dual tracker for a small 2.14 kw system

judgeelectrical · Jan 31, 2012

Does anyone know of the smallest dual tracker invertor out there. I have a cusyomer who has the panels already and wants an invertor for 9 240 watt phono solar panels which will be split 5 and 4 and have different angles of tilt for each set. Is it a case of 2 small invertors, or is there a small dual tracker out there. i have looked at the power one stuff, but it seems only 5 panels will meet the min voltage. Any advice would be helpfull, or anyone who has done this before

SolarCity · Jan 31, 2012

Have you considered Solar Edge or micro-inverters?

dansk · Jan 31, 2012

Yep SE3000 will do it. Solar Inverters, Power Optimizers and PV Monitoring | SolarEdge

BruceB · Jan 31, 2012

The Power-One Aurora PVI-3.0-OUTD seemed OK (just by 4V) when I put the poly panels in. VStart would need to be turned down to minimum 120V.

SolarCity · Jan 31, 2012

Where do you stand on the oversized inverters/reduced efficiency debate, Bruce?

hionthehill · Jan 31, 2012

if you could get you hands on a EFFEKTA ES2200 , that shold do it nicley

judgeelectrical · Jan 31, 2012

Thanks for the recomendations guys, not really considered the micro invertors, but will have a gander at the solar edge stuff and re look at the pvi3.0.

BruceB · Jan 31, 2012

I agree not ideal Biggs. As I have said before I would normally undersize inverter at around the 4kW point. But for this it seemed an economical way of doing it and an efficient TL just off best operating point will probably be better than x2 smaller inverters. I'll see if I can dig out the Power One efficiency curve.

BruceB · Jan 31, 2012

Here are the graphs I was thinking of. The efficiency one does not show exactly the operating point we would be thinking of. Wearing my cynical hat that might be because it is not a very efficient operating point! It also means looking at the second graph that you would be working in an output limiited area of the curve. On reflection there might be better inverters for this application unless the helpline could give me an accurate efficiency figure.

SolarCity · Feb 1, 2012

That efficiency curve is interesting. Again, this seems contrary to what I've heard before.

I can only assume the guy at SMA misunderstood my question or I misunderstood his answer.

sharpener · Feb 1, 2012

judgeelectrical said:
Does anyone know of the smallest dual tracker invertor out there. I have a cusyomer who has the panels already and wants an invertor for 9 240 watt phono solar panels which will be split 5 and 4 and have different angles of tilt for each set.

StecaGrid 2000+ has two trackers and a nice low start voltage, 80V. There might be a very slight loss from the 5-panel string as max DC power is quoted at 1075W per tracker. STECA PV grid connected