I've had so many Enphase failures it's kind of ridiculous. We install most of our systems near the ocean so corrosion has played a big factor. The newer micro inverters are holding a much better, 215 and 250's. I have learned over the years that SMA makes the best product, and I mostly stick with them. Sometimes micro inverters are requested or really fit the installation particulars, so I still use them occasionally. I haven't yet tried solar edge.
Michael D Nelson MD Electric & Solar, Inc. 707-684-0064 mobile 707-884-1862 office www.mdelectricsolar.com Sent from my iPhone > On Sep 13, 2016, at 6:23 PM, Rebecca Lundberg <rebecca.lundb...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Esteemed wrenches, > > I'm hoping the experience of this list can help give us a broader perspective > on the current market performance and as a secondary concern, tech support > (or lack thereof), from solar micro-inverter manufacturers. > > Are others having much trouble with micro-inverters? We have had repeated > issues with several different brands on our systems in Minnesota: > - 8 Enphase systems with mostly M210 and M215, have had to repeatedly go back > to sites to replace units. The new replacement ones seem to be lasting better > (we sure hope they will). Enphase is harder to contact in recent years, but > we're happy they at least provide a predictable stipend. Are you also having > to replace a lot of this brand of product? Are the newer models holding up > better? > > - We gave a new inverter busbar design concept a try (tenKsolar) and though > the micro-inverters were supposed to take turns and be 'redundant,' the ones > with APS micro-inverters needed 100% replacement and the ones with Lead Solar > micro-inverters have a problem where if one of them fails it appears to send > a signal to all the rest so the entire busbar stops working -- in action it's > far from redundant. When we purchased the tenKsolar Rais Inverter Bus (RIB) > the spec sheet didn't tell us what brand of micro-inverter they would use as > the OEM so we couldn't research the viability of the product or company or > warranty stipend (or lack there-of) of the micro-inverter OEM. We assumed it > was a tenKsolar product and they would provide warranty replacements, > service, and tech support, but our experience has been far from that. When > something goes wrong tenK says 'it's not our product that's failing' because > they don't actually manufacture the micro-inverter (it's an OEM), the > micro-inverter company says 'it's not our product' because tenKsolar has it > wired and used in a very unique manner specific to the tenKsolar product, so > both manufacturers are backing away from any responsibility. A 25-year > warranty on the inverter busbar is a great concept but if/when something goes > wrong there is no support and no apparent warranty at all except maybe they > will send us a new component that needs several hours of work to re-install, > so either the installer does the warranty work for free or the customer has a > very unexpected expense to get their system back up and running a year or two > after it was installed; we think both scenarios are unacceptable (from our > installer perspective :-), do any of you have experiences you can share here? > > I'm wondering if the climate in MN makes us an anomaly. Based on these > micro-inverter experiences we feel like the Rapid Shutdown rule has forced us > to use dc optimizers on residential applications whether we want to or not -- > is that pretty much what all of you are doing too? > > Rebecca Lundberg > _______________________________________________ > List sponsored by Redwood Alliance > > List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org > > Change listserver email address & settings: > http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org > > List-Archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/maillist.html > > List rules & etiquette: > www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm > > Check out or update participant bios: > www.members.re-wrenches.org >
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