Solar / PV Inverters

Has anyone had any experience with what PV Inverters might do to your power supply?

Basically, our crazy government is giving pretty good deals on solar array installation - basically I'll never pay another power bill (and probably make a substantial amount for the next few years) - but what does it do to sound quality? Any experience?

I have a 4.05 kW system installed and I have not noticed any difference in my sound during the day vs night. As I understand it and from my own observations, the power from the array has to match and sync with the grid, quirks and all. If your grid supply is fluctuating voltage wise, so will your power from the array as it will have to step in sync with the grid's voltage. I can watch it in real time work to stay in sync. This also applies to the phase, frequency, etc. of the grid. If the grid gets too dirty, my inverters will go offline to protect themselves as they won't generate crappy power. Also by design, any PV installation that is grid tied, can not produce power unless they see the grid.

Now there is one caveat to my system vs others. I am using microinverters, one per panel, so my feed down from the roof is AC instead of DC, and it only has to go about 30 feet to tie into my panel. I only loose about 100-200 watts per day of AC power from the PV installation to the main panel due to derate factors. My DC to AC derate factor is about .95 overall, while standard string installations can be as low as .77

Speaking of standard array designs using strings and large inverters, I would expect them to function the same in terms of matching your grid's power. However, like amps, not all inverters are made the same and thus the quality of the power they put out will differ.

Also, I don't have exactly the same setup as some of you do, so maybe my system isn't capable of rendering the nuances of solar power. However, given what I belive I know, the power during the day from my PV installation is technically cleaner than the grid.

I have a TED5002 installed to monitor both the grid and my solor power (pm me if you want to look), my inverters came with their own monitoring (link below), and I use a Panamax M5300-PM to filter my power to my setup.

BTW, when I saw the title of this thread, I thought for a second that I was on the solar forum. Had to do a double take.

Hope this helps you out somewhat.

My 4.05 kW STC (3.69 kW PTC) 18 SunPower 225E Panels, Enphase M210 Inverter Array installed at 195S at 20deg tilt:
http://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/EhrJ19317

jnskaczor said:

so will your power from the array as it will have to step in sync with the grid's voltage.

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This is as I understand it. I guess the inverter does add overall THD though, because it will never match exactly! As you hear no difference, I am guessing this is minute compared to the massive distortions in grid power.

jnskaczor said:

Hope this helps you out somewhat.

Click to expand...

It most certainly has helped. Thank you for your comprehensive post.

I'm thinking I'll go ahead with this.......