Effects of clouds on your array? I'm considering SMA's Secure Power Supply inverters.

[jflorey2]

The guy says no batteries on his system. I thought I remember hearing the engine based gen was a good option as long as it was big enough to absorb excess power. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly and I had never heard of this as a feature of a generator before that point.

Generators cannot "absorb excess power." If you backfeed them they overspeed.

However, what may be saving his friend is the fact that while generators cannot absorb extra power, grid tie inverters will generally drop off-line if the frequency or voltage exceeds narrow limits. If you are forcing the generator to overspeed, frequency and often voltage will rise. When that happens the inverter _may_ drop off line and protect the generator. It's something of a crap shoot.

[adoublee]

I thought I remember hearing the engine based gen was a good option as long as it was big enough to absorb excess power. Maybe I'm not remembering correctly and I had never heard of this as a feature of a generator before that point.

Maybe you heard that if the LOAD is big enough to use all the PV generation nothing would be trying to be pushed back into the genset. This could be possible with a commercial/industrial building with a reliable base load, but is not going to happen naturally at a normally operating residence. Maybe with big electric heaters forced to stay on while PV is producing and generator is running. He's probably just been lucky though.