Solaredge v Enphase - 4kw quotes

saf1973 · 2 November 2016 at 2:14PM

Hi all,

I have been shopping around for a 4kw Solar PV system and have finally come up with a few competing companies offering either enphase, Solaredge or both, all for very similar money.

So, i'm trying to make my decision on what the best is technically, all providers are biased for one or the other with competing claims so i was looking for opinions.

My installation would be
South Roof, 5 panels
West Roof 1 & West roof 2, 9 to 11 panels (depending on 14 or 16 panel system)
No shading.
All companies use almost identical spec panels.

I cant see any downside to enphase other than Solaredge saying the solaredge system will produce 25% more, whether thats true i dont know? How will it react to 2 aspects at either end of the day?
Enphase will wake up earlier and go to bed later but with the Solaredge outperform to outweigh that enphase benefit?

who looks best going forward in terms of batteries and addons? Solaredge have the Tesla battery and produce there own device switches such as immersion controllers. enphase are rolling out there own batteries next year but dont have integrated addons (yet).

One more thing to consider is expandability, my roof will expand next year to allow another 12 panels, i know i wont get any FIT benefit, its just the extra kw benefit for me.

thanks

Martyn1981 · 2 November 2016 at 2:34PM

Hiya, just a few thoughts. I've got a SolarEdge system and it does seem to be working better than it should, so I've come to the conclusion that their 'claims' to maximise each panels performance seem true, however, perhaps Enphase does that too.

Would it be worth you waiting till next year when all rooves are available. The FiT band is now 0-10kWp (and perversely, it goes up at 10kWp+). Also any drop in the FiT is quite small going forward, here are the quarterly rates.

If you go bigger, would you be allowed to exceed the 3.68kW generation cap? Has this been explained, has anyone spoken to the DNO? More info in the PV FAQs.

Going bigger can pull the cost down towards £1k/kWp. Though SolarEdge may be slightly more, but the warranties are good.

I don't know if one year is long enough, but there may be products, with DNO approval to allow more generation, so long as export is capped at 3.68kW. So an integrated battery, diverter etc. But again, prices may not be economical in just one years time, but a package install could help.

Just some thoughts, happy to chat.

saf1973 · 2 November 2016 at 9:00PM

Hi,

My rationale for jumping into Solar PV now -
1) FIT is still available, this time last year it was cut massively, who knows whats coming down the line.
2) The devaluation of the £ will feed through to PV components as most are made in europe or asia, so we could be looking at a 17% increase once current stocks deplete.
3) The additional extension/roof is yet to be designed, worst case i wont get any/many extra panels but want a system that can keep that option open.

It was a nice sunny day today so i watched how light was hitting the roof, not scientific but hey. by 10.30am all aspects were lit with no shading, this continued right through the day until about 3.30pm when the lower half of a west roof was dappled lit by a tree, as the leaves are falling this wont block any low winter sun we get.

I've read so many websites, there doesn't seem to be a clear winner.

Maybe its actually more simplistic, a 250kw panel will only ever (optimally) produce 250kw, a 285kw panel will only ever produce 285kw regardless of what they are hooked on to, so maybe we are only talking a few watts here and there.

Is solaredge meant to be more expensive that enphase? i've got quotes both way around and the same!

tunnel · 2 November 2016 at 9:17PM

My personal view would be solaredge, I've not seen any enphase in action so can't comment whereas I, like Mart have solaredge and am very happy with the results.
I know solaredge is future friendly(not seen anything for enphase and am happy to be corrected) with battery back up plus it also comes with free online monitoring(you can see how each panel has performed daily(with all day playback))
If I'm not mistaken the solaredge power optimisers come with a standard 20 year guarantee and for a fee the inverter guarantee can be extended.

Can I ask how much you've been quoted and rough location, it helps keep a feel on current prices plus if there's someone local you may get some recommendations from other forum members for local reliable installers.

saf1973 · 2 November 2016 at 10:55PM

Its a tough call, without putting them side by side on the same rood its impossible to know whats best.

a downside with Solaredge is the single point of failure, if the inverter fails the whole system will fail, whereas enphase will carry on pumping out on all its remaining inverters.

enphase are releasing their own batteries soon (if not already), they look small and smart. They also have free panel level monitoring with a 20 year guarantee in the inverters.

