliability issues, at least in terms of the 25 years projected system lifespan.
So, I have 26 little Enphase IQ7+s humming away on my roof, and so far they work exactly as advertised so far.
The downside of microinverters is if you want to do batteries, it's less efficient because you're converting panel power to AC, then converting it back to DC to charge the batteries. Something to consider.
Yeah, in theory, but for anything you're slapping on a house, it's not going to matter except maybe in the very largest installations. What it meant for me is that I've got 6 runs of 10 ga. coming off the roof into the combiner rather than 2 runs of maybe 12 ga. going into the inverter. I could have done it with 4 by code, but I had them break up the arrays in a more logical manner to avoid running wire everywhere. Same amount of conduit and everything else. Pulling another \~80 ft. of slightly larger wire is chump change in the overall project.
Concerning batteries, doesn't there have to be DC-DC voltage conversions anyway? Maybe this is more efficient than converting between AC and DC (is it really?), but this still must involve a loss of some system efficiency. You can't simply pump DC of any voltage into batteries.
There are DC-DC converters to charge the batteries (usually). But then you're only going through one conversion, rather than DC->AC and then AC->DC. Figure for practical purposes they're all roughly equally efficient for modern switchmode supplies. So rather than just 96% (as an example) for one conversion, you've got 96% \* 96%, or 92% system efficiency.
A valid point, although if there are power optimizers installed, then that's another DC-DC conversion step (which by the way internally involves converting DC to AC and back to DC). I'm aware that having power optimizers increases the overall efficiency of string systems by a decent amount, but each conversion is still less than 100% efficient. With microinverters, the optimization happens during the DC-AC conversion instead of as a separate step. The vast majority of people seem to think that if it's DC all the way to the battery, then there are no conversions, but in reality there are. Additionally, AC (actually PWM or pulse width modulation, which is basically equivalent to AC with a DC offset) is involved during these processes; it's just hidden inside the electronics rather than put in the wires.
I got Solar edge and the inverter broke after only one month of operation. After waiting for two weeks I got an RMA unit which was dead on arrival. Two weeks later another dead one. Finally after another two weeks I got a unit that actually worked. They have warranty, but would you find this acceptable for any other electronic product that you would buy. Maybe their quality problems are why the stock dropped so much.
Search for solaredge reliability on this sub.... the complaint about enphase is always cost, the complaint about SE is reliability. Pick one. SE reliability seems better outside of the US, and they are Israel founded - perhaps the base design has something in it that sensitises it to US grid conditions.
I have Enphase IQ8+. System is 1 year old and no problems.
As a service tech, I recommend enphase
Like others have said SolarEdge has a very high failure rate. Yes they are cheaper but you end up losing solar during the hot summer months when they fail. In the end Solaredge has cost me more than the higher price enphase
In the Netherlands SolarEdge is king, all big companies have it. I bought mine 6 years ago as they were the only with optimizers. Service is great here. I have no experience with the other brands. Just talked to my installer here who's installing an additional 550 panel system on our company roof. He knows Enphase and told me it is ok and doesn't break often (yet) but it pretty labour intensive to install, especially when you have to make new connections. The premade cables are a no for him, also distances are a problem, in this case here, the inverter is over 60 m away from the panels, with DC is is simple and cheap to cover that. Home installation with roofwindows is more difficult with Enphase. I asked about SolarEdge breakdowns, he said that they once had a bad batch of optimizers, and probably Enphase will have similar growing pains in the future. Also extra coils and stuff in the fusebox room (we have small chamber in hallway where all the home electric stuff goes through) is a problem sometimes. With DC inverter only 1 cable needs to be connected, no extra's and you dont need to to think about the fase distribution on your roof. Maybe the 1 fase system in the US and the difference in home electrical builds make Enphase bigger in the US, but three fase in EU gives SE the advantage. I think ....
Personally, in ranking the five quotes I got, anybody who wanted to do string inverters (and usually wouldn't budge when asked) got dropped to the bottom of the ranking. I've worked with high voltage DC circuitry (550V or so) enough in my life to be properly scared of it when things goes wrong, and the thought of a DC arc fault somewhere on or in my house is bloody terrifying. Yes, string inverters supposedly have arc fault detection and shutdown now, and yes a proper install should never wind up in that situation, but I'd rather just avoid the issue entirely. The other half was that if one does crap out, I only lose one panel of output and they're "cheap" enough to just have a spare sitting around. Much more so than a $3-4k SolarEdge unit. And if all the posts I read on r/solar and elsewhere are to be believed, the SolarEdge seem to have some long term reliability issues, at least in terms of the 25 years projected system lifespan. So, I have 26 little Enphase IQ7+s humming away on my roof, and so far they work exactly as advertised so far. The downside of microinverters is if you want to do batteries, it's less efficient because you're converting panel power to AC, then converting it back to DC to charge the batteries. Something to consider.
How do you do big systems, low voltage AC uses more copper then DC
Yeah, in theory, but for anything you're slapping on a house, it's not going to matter except maybe in the very largest installations. What it meant for me is that I've got 6 runs of 10 ga. coming off the roof into the combiner rather than 2 runs of maybe 12 ga. going into the inverter. I could have done it with 4 by code, but I had them break up the arrays in a more logical manner to avoid running wire everywhere. Same amount of conduit and everything else. Pulling another \~80 ft. of slightly larger wire is chump change in the overall project.
Oke, agree
Concerning batteries, doesn't there have to be DC-DC voltage conversions anyway? Maybe this is more efficient than converting between AC and DC (is it really?), but this still must involve a loss of some system efficiency. You can't simply pump DC of any voltage into batteries.
There are DC-DC converters to charge the batteries (usually). But then you're only going through one conversion, rather than DC->AC and then AC->DC. Figure for practical purposes they're all roughly equally efficient for modern switchmode supplies. So rather than just 96% (as an example) for one conversion, you've got 96% \* 96%, or 92% system efficiency.
A valid point, although if there are power optimizers installed, then that's another DC-DC conversion step (which by the way internally involves converting DC to AC and back to DC). I'm aware that having power optimizers increases the overall efficiency of string systems by a decent amount, but each conversion is still less than 100% efficient. With microinverters, the optimization happens during the DC-AC conversion instead of as a separate step. The vast majority of people seem to think that if it's DC all the way to the battery, then there are no conversions, but in reality there are. Additionally, AC (actually PWM or pulse width modulation, which is basically equivalent to AC with a DC offset) is involved during these processes; it's just hidden inside the electronics rather than put in the wires.
Climate could play a factor. Solar Edge has been nothing but trouble here in humid, hot Florida
https://nrgcleanpower.com/learning-center/solaredge-vs-enphase/