Just installed 11.77kw Sunpower system

[J.P.M.]

The panels were installed in Sept. 2016. So far, chimney shading has resulted in a 15-40% performance hit, with an average penalty of ~25%. However, the panels near the south of the house (with lots of trees) have fared much worse (~65% worse).

On Feb. 23rd (very sunny day) - I got ~48kw. I looked at a public reporting Enphase installs, and sadly, my panels are performing more like a 8kw system rather than a 11.7kw one. Very poor job choosing panel placement by Sunpower Direct.

Still not kicking anyone when they're down here, and definitely not defending putting an array in a shaded location, but it may be worth noting that if an array is proposed for a less than optimum location with respect to shading, the idea or perhaps notion that using micro inverters in such a location will restore lost irradiance or improve what's likely to be poor performance due to lack of the solar resource needs to be cleared up. Micros will NOT restore performance that's not there to begin with.

That is, a site that has only say, 70% of the possible unshaded irradiance, will not have that lost 30 % restored by using micro inverters. An array on a 70% irradiated site that uses micros may very well get better performance than a string inverter equipped array in the same location, but either array will perform poorly. The Micro equipped array may do a bit better, but it still won't do very well, simply because the array is in a 30% shaded location. You can't get blood out of a rock.