Enphase vs. Solar Edge. What would you go with + interesting input from engineer

[bird95134]

Update. My roof work to put new synthetic underlayment down under the tile roof + adding new Ohagin vents -- which will give me room to squeeze a few more PV panels on the south roof, started today. The Ohagin vents are flat (www.ohagin.com) and will replace two Louver style roof vents (adding 4 additional high/low Ohagin vents for a total of 6 to help with attic ventilation). Also, the PV installer found an error in the design as per the "guaranteed production" clause and are adding 3 more panels, for a total of 47 now. I will have to install a few of these panels on the east facing roof to conform to County/City standards (ridge/edge of roof line rules). Plan is for the the roof work to be done this week with Solar equipment install starting end of this week or beginning of next week. The power company has already booked a time to come out on 6/26 -- this is moving faster than I expected. Communications has been good with all parties involved -- so far, so good -- let's hope is stays that way.... I also ordered a new power monitoring system for internal monitoring of many of my electrical use by circuits or groups of circuits from iotawatt.com. This product looks very compelling at a decent price with lots of configurations, scripting and data collection options. This, along with the SolarEdge and POCO data, I will have allow me to really dial in the performance and usage of my electricity.

[J.P.M.]

Update. My roof work to put new synthetic underlayment down under the tile roof + adding new Ohagin vents -- which will give me room to squeeze a few more PV panels on the south roof, started today. The Ohagin vents are flat (www.ohagin.com) and will replace two Louver style roof vents (adding 4 additional high/low Ohagin vents for a total of 6 to help with attic ventilation). Also, the PV installer found an error in the design as per the "guaranteed production" clause and are adding 3 more panels, for a total of 47 now. I will have to install a few of these panels on the east facing roof to conform to County/City standards (ridge/edge of roof line rules). Plan is for the the roof work to be done this week with Solar equipment install starting end of this week or beginning of next week. The power company has already booked a time to come out on 6/26 -- this is moving faster than I expected. Communications has been good with all parties involved -- so far, so good -- let's hope is stays that way.... I also ordered a new power monitoring system for internal monitoring of many of my electrical use by circuits or groups of circuits from iotawatt.com. This product looks very compelling at a decent price with lots of configurations, scripting and data collection options. This, along with the SolarEdge and POCO data, I will have allow me to really dial in the performance and usage of my electricity.

Some jurisdictions do not allow panels to be placed over roof vents, flat or otherwise. If any of the vents, new or old, will be under a panel, if it was me, I'd check with the AHJ on that point.

[bird95134]

@J.P.M. Thx for input. I have call with Solar installer design team Thur to review new design and will bring this point up. I will find out what So. Nevada code is on this topic and share.

[J.P.M.]

@J.P.M. Thx for input. I have call with Solar installer design team Thur to review new design and will bring this point up. I will find out what So. Nevada code is on this topic and share.

Understood. Besides not being a good idea, seems to easy to check relative to having an inspector red tag the install.

[bird95134]

Update. Met with PV designer from installer today. There is no code problem with new o'Hagan roof vents and panels installed over them. They showed me other installs with city approval. 3 panels can be moved over from east roof to south roof. Roof maintenance is scheduled to be completed by Tuesday of next week and PV panel and inverter install to commence next week starting next Friday.

[J.P.M.]

Update. Met with PV designer from installer today. There is no code problem with new o'Hagan roof vents and panels installed over them. They showed me other installs with city approval. 3 panels can be moved over from east roof to south roof. Roof maintenance is scheduled to be completed by Tuesday of next week and PV panel and inverter install to commence next week starting next Friday.

Good luck getting at them if they ever need maint.

Could also be a possible reason/justification to deny a warranty claim if such an occasion arises.

NOMB. Just sayin'.

[bird95134]

Yeah, I thought about those points. These o'hagin vents are installed low and high on roof. They are now part of roof line (very low profile). The ones that will be below the PV panels are designed for air in take while high vents are very close to roof vent, to exhaust. I should not need to perform any maintenance on them. I assume if I do, I have some other type of catastrophic roof problem, i.e. many panels would need to be removed if not all to repair roof. Also, PV dealer told me warranty claims will not be a problem, and I got that in writing.

[J.P.M.]

Yeah, I thought about those points. These o'hagin vents are installed low and high on roof. They are now part of roof line (very low profile). The ones that will be below the PV panels are designed for air in take while high vents are very close to roof vent, to exhaust. I should not need to perform any maintenance on them. I assume if I do, I have some other type of catastrophic roof problem, i.e. many panels would need to be removed if not all to repair roof. Also, PV dealer told me warranty claims will not be a problem, and I got that in writing.

Understood. I was of the opinion the vents were O'Hagin horizontal so as to be able to put vents under the array without an interference. If they are not, no problem.

[bird95134]

Update 6/28/2020. Electrical panel upgrade, inverter install, all electrical conduit and electrical cables to roof, along with rails and PV panels were done Friday and today. All roof conduit is coming straight down into attic, then over to side of house, then down to existing electrical area. Not too many installs are done this way here, as it is a bit more labor, but that is what I wanted. Lost power for ~ 6 hours yesterday (planned outage). Stucco will be repaired Monday, caused by the electrical panel rip-out and install. City inspection next week hopefully, as it is a short week. Then, installer is estimating 2 to 3 week queue for NV Energy to get out to finalize install and get system online. So far, pleased with process. No way I would have done this DIY as I have been involved, watching and paying attention to the work. This was 4 people, 2 full days of work. 2 mainly focused on new power panel, solar inverters, and wiring of everything between all equipment, then conduit up into attic. Other 2 mostly focused on roof with rails and PV panels. NVE was good about getting out to home quickly when installers were ready for power off and back on.