With no shading in theory the solaredge will pump out more per panel, but takes longer to start and powers down earlier, so losing maybe 1 hour a day of generation.

I'm in Essex, prices are between £5700 & £6900 depending on the spec (the bells and whistles).

pinnks · 3 November 2016 at 8:29AM

I don't know much of the detail but I think SMA now does micro inverters and battery-ready or indeed connected inverters, e.g. Sunny Island. Might be worth investigating too if you are thinking of going down that route.

Martyn1981 · 3 November 2016 at 9:09AM

saf1973 wrote: »

Is solaredge meant to be more expensive that enphase? i've got quotes both way around and the same!

Hiya. It will depend on the size of the system. The SolarEdge (SE) power optimisers (PO's) are cheaper than the Enphase microinverters, but you also need to but the SE inverter. So there will be a crossover point as the 'savings' on the PO's make up for the inverter cost.

You are right about a single pint of failure, but I see that as a benefit. The SE inverter is a relatively dumb inverter as the PO's do all the balancing work, that's why it has a very good guarantee. If it fails, it's easy to swop, compared to a rooftop failure of a component.

I can't argue with your rationale for jumping in now. Whilst I can't see how the subsidy could be cut more than has already happened (it's already too low, lower than PV farms, and far, far lower than the proposed new nuclear plant in Hinkley (£66/MWh v's £102/MWh)), so politically, it would be extremely odd to drop it further ...... however ....... this new government's policies since May 15 have been extremely odd!

rugbyleaguesmate · 3 November 2016 at 9:19PM

tunnel wrote: »

My personal view would be solaredge, I've not seen any enphase in action so can't comment whereas I, like Mart have solaredge and am very happy with the results.
I know solaredge is future friendly(not seen anything for enphase and am happy to be corrected) with battery back up plus it also comes with free online monitoring(you can see how each panel has performed daily(with all day playback))
If I'm not mistaken the solaredge power optimisers come with a standard 20 year guarantee and for a fee the inverter guarantee can be extended.

Can I ask how much you've been quoted and rough location, it helps keep a feel on current prices plus if there's someone local you may get some recommendations from other forum members for local reliable installers.

This advice certainly helped me! Absolutely delighted with my solar edge install, it maybe a fluke and too early to predict but my system seems to produce significantly more than estimates.......

Sterlingtimes · 3 November 2016 at 10:34PM

saf1973 wrote: »

enphase are releasing their own batteries soon (if not already), they look small and smart. They also have free panel level monitoring with a 20 year guarantee in the inverters.

As far I I understand, Enphase will not provide free panel level monitoring to end-customers. It appears that it is possible to pay a licence fee for this: $200 or thereabouts. It provides panel level monitoring to installers, but that is useless where the so many installers have become insolvent. Has this situation changed?

I also not that Enphase uses powerline data transmission that causes severe radio interference on medium and short wave.

saf1973 · 4 November 2016 at 6:51PM

Hi,

I've now had 5 installers come and have a look and the recommendations are slightly favouring microinverters...

1 for Solaredge
1 for enphase
1 for APSystems (microinverters)
2 for either enphase or solaredge (take your pick!)

I'm not sure if the level of monitoring you see depends on the Envoy level? Quoting on 'envoy S'

Anyone with experience of multi-roofs and aspects? The micros inverters were designed for such a scenario, but i'm not sure how Solaredge would cope?

Martyn1981 · 4 November 2016 at 7:22PM

saf1973 wrote: »

Anyone with experience of multi-roofs and aspects? The micros inverters were designed for such a scenario, but i'm not sure how Solaredge would cope?

Hiya. SolarEdge is designed specifically to maximise the energy from each individual panel, so multi-aspect, varying pitch, different shading, different panel size/output etc etc is its bread and butter.

This video (and a couple of shorter follow ons) explain it all in detail:-

SolarEdge: maximum PV energy at a lower cost - Part 1/3

Solaredge v Enphase - 4kw quotes

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