Solar for Beginners [ask your questions here]

Folks, I've the wheels in motion for a solar shed project. The plan is 2 x 2000w 4 mppt micro-inverters with 8 450w+ panels.

I've sourced the inverters and I have a BOM for what I need in terms of panels, rails and incidentals.

I fully appreciate that as I'm going down the self install route on this that I'm VAT liable.

What I'm after is a recommendation for a supplier that offers reasonable pricing and won't screw me on delivery, 1 example currently has a delivery charge of €250 for 8 panels and incidentals.

I'm thinking drop an email to Midlands renewables and other Limerick & Midwest based suppliers. So any recommendations on potential suppliers will be much appreciated.

If would be a lot cheaper to collect yourself if you have access to a decent size trailer or GoCar rent vans for €15/HR or €75/day.

To close this out, a local installer dropped me a message on foot of my post over on the Solar FB group. Everything sorted for a reasonable price and €59 to hire a van for pick up.

Happy days.

No, I think I found him on donedeal. It was not easy, most of the registered electricians did not want to do the job. I think It took me about 2 weeks and 10-15 calls to find one that was willing to do this job.

But if you already have a solar system installed you should have a MEC(allowed to export and get payed for it) registered with ESB.
Check your ESB Networks account, if there is a MEC available on your account you might not need a NC6.

Noob cable question?

Still plenty of work to be done on the thinking side of this project but I'd like to have one string of panels on a shed roof and another about 25 meters away on a ground mount. The inverter will be very close to the string on the roof. Panel size restrictions mean I'd have a max of 3kw in each string.

What do I need to be thinking about for cabling a string with at least 25 meters of cable between it and the inverter? It seems far to easy to just be able to run 4mm cable that far?

I've got a 12V system running and with the panels in parallel voltage drop increases very quickly with the higher current so thought I better check if it was an issue with longer runs with the panels in series.

Bigger BANG!

Good afternoon … Newcomer to Boards and to Solar PV. Please let me know if I have posted to the wrong area.

I am getting a Solar PV system installed in a few weeks, all panels going on a south facing roof (no shadow issues) - 16 x 440W panels (7.04 kWp) and a Sigenergy Sigenstor EC 5.0 SP 5kW hybrid inverter. My question relates to attaching the panel string/s to the inverter MPPTs. The installer plans to put all 16 panels on one MPPT. Having read the specs on the panels & inverter I am unsure if this is the correct thing to do. Should I get the installer to put all 16 in one string attached to one MPPT OR split the panels 8 to each of the two MPPTs? My concern is the voltage from the panels in cold weather being over the limit for the inverter.

• Inverter MPPT Voltage range is 50-550 volts, with MAX DC input voltage of 600 on the inverter
• Panel Open circuit voltage (Voc) is 35.35 volts at STC (16 x 35.35 = 565 volts), which is over MPPT limit
• In cold weather (we often get -6 or-7C in winter) which would add approx. 10% more to voltage making it 622 volts

Any views or help welcome.

Many thanks,

Peter.

hi, we got old roll back meter changed on 08.08.25 and have had solars since March. Floras are billing us over €350 for estimated readings prior to changeover and have also sent a follow on bill for august export credit which the kWh figure is less than half of what the solar app says. Two questions (1) what rights do I have regarding the estimated readings and (2) how can we verify the correct feed in kWh? Do I need to contact ESB?
thanks

Thanks to you both for the quick replies, much appreciated.

Question regarding expanding existing setup: I have a flat roof facing south with 4 panels (string1) wired to the inverter with 5 panels (string2) on west facing pitched roof.

During renovation/install I missed out the opportunity to max the flat roof string due to SEAI distance rules, etc.

Is there any reason I can't (or shouldn't) self install a few more panels to string1? System is a rebranded kstar inverter with associated 5kwh battery, etc etc.