Update 6/29/2020. Stucco team came out this AM to repair wall on side of house for new electrical panel. Check. Then, city inspector came out early afternoon (their workload is slowed significantly, unfortunately) to review the work. Panel and configuration failed the city inspection. 1. Not built to diagram. Diagram will be fixed this afternoon and 2. Electrical team used incorrect breakers on a few circuits and did not like some of the wiring connections and lack of cleanup of metal shavings. That will have to be redone, guessing 1 hour of work or less. Shooting for work to be redone Tuesday and inspector to come out Tue afternoon or Wed.

[bird95134]

Update: My SolarEdge 16 kW ystem has been online now for about 3 weeks. All working well (except monitoring). I would have updated sooner, but noticed this site was offline for several days.... Took time to get NVE to come out and install the new meter and give permission to turn system on. Only thing still not correctly working is my monitoring for production, consumption and amount going back to Grid (which is a function of correctly measuring and reporting production and consumption. The CTs they used are not working correctly and a new monitoring solution is scheduled to be installed next week. I still owe them money, so they are making it right. Looking at my NVE portal, i see what looks like correct usage based on what I am seeing in the consumption side of the SE portal and my known usage of my electricity based on previous years of the blueline measurement device I have had for whole home electrical usage monitoring. Generally, I am happy with the install but I had to ask questions and be involved more than I should have had to. This site helped, along with reading lots of other information, so thanks for the contributions to this thread folks!!

[FDJ]

Also, another project I need to do, which I can couple to the Fed Tax credit, is what we call here in LV NV is "lift and replace" maintenance on the tile roof, i.e. lift and remove the roof tiles, remove the underlayment paper, put down new underlayment paper, replace the tiles. Best practice is to perform every ~25 years (age of my home). So, need to do that anyway and before I would put anything on my roof.

bird95134
I closely read through this thread. We are considering going solar, as one of your Henderson neighbors. BTW, good discussion on your thinking and process here, thanks. I’m curious about your decision to “lift and replace” your roof. Did your solar contractor find your roof to be compromised or did you go by best practice? The solar companies I’ve talked to haven’t felt this was necessary on our 16 years old home. Two quotes so far. 1. 10.08 kw system, 28 LG360 with Enphase IQ7+ $2.55 per watt. 2. 9.9 kw system, 30 Pan330 with SolarEdge Inverter $2.52 per watt.

[bird95134]

Hey @FDJ, As for the roof, my home is 25 years old. Roofers in our area say 25 years is best practice, probably could get Way with 30, as my roof was in decent shape, no leaks. So, for me, it made sense to get the work done. My solar installer took my roof work quote and I will be able to add that work to my fed tax credit next April.

As to your quotes, two solid systems. I ended up going with Solar Edge for the reasons I mention. I disagree with many regular folks here about the data. I want and use the data!! But, agree with them, as an engineer too, "less is more", i.e. optimizers or inverters are "not needed" vs. Pure string inverters. I can see the point.

As you are in Henderson if you want to talk.

[macaddict]

Only thing still not correctly working is my monitoring for production, consumption and amount going back to Grid (which is a function of correctly measuring and reporting production and consumption. The CTs they used are not working correctly and a new monitoring solution is scheduled to be installed next week.

Can you provide pictures of what you are seeing? It may be as simple as the CTs being backwards.

[FDJ]

Hey @FDJ, As for the roof, my home is 25 years old. Roofers in our area say 25 years is best practice, probably could get Way with 30, as my roof was in decent shape, no leaks. So, for me, it made sense to get the work done. My solar installer took my roof work quote and I will be able to add that work to my fed tax credit next April.

As to your quotes, two solid systems. I ended up going with Solar Edge for the reasons I mention. I disagree with many regular folks here about the data. I want and use the data!! But, agree with them, as an engineer too, "less is more", i.e. optimizers or inverters are "not needed" vs. Pure string inverters. I can see the point.

Thanks for your reply. Getting a tax credit for your roof work is smart.

[bird95134]

As an FYI observation on my system... Monitoring. This was a challenge for my installer to get working correctly. I had consumption monitoring added within the SE system. As I had to put a new panel in, the style/model of the panel el did not have the physical space for traditional CTs and we had to use rogowski coils around the main breakers. I had (and still have) a BlueLine monitor attached to the power company meter, a device that measures the diode pulses and wireless transmits the info to a receiver attached on my network, then transmits that data to a Blueline cloud account. I have had this gadget for years to measure my consumption. Now, this gadget does not measure correctly during PV production, but is accurate during 0 PV production.

Measuring power consumption during 0 PV production...

1. Blueline measurement is as expected
2. SE measurement (as observed on mobile app or web portal) is about 12% higher than #1 measurement.
3. Using power company data confirms observations of #1 and #2 above.

anyone else have any opinions on the observed offset of the rogowski coils? I guess I was a bit surprised at being off by ~12% consistently. I am not too concerned as i now know the behavior, and when looking at the SE app/portal, i just do the math in my head.

And, to folks here that say monitoring "is not worth it, or gets old after x amount of time". I do not share that view. I look, as well as other family members, multiple times a week.....