Here's my Solar PV quote - your thoughts and comments please?

Martyn1981

jimmyboy420 wrote: »

Yes, I can only fit 12 panels and they'll be close to the chimney on one side.

I'm pretty much sold on solar edge now, but can you tell me how you know about the extra 0.5kWh.

And am i right thinking that equates to around 9pence?
So we're talking an additional cost of approx £300, nearly 10 years to pay back, which is ok.

Hiya JB, I'm a SolarEdge fan too, but ........ if your roof is SSE, and the chimney is West, then direct shading might not be much - very hard to imagine/estimate. It'll also, only be during the late evening in high summer. The SMA TL's have extremely good shade management for hard shading, such as a chimney.

Sorry to give you confusing advice, the SE kit may well be a benefit, but you'll also have 12 PO's (power optimisers) on your roof, which have great warranties, but will access be a problem if one fails?

Million dollar question, when the sun gets behind the chimney, is it still **DIRECTLY** shining on the SSE roof, so the chimney is physically inbetween? Or would the sun be below/behind the ridgeline (relative to the panels) so the sunlight is reflecting down from the clouds/sky? If the later, then it won't matter too much.

To confuse you further, SMA TL's ain't cheap, so the SE kit might not actually cost more, and will be about 1% more efficient anyway. Just ponder the access issue if SE is optional not a necessity.

Damn ..... the SE monitoring is really cool too. I suspect I'm not helping you at all here. Sorry.

Mart.

jimmyboy420

Hiya,

this made me make up my mind to go for solar edge, as for some period of the afternoon and evening, the sun is shining directly towards my roof, but the chimney gets in the way of some of it, causing partial shading to some panels (sometimes as many as half when the sun is low in the sky and late on in the evening...). Being installed this week!

James

tunnel

To give you an idea of the solaredge, at 3.15pm today I had one panel at 51W and the other 7 were clocking up over 180W each, at 3.30pm the same panel was at 31W and still the others at 180+. Had that been the SMA then all would have been at 51W or thereabouts.
My totals today suggest I'm around 700w up on the day. As I only need 1kWh a week to make good the investment of retro-fitting then I know I made the right decision.


Said it before and i'll say it again, any shading then solaredge or micro inverters are a must

jimmyboy420

Is the solaredge monitoring at a panel level? (This was my underatanding). The android app appears only to show the overall system level...

Also, is it free? I seem to see some mention of an annual cost...

My understanding was that it was panel level and free, but I can't seem to confirm that online.

tunnel

Hi JB,


The android app only shows current generation and the days generation(via a curve graph) The home pc gives me everything, generation, panel to panel comparison(how I know the difference in gen) and also playback + a whole host of other info like monthly totals etc etc


Best of all....its free for life, I certainly haven't been asked for anything