{"id":52417,"date":"2021-08-02T14:30:42","date_gmt":"2021-08-02T04:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=52417"},"modified":"2021-08-02T15:36:45","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T05:06:45","slug":"string-vs-micro-inverters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/string-vs-micro-inverters\/","title":{"rendered":"String Inverters Vs Micro-Inverters: Which Is Better With Shade? It Depends&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-52533 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/shaded-panels.jpg\" alt=\"String vs micro inverters - shaded solar panels\" width=\"1200\" height=\"628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/shaded-panels.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/shaded-panels-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/shaded-panels-1024x536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/shaded-panels-768x402.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The micro-inverter debate has been stirred with two YouTube videos looking at the marketing claim that microinverters outperform string inverters when solar panels are shaded.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The simplistic claim, says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/installer-review\/mc-electrical\/\">MC Electrical<\/a> boss Mark Cavanagh in the videos, isn\u2019t quite accurate: in the run-off between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/inverters\/micro\/\">micro-inverters<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/inverters\/\">string inverters<\/a>, which performs better depends on the shading conditions.<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Enphase vs Fronius | is there a New Winning Shade Solution? | 2021\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TqOw43-hbjc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"youtube-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Enphase vs Fronius - Part 2 | The Micro-Inverter Strikes Back | 2021\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LGC8D2-qaP8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>We\u2019ll go into the details of Cavanagh\u2019s analysis later, but what caught my eye was what had him investigating the issue in the first place. After all, if you have a bunch of solar panels producing a decent amount of power, what is there to draw your attention to whether you\u2019re getting exactly the power you expected?<\/p>\n<p>It turns out the idea first came from Managing Director of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/installer-review\/nrg-solar---national-renewable-group\/\">NRG Solar<\/a> Eddy May, who told SolarQuotes his interest started with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/inverters\/enphase-review.html\">Enphase<\/a> kit installed at the front of his warehouse in 2017.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI noticed that when panels were only very partially shaded the performance with Enphase dropped considerably. I started to pay more attention,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>May passed that observation on to Cavanagh, who decided to conduct more formal testing.<\/p>\n<p>The 12-year veteran of the industry did \u201cmonths of testing\u201d, but told SolarQuotes once he started, it didn\u2019t take long to see the patterns described in the video.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cEddy told me this shade situation really messes with the microinverter, and when I tested, I found he was right.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And that\u2019s a big disconnect with how micro-inverters have been marketed, Cavanagh said.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cIt got as simple as this, if you have shade you need micro-inverters. Or optimisers. And string inverters don\u2019t work in shade, full stop.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes it is better to have a string inverter. It isn\u2019t a big difference, it\u2019s fairly niche &#8211; the point is you don\u2019t always need to pay that extra money, to get that extra production.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h2>Truth Lurks in the Shadows<\/h2>\n<p>What Cavanagh got from the work documented in his videos is a simple reset on what every electrician knows. It\u2019s called \u201ckink in the hose\u201d theory &#8211; if you have one panel shaded and running at 5A, the whole string will be restricted to 5A.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s pretty much the premise of Enphase ads like the one below &#8211; and it\u2019s wrong.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-52419 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/enphase-ad.jpg\" alt=\"Enphase microinverter shading claim\" width=\"511\" height=\"764\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/enphase-ad.jpg 511w, https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/enphase-ad-201x300.jpg 201w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 511px) 100vw, 511px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The problem, as Cavanagh details in that video, is solar panels don\u2019t work so simply. They (usually) have three bypass diodes<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/string-vs-micro-inverters\/#en-52417-1' id='enref-52417-1' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(52417)'>1<\/a><\/sup> &#8211; and the bypass diode\u2019s job is to decommission part of the panels if they\u2019re in shade.<\/p>\n<p>That role is purely protective. Shaded cells become power consumers instead of producers. Left to themselves, cells in this state would heat up and fail, so the bypass diodes take shaded cells out of the circuit.<\/p>\n<p>Cavanagh argues that 20 years ago, string inverters\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/inverters\/mppt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maximum Power Point Tracking<\/a> (MPPT) software simply didn\u2019t work as well as it does now &#8211; these days, the power loss from partial shade is far less than it used to be.<\/p>\n<p>He tested <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/inverters\/fronius-review.html\">Fronius<\/a> and Enphase under two types of shading conditions &#8211; from the side and from the bottom &#8211; using Solar Analytics for data collection. The results for the side-shaded setup are summarised below, in a scenario where the total system loss due to Cavanagh\u2019s artificial shade was about 15%.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\" align=\"center\">\n<table id=\"blogtable\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"1\" cellpadding=\"1\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Conditions<\/th>\n<th>Outcome<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Sunny<\/td>\n<td>Fronius 3.5% better than Enphase<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Overcast<\/td>\n<td>Enphase 2% better than Fronius<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>He notes that Enphase always works a little better:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If you have parallel strings with uneven shade;<\/li>\n<li>You have 5kW of solar power on a 5kW inverter; or<\/li>\n<li>Short strings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>String Versus Micro Inverters, Part 2<\/h2>\n<p>In the second video, he tested inverters under bottom-shading conditions &#8211; that is, the shading starts at the bottom of solar panels as shown below. The idea came from Dr Johnathan Dore of Solar Analytics.<\/p>\n<p>If you shade (for example) four panels, the inverter chooses whether to use the four half-panels, or the eight whole panels. The string inverter has only one input, so the MPPT chooses the higher current to draw.<\/p>\n<p>The Enphase microinverters on the other hand can take the highest current each panel can produce.<\/p>\n<p>The best illustration is in the \u201cextreme example\u201d, where he shaded the bottom half of the whole string of 12 panels, and Enphase outperformed the Fronius inverter by 1%. Other results:<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom: 20px;\" align=\"center\">\n<table id=\"blogtable\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"1\" cellpadding=\"1\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Panels Shaded<\/th>\n<th>Outcome<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Five<\/td>\n<td>Enphase 8.5% better<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Four<\/td>\n<td>Enphase 6.7% better<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Three<\/td>\n<td>Enphase 6.3% better<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p>And as it happens, in side-shading, he said,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cone shaded cell takes out the whole string\u201d is a scenario you\u2019ll more likely encounter using micro-inverters!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPanels on a microinverter system only have to deal with a little bit of energy [from one panel].\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That means it\u2019s rare that the bypass diode ever engages on a microinverter panel &#8211; so one shaded cell string will drag down the power of the whole panel.<\/p>\n<p>Enphase had little to say on the topic. Marketing manager APAC Justin Cohen told SolarQuotes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cAs you\u2019re aware, there are heaps of backyard enthusiasts in solar and we love that there is so much passion in the industry at all levels. Where productive, we invest a lot of time into keeping these dialogues open with the industry at large. However, manufacturers simply don\u2019t have the time to respond to every one of these rabbit holes.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With that campaign done, Cavanagh has decided to take shading and warranties up to solar panel manufacturers as his next mission.<\/p>\n<p>Manufacturers generally keep shading as a get-out-of-warranty card, since shading can be hard on bypass diodes. Since it\u2019s hard to imagine almost any location that can be guaranteed shade-free for the warranty life of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/panels\/\">solar panel<\/a>, it\u2019s a good battle to fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The micro-inverter debate has been stirred with two YouTube videos looking at the marketing claim that microinverters outperform string inverters when solar panels are shaded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":52533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar-inverters","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>String Inverters Vs Microinverters: Which Is Better With Shade? 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