SolarEdge Gives an Edge to Solar Installations

Our company sells both Enphase® micro inverters and SolarEdge and I highly recommend SolarEdge for several reasons. First of all the Enphase® M250 micro inverter is only rated for 240 watts maximum, continuous so even though a typical 280 watt solar panel with a +3% tolerance rating is capable of outputting 3% more than 280 watts, you will only get a maximum continuous output of 240 watts per their spec sheet from each Enphase® inverter. With an average of twenty micro inverters in a typical system, this would be a tremendous loss of power over the life of your system.

With a system using SolarEdge power optimizers instead of micro inverters, you will have a much greater maximum output rating of up to 400 watts or 600 watts for commercial installations, depending on the model of power optimizer that you choose, so, far less power can potentially be wasted.

Second, the Enphase® M250 is only rated for 96.5% maximum efficiency with a CEC weighted efficiency of 96.5%. Other technologies such as SolarEdge offers a higher peak efficiency rating of 98.3% and a CEC weighted efficiency of 97.5%. This may not seem like a big difference but when you consider the 30 to 40 years life expectancy of your solar panels, the difference in efficiency will add up to considerable amount of power.

Third, the Enphase® M250 will only turn on when your shaded panels have reached 22 volts whereas a SolarEdge equipped solar panel will begin producing power with as little as 5 volts which yields better shade protection and better early morning, late afternoon energy harvest.

Fourth, with Enphase®, the portal which allows you to connect to the Internet so that you can monitor your solar panel’s individual performance is optional and costs about $500.00, whereas with Solaredge, the Internet portal is built in at no additional cost. Also with Enphase® you have to purchase their proprietary cabling which costs about $40.00 per micro inverter. With SolarEdge, the cabling is built in at no additional cost.

Micro inverters are typically mounted under the solar panel on a potentially hot roof which in my opinion increases the risk for failure when compared to a ground mount installation. SolarEdge power optimizers use far less heat dissipating components in their under solar module mounted power optimizers which increases their life expectancy.

An important point to remember is that micro inverters may offer a 25 year warranty but that warranty does not cover the labor costs for removing and replacing failed micro inverters. It is an inescapable fact that all inverters will eventually fail. Unfortunately they won’t all fail at the same time. You may have some micro inverters that will fail at year 11 after your installation warranty expires and a few more may fail at year 13 and a few more at year 16 and and so on.

None of the labor costs for these potential failures after year 10 will be covered by your warranty. And you can expect the cost for an electrician to climb up on to you roof and remove and replace failed micro inverters to be in the neighborhood of $150 to $200 per site visit. So instead of an easy to replace, single point of failure at ground level, with a micro inverter system you will typically have multiple points of failure on top of a roof that unfortunately, won’t all fail at the same time.

SolarEdge was recently awarded Intersolar’s prestigious 2012 innovation award in Munich, Germany.

The best part is that a SolarEdge system costs considerably less than Enphase® and offers better performance in shaded environments as per a standardized National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shading study conducted by PV Evolutions Lab (PVEL).