Solar Energy

If you thought moving to solar energy production is just about installing solar panels and batteries then you are wrong. There is a wide variety of solar products like solar water heaters, solar accessories for the kitchen, solar batteries, and solar inverts. Solar inverters are important because the current that is produced by the solar panels is in the form of DC or direct current which we cannot use as all the house appliances need AC or alternating current. So, solar inverters make sure that the produced DC is changed to AC for safe usage and there are mainly three main types of solar inverters, string inverters, power optimizer inverters, and microinverters and they have their set advantages and disadvantages let outlook at them in detail.

The Three Types of Solar Inverters

1. String Inverters

String inverters, out in the market are also known as central inverters. They are the very first generation of inverters, the oldest iteration, and are widely used even now. As the name suggests a string or a group of solar panels are connected to one single inverter, one reason why they are also known as central inverters. One of their main advantages is that they are reliable because they have been in use for a long time and have gone through a lot and are still trusted in modern times and they are not expensive and most often they are located in a palace that can be easily accessible so doing proper maintenance and regular checks are easy. The disadvantages are that they are the least efficient type of inverter not being able to utilize all the solar energy that is produced since all the solar panels are connected, problem in ole solar panels like being under a shade would result in no energy produced from all the other panels also, because that is how the system works, so making sure no panel is under any kind of shade is important. When it comes to monitoring the health of the panels, they don’t provide those stats for a single panel, so diagnosing individual panel health is not possible.

2. Power Optimizer Solar Inverters

Here the power optimizer inverts work about a central inverter. Behind every solar panel, a power optimizer inverter is located and the power inverter behind every panel converts the DC to AC and sends it to the central inverter. One of the greatest advantages of this type of inverter is that shading won’t affect it, like on the string inverter and the stats of a single panel can be monitored at all times. Their main disadvantage is their cost, they are more expensive than the string inverters and they require extra power to keep all the inverters running, since they are located underneath the panels, repairing and monitoring them can be a bit of a hassle.

3. Micro-Inverters

The latest iteration in the field of solar inverters, they convert the DC to AC without the need of a string inverter. They are not affected by shading and if there is shading only that panel will be affected and not the rest in the system. If you plan to increase the number of solar panels, installing microinverters is easy, they provide monitoring stats for individual panels and their biggest drawback is that they are the most expensive type of solar inverters out in the market right now.

By getting in touch with Solglow, you could also get your battery-based inverters, which can be useful during the winter season or at places that often have a lot of shading, whenever there is a need for more power the battery system kicks in and delivers the needed amount of juice.

Conclusion

If you want to save money then the best bet is to go with the string type inverters as they are the least expensive ones and easy to maintain, but the least efficient ones that are highly dependent on the shading factor. But if you want maximum efficiency and be free from the shading issue then either go with a power optimizer or the micro inverters.