In thinking about my soon-to-be rooftop setup, I initially did a fair amount of research to decide whether to go with a SolarEdge inverter or Enphase microinverters. I decided on SolarEdge for various reasons I won't go into here. At the time, however, I hadn't really considered SMA Sunny Boy vs. SolarEdge and that's what I'm doing now. They both seem to be well-respected brands and to have similar features. I know Sunny Boy has the Secure Power Supply (SPS), which is somewhat interesting to me, and SolarEdge has no equivalent (though it can be hooked up to a Tesla Powerwall but that's a more complicated and expensive undertaking). My main questions are:
1) Are they similar with regard to optimizing output with input from panels facing different directions? I initially thought Sunny Boy did not deal well with this, but now I'm not so sure.
2) Are they similar with regards to shade management? I know SolarEdge has the optimizers at the panel level and Sunny Boy claims to have "Shade management with OptiTrac Global Peak MPP tracking" whatever that means.
3) What are the main considerations I'm missing, if any, in deciding between these two inverters?
Some facts about my situation which may be helpful:
- 9.6 kW system in the SF Bay Area
- Two different roof faces with panels, SE and SW.
- No major shading issues
- Steep roof (one of the reasons I don't want microinverters, because getting up there to fix even one microinverter would be a pain and $$)
Thanks in advance for any help.
1) Are they similar with regard to optimizing output with input from panels facing different directions? I initially thought Sunny Boy did not deal well with this, but now I'm not so sure.
2) Are they similar with regards to shade management? I know SolarEdge has the optimizers at the panel level and Sunny Boy claims to have "Shade management with OptiTrac Global Peak MPP tracking" whatever that means.
3) What are the main considerations I'm missing, if any, in deciding between these two inverters?
Some facts about my situation which may be helpful:
- 9.6 kW system in the SF Bay Area
- Two different roof faces with panels, SE and SW.
- No major shading issues
- Steep roof (one of the reasons I don't want microinverters, because getting up there to fix even one microinverter would be a pain and $$)
Thanks in advance for any help.
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