Posts Tagged ‘microinverter’

Plug and Play Solar

Every now and then I see a good idea and it’s great to be able to tell people about it.  For example, take Andalay Solar, which is becoming Westinghouse Solar.  They sell what’s essentially a plug-and-play solar power system – the panels come with built-in Enphase microinverters, meaning that 12/24/48V DC is being converted directly to 120V AC at the panel, and then that power is fed into the wiring of the home or business.

One of the advantages of this system that no huge central inverter is required to convert all the power from the panels from DC to AC.  If you want to expand the power capacity of your system by adding more panels, you won’t have to replace the inverter with a higher model, which is great because the inverter is usually the single most expensive item of a PV power system.

Another advantage is that the panels will automatically adjust themselves to deliver the most optimized power output to your home or business.  If one panel is shaded by a tree or something, that won’t automatically bring down the power output of your whole system the way that normal panels without microinverters can.

Solar panels today are like early computers were – everything has to be installed and configured manually.  It takes technological progress before systems can become more simplified and easier to use.  Now we just take a peripheral, plug it in to our USB hub, and we’re ready to go – no manual configuration, setting interrupts, etc.