New 11kW Ground Mount in N San Diego

[Poway]

DC Oversizing

I know others may disagree, but I personally never want to see clipping. Not only you're losing power at the time you're paid the most (assuming you're on some type of TOU plan), having the inverter working at peak for extended period of time doesn't sound good to me either.

We both may be wrong but I agree completely. SolarEdge has guidelines that allow DC panel rating to be 135% of AC output rating (they call this DC oversizing). This is probably not a problem in other areas of the country or on roofs with not the best orientation. But in my case I have unobsturcted view to the South and since I'm doing a ground mount.. can have perfect elevation/Azimuth angles.. Also the panels I'm buying are 0-+5% so I think at least in early years there would be alot of clipping so I will not do DC oversizing.

[thejq]

SunPower is probably over kill for the price, normally at about 15-20% premium, unless you're really short on space. As for LG vs. other brands, if the price is just slightly higher (<5%), I'd go for LG any day. With ground mount I don't think space is an issue. For reference, here's San Diego's pvoutput page, http://pvoutput.org/listteam.jsp?tid=859 . Find a sunny day for good comparisons, and click on efficiency to rank systems from high to low and move your mouse over the top 20 systems and see what brand of panels work best in San Diego in general. Mine is called Carlsbad 4.8KW. For 300W panels, I think both P300 or P400 should be fine. The latter is just $10/each more. I will PM you my installer info.

10.8 KW DC
36x LG 300W Panels
Enphase M250 (will these clip ... do I need to use lower wattage panels given ideal pointing of array?)

I know others may disagree, but I personally never want to see clipping. Not only you're losing power at the time you're paid the most (assuming you're on some type of TOU plan), having the inverter working at peak for extended period of time doesn't sound good to me either.

[carlsbad]

Any particular reasons of choosing SunPower panels for a ground-mount system? I looked into SunPower briefly due to roof space constraints but wasn't able to justify the additional payback period. The specs on the SP panels are tempting though.

[sensij]

I'm I would guess they are all on the expensive end of what we see reported for prices here, especially the sunpower option. A quote with Canadian solar, solarworld, q-cells, or some other less premium panel would probably round out the options better.

Clipping on any of those systems will be low, probably affecting annual production by much less than 1%. Solaredge in particular designs up to 125% of the inverter size. What is your annual electricty usage? Can you reduce it? Do you really need a system that big?

[logdin]

Cost is always a factor. Can you provide that? All of the components are from quality companies.

[Poway]

11.95 kW DC
28x SunPower 427W Panels
Solar Edge P400 Optimizers
SE11400 inverter (is this to small for the 11.95 DC if so could drop to 26 panels 11.1KW?)

Thanks

Sorry (New Kid Error) the first option should have read

11.12 kW DC
34x SunPower 327W Panels
Solar Edge P400 Optimizers
SE11400 inverter

[Poway]

Looking comments on the following configurations... And PM of recommended installers (thejq any recommendations?)

Ground Mount. Perfect conditions (point south or slightly west... any elevation... no obstructions)

11.95 kW DC
28x SunPower 427W Panels
Solar Edge P400 Optimizers
SE11400 inverter (is this to small for the 11.95 DC if so could drop to 26 panels 11.1KW?)

10.8 KW DC
36x LG 300W Panels
Solar Edge P300 Optimizers (or should I still use P400 optimizers?)
SE11400 inverter

10.8 KW DC
36x LG 300W Panels
Enphase M250 (will these clip ... do I need to use lower wattage panels given ideal pointing of array?)


Thanks