Compare Solar Panel Inverters

Solar systems with micro inverters have small inverters installed to each solar panel on the roof.

Compare solar panel inverters. What size inverter you need depends on the size of your solar panel array. When comparing inverters one of the most important things to consider is the inverter efficiency. Solar panels last for 25 30 years so you want an installer who will help you with any problems or system faults. In a nutshell your panels generate direct current or dc electricity and then your solar panel inverter inverts that power to alternating current or ac electricity.

They convert the electricity your solar panels create into a form that can be used by the appliances lighting and other electronics that are in your home. Solar panel inverter compatibility. An inverter transforms the d c power absorbed by your solar panels into usable a c power for your home. Unlike string inverters where panels share a single inverter microinverters are dedicated to a single solar panel.

The company was founded in 1981 and is widely considered to be a manufacturer of high quality inverter products. Unlike solar panel efficiency which somewhat counter intuitively does not directly affect the amount of electricity your solar system will produce you can read why here solar inverter efficiency is critical to your solar system performance. Sma america is a subsidiary of sma solar technology which is headquartered in germany and manufactures string inverters. The top three manufacturers are from israel austria and germany respectfully.

A good way of understanding the solar inverter industry is by comparing it with the automobile industry. These micro inverters are also known as distributed inverters. Uses tier 1 solar panels. There is a considerable price difference between the hundreds of different solar inverters available.

The solar industry is full of fly by night solar companies both big and small that open one year and are gone the next. For example a low end 5kw inverter can start from as low as 850 while a premium quality 5kw inverter with 10 year warranty may cost 1800 or higher. 5 minutes solar panels aren t the only component that you should be thinking about when you evaluate your solar system equipment. How to calculate inverter size the inverter s maximum output capacity must be at least 75 of the solar array capacity.

The size of the inverter is rated in kilowatts kw and is the maximum amount of solar generated power that the inverter can manage. Solar inverter price comparison from this table you can see that the cheapest inverter option is from sofar which offers inverters for a 6 6kw basic panel setup from 4 500 and 6 000 for a 9 9kw system. The rest of the list are chinese companies. Uses inverters from enphase solaredge sma or fronius.

Solaredge and enphase are the two of the best solar inverters on the market but they aren t the only options available for home solar pv systems.