When do Micro inverters or Solaredge make sense

tunnel

reloaded25 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice guys, I have settled on a string inverter (Aurora power one) due to my very minimal shading. As suggested by some one we'll put the panels that do have minimal shading on one string and the rest on another. Opted for the 833 Eternity because of their reduced degradation and a top quality mounting system. Ended up at £5700 for a 4kw system and monitoring a device, could have gone cheaper but I am happy with the company I have selected. Once installed and up and running I'll post a review but for now I'd like to say a genuine thank you to all those that have commented.

When your up and running, pop over to here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3853851, post your daily/weekly/month/year/anything and see how like minded folk are doing.


PS. You could thank people for their input by clicking the green ticked thanks button at the bottom of everyones posts.


PPS Nice price!!

Martyn1981

reloaded25 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice guys, I have settled on a string inverter (Aurora power one) due to my very minimal shading.

Hiya. Sounds very sensible. Best of luck.

@tunnel, it is a good price, and that's a few now on MSE recently getting quotes/installs for less than £6k.

Do you think that's just a co-incidence, or are things starting to change again. Remember when prices started to squeeze under £6k (around late 2012 early 2013 just before the EU/China price fixing deal).

I like to suggest aiming for under £7k and a 'tough' target of £6k, but I'm starting to wonder if £6k ain't so 'tough' anymore?

Obviously price isn't everything, but maybe, just maybe, things are moving again.

Mart.

tunnel

I'll let you know on that one mart, I've got the go ahead for a 4kWp system at my parents instead of the 8-10 they were looking at(dad can't be bothered to dig drive/garden to replace cabling for 3 phase). just waiting on their quotes, hopefully will be sub £6k


I noticed reloaded also got a monitoring device chucked in with that price too....not a bad deal indeed.

nigelpm

£6k is quite do-able but the few hundred quid you save you might regret when the Chinese inverter needs to be sent back to the manufacturer and generation stops for months.

Definitely looks like prices are heading down generally though - presumably kept artificially high whilst demand was high leading up to the tariff reduction at the end of March.

reloaded25

nigelpm wrote: »

£6k is quite do-able but the few hundred quid you save you might regret when the Chinese inverter needs to be sent back to the manufacturer and generation stops for months.

I am under the impression that power one is not a Chinese company, is that incorrect?

I had a big range in prices, some people started at £8900 for a 4kw system but that changed very quickly. Smaller companies came in under £6k for quality kit from the start.

groovyf

I thought Power One were a US-based company? (Though I see they've just been acquired by a Swiss-based firm - ABB)
I have a Power One UNO inverter for my system.

theboylard

Yep, same here.

mine was £5500, with 16 xEco Future 250w modules on 2 strings into Schuco/SMA SB3300, and L&G gen meter.
Geo Solo PV thrown in.
EPC was completed last year but otherwise that would have been in the price too.

All in all, I'm happy with what I paid for what we got.

Yes I've subsequently spent over a grand on extra bits, but when I can sell on the surplus optimisers (anyone want some!) and the SB3300, then that will reduce to around £400..... hopefully!

nigelpm

reloaded25 wrote: »

I am under the impression that power one is not a Chinese company, is that incorrect?

Sorry for confusion. It was a general point not related to your kit particularly.

Although, anything non-European would probably suffer from the same problem but clearly turnaround for a US inverter replacement will be far quicker than Chinese.

tunnel

Martyn1981 wrote: »

@tunnel, it is a good price, and that's a few now on MSE recently getting quotes/installs for less than £6k.

I like to suggest aiming for under £7k and a 'tough' target of £6k, but I'm starting to wonder if £6k ain't so 'tough' anymore?
Mart.

Had the quotes in for my parents,
16 x eco future 250W panels(suntellites) + 1 samil inverter...£5.3k, with a sunnyboy £5.6k
or
16 Canadian solars and samil..£5.4k, with sunnyboy £5.7k


That's a direct E/W split
Wonder if I can be cheaky and push it to £5k?


tunnel

Martyn1981

Strewth T, them's good prices. Perhaps they are coming down again.

I've forgotten, what was the kW limit your parents were given? Is it worth them going to 5 or even 6kWp with the E/W split, then cap the inverter appropriately?

Mart.