Microinverters offer solar customers a safe and intelligent management solution
Unfortunately recent events in Queensland have brought the issue of safety into focus within the solar community. Industry standards require system designers to utilise DC isolators, standards that were drafted in collaboration with fire authorities, electricity utilities and solar industry bodies to ensure the safe installation of solar panels on Australian homes.
Solar Business highlights some of the many benefits of Microinverters over standard grid-connect inverters, most notably their handling of DC electricity production and the safety benefits accompanying their higher price tag.
With the cost of manufacturing solar inverters holding steady while the cost of manufacturing high-quality panels falling dramatically, Microinverters have been subjected to price sensitivity.
As well as utilising a lower start-up voltage, Microinverters deliver AC to the premises as opposed to normal inverters that pass DC voltages up to 600V, making them far less likely to sustain Arc faults. Although more costly they provide comfort to customers concerned about faulty DC isolators.
Microinverters are frequently offered for installations where some panels are partially shaded during the day (by TV aerials, chimneys, nearby greenery, etc.).
As opposed to a standard solar installation where each string of panels is treated as a whole, Microinverters can isolate each panel and allow any unshaded cells to continue to produce their expected output unabated. This avoids the undesirable situation where one panel is shaded lowering the max current of the entire string to the poorest performing cell.
Although inverter manufacturers like SolaX are catching up by providing performance monitoring, Microinverters have quite a head start. By providing a detailed production profile users can track performance and efficiency of their system while identifying potential faults as early as possible.
That being said, Microinverters offer higher production yields than common alternatives, and are more reliable usually boasting a mean time between failures (MTBF) in the range of hundreds of years.
