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PV Optimisers

randombar

Want to put a couple of optimisers on some panels that will see shading and I'm just wondering what are my options?

Panels are 300W Mono Si 60 Cells

I see Solar Edge and Tigo

https://www.estg.eu/en-gb/inverters/optimizer/

I thought the Tigo could go on anything but I'm not sure about the SolarEdge?

Any advice for me?

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unkel

Beware. Optimizers cost a good bit of money. Making your pay back period longer. Often never paying for themselves. And like all cheap Chinese electronics, they don't last forever. Where are your panels? How many optimizers are you thinking of installing? If you install 10 and the average life expectancy of them is 10 years and they are up on your high roof, you can expect to have to climb up there and replace one every year, forever more.

I would avoid optimizers altogether unless you really have no other option / have very limited space for panels / lots of shading / don't mind doing lots of DIY to replace them. Not one of the above, no, all of the above.

SD_DRACULA

Yeah what @unkel said, try to avoid them if at all possible.

This guy here explains them quite well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GvhDhCSJgo

I have a few fitted due to chimney shading but dreading the time when they will fail.

Nelbert

Side question: if several panels are under the same shading risk can you use just one optimiser across that portion of the string?

idc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120058785#Comment_120058785

Tigo do 2 panel optimisers. When I last looking into them them they were about 10-15 euro more expensive than a single panel optimiser. But yes to be of use both panels should be affected similarly as it works like a mini string - ie if one panel is unshaded and other has shade both panels will drop to power of the shaded one. (thats as far as I recall answer Tigo gave me when i asked about diference between single and double panel optimiser)

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120058211#Comment_120058211

The solaredge one looks like it's about 60 quid?

I'll have some shading on the two panels here: https://capture.dropbox.com/hVECy6AumQjhvpuR

Panels are SxSW and SxSE

Not sure yet how bad the shading will be.

slave1

I'd wait and see, if it's Winter shading only then rule of thumb not worth it, if it's all year long and as easily accessible as those then I'd consider it

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120058978#Comment_120058978

If you get shading on the right two panels, why don't you move that whole array a bit to the left? Presuming of course there's no shading there 😂

randombar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120059907#Comment_120059907

I think I could centre them more all right but shading on that side too and I want to capture as much of the evening sun as I can, I think I'll need to take a few photos on sunny days and see what the story is.

slave1

Evening sun is low and not high generator, another reason not to optimise.

If all year shading across peak PV generation and easy to access the optimise, further away from this scenario the less it is financially worthwhile

idc

As an example I've 8 panels (6 vertical and 2 horizontal above the 6) that get impacted by neighbours roof and some tree only from Nov->Feb - plus 7 panels on different aspect (inverter does not report individual string reports).

Based on PVGIS in 2020/2021 I only produced 81,86,79,85 % of expected output.

For 2021/2022 was 83,72,100,94 % (that January must of been very good 😀 )

For 2022/---- with trees chopped hit 85,82 %

Other months i often exceed PVGIS values. I guess this is where slave1 is right about not optimising for winter shade, taking this month i generated 74.9, my missing 18% would only add an extra 16.61 kWh (and optimisers will help but will not give me back to a full 100% hence it would be less than 16kWh!)