Greetings all -
Recently we got our 10.5 kw system installed, happy to finally be free of the monthly electric bill. We learned a ton during the process and thought it would be good to share & see how others felt. Sunpower panels are nice in regards to the watt/area and the great warranty, we ended up with 32 panels with micro inverters. During the install I continued to speak to the installers about my concerns over shading from a wood stove chimney, other companies had wanted to change the array so that the area wasn't used. Because of the setback requirements on the roof the company shifted the entire array away from a fireplace for a propane insert and right up against a wood stove chimney... I argued with the engineer but until I could see production from that panel there wasn't much I could do. I stated I would have to wait and see the results and then we might have to move the panel.
So we had gone through multiple companies and several bids before deciding on Sunpower units. The warranty was what really sold me, 25 years on panel and inverter is great. I was initially thinking a single inverter as I had a good cool place to install it but we ended up going with micro inverters since they get the same warranty.
I'm really disappointed in the Sunpower monitoring though... I have seen other person's installations with other companies and seen the array and production across the array which I thought was the standard. Way wrong and very disappointing. With 32 panels / inverters I cannot view what the output from individual panels. I cannot see when an area is affected more by shading from a tree or in this case my chimney pipe. I actually have no way to tell if a single panel is bad since they are all AC output. The installation company and Sunpower claim to be monitoring for problems but they never even noticed that for the first two months of operation the monitoring wasn't working at all because the system was never commissioned correctly...
I still like the product from Sunpower but am floored that after investing 40K in a system I cannot monitor performance. The app & website both give a power in / power out & current production kW, then a bunch of garbage meant for curb appeal (IE to date I've cut down 1300 less trees!). Interesting tidbits of information but meanwhile I have no way to know if 4 of my panels are producing 50% less power due to shading than others.
Recently we got our 10.5 kw system installed, happy to finally be free of the monthly electric bill. We learned a ton during the process and thought it would be good to share & see how others felt. Sunpower panels are nice in regards to the watt/area and the great warranty, we ended up with 32 panels with micro inverters. During the install I continued to speak to the installers about my concerns over shading from a wood stove chimney, other companies had wanted to change the array so that the area wasn't used. Because of the setback requirements on the roof the company shifted the entire array away from a fireplace for a propane insert and right up against a wood stove chimney... I argued with the engineer but until I could see production from that panel there wasn't much I could do. I stated I would have to wait and see the results and then we might have to move the panel.
So we had gone through multiple companies and several bids before deciding on Sunpower units. The warranty was what really sold me, 25 years on panel and inverter is great. I was initially thinking a single inverter as I had a good cool place to install it but we ended up going with micro inverters since they get the same warranty.
I'm really disappointed in the Sunpower monitoring though... I have seen other person's installations with other companies and seen the array and production across the array which I thought was the standard. Way wrong and very disappointing. With 32 panels / inverters I cannot view what the output from individual panels. I cannot see when an area is affected more by shading from a tree or in this case my chimney pipe. I actually have no way to tell if a single panel is bad since they are all AC output. The installation company and Sunpower claim to be monitoring for problems but they never even noticed that for the first two months of operation the monitoring wasn't working at all because the system was never commissioned correctly...
I still like the product from Sunpower but am floored that after investing 40K in a system I cannot monitor performance. The app & website both give a power in / power out & current production kW, then a bunch of garbage meant for curb appeal (IE to date I've cut down 1300 less trees!). Interesting tidbits of information but meanwhile I have no way to know if 4 of my panels are producing 50% less power due to shading than others.
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