Thoughts on Solar

One of the nagging concerns in the solar industry is what to do about those aging legacy systems?  As systems age there can be reliability issues and finding compatible parts can be a real issue in a fast moving technology environment like solar power.  Given all of that, we are pleased to announce the Enphase Update Program for Enphase Early Adopters.  There is a lot to this program, including three distinct upgrade paths, so let’s break it down step-by-step…

Who is Eligible?

This program is dedicated to the earliest adopters of Enphase microinverters, specifically the M175, D380, M190, and M210 models.  (Of the eligible microinverter models, Run on Sun only ever installed the M210.)  System owners that have M215’s, M250’s, or S280 microinverters are not eligible for this program.

The Enphase M210 qualifies for the upgrade…	While the subsequent generation M215 does not.

What are My Options?

There are three upgrade paths with varying benefits, costs, and timing, however, all three offer full 25-year product warranties and a two year service agreement. The three options are: Microinverter Upgrade, Full-System Upgrade, and Next-Generation Upgrade - let’s take them one at a time.

Microinverter Upgrade

The most cost-effective option is the Microinverter Upgrade because it takes advantage of your existing solar panels that are likely still in good shape.  This upgrade provides all of the following:

• New Enphase IQ7-PD - the latest generation microinverter, powered down to be compatible with existing, earlier generation systems.
• New interconnection cable
• New IQ Envoy with both production and consumption energy measuring devices^* (CTs).

Legacy owners can purchase this equipment directly from Enphase for just $67.50/panel - a really great price.  Removal and re-installation labor will vary widely based on various factors including the difficulty of the roof, the quality of the original installation, and whatever upgrades need to be done, probably on the order of $150/panel.

*Note that not all systems will be able to do consumption monitoring depending on the existing service panel configuration.

Full-System Upgrade

When microinverters like the M210 were being installed, available panel wattage was much lower than today, but with the advent of electric vehicles, homeowners are in need of more energy than ever.  The Full-System Upgrade provides a way to gain from today’s higher power modules, but in a cost-effective manner.

Enphase Energized Solaria PowerXT-AC Modules

This upgrade path involves the Enphase Energized Solaria PowerXT-AC Module, which has an Enphase IQ7+ microinverter integrated onto the Solaria module. (You can see an image of the Solaria modules on the left.)

 The module has a power production of 295 Watts, substantially greater than what was available for legacy modules.   The cost to the homeowner for this upgrade path is $469/panel, which includes the AC module, cabling, and the Envoy for monitoring.  

Labor costs for this upgrade path are likely to be substantially higher, in part due to the need for new racking (the module dimensions are somewhat unusual - 63.8″ x 43.9″ - which could necessitate a racking change), changes in the sizing of the branch circuits, and the need to pull permits for the new system.  Those factors are mitigated somewhat by the upgrade cost most likely qualifying for the federal 30% tax credit since it is an all new system, as opposed to the Microinverter Upgrade, that won’t.

Next-Generation Upgrade

Finally, the last upgrade option is to wait for the rollout of the Enphase IQ8 microinverter system.  (You can read about what the IQ8 technology will provide here.)  Unfortunately, there is no pricing information available yet for that upgrade path, and its availability is not until sometime in 2019 - probably the second quarter at the earliest.

What Happens if I do Nothing?

If your system is working fine, you don’t really have a need to do anything.  However, these earlier microinverters came with a 15-year warranty, which means that more than half of that warranty period has expired.  Moreover, particularly compared to the M190’s, the newest Enphase microinverters have significantly greater reliability (Enphase claims by an order of magnitude), so you would be upgrading to a more reliable product and extending your warranty protection by 25 years.

We will post again when we have more information regarding the Next-Generation, IQ8  upgrade.  In the meantime, if you have questions about upgrading, please give us a call.

At Run on Sun we like to think of ourselves as true Solar Pros - years of experience, NABCEP certified, yadda, yadda, yadda!  But this post is about doing something wrong (nicely done, Jim) and having to figure out a way to fix it (thank you, Sara!).  We recount it here because it might help some of our colleagues who just might make the same mistake!

Run on Sun is a huge Enphase shop, and one of the reasons why is the great monitoring that we get for every installation.  For installers, we can see module-level data that allows us to determine not only if there is a problem with the array, but where that problem is!  (Contrast this with a string array, where determining where a problem resides can be an error-prone and time-consuming process.) 
Check out this sample from one of our systems:

This is from a recent install using LG 360 Watt, back-contact modules with Enphase IQ6+ microinverters. As you can see this is a very consistent array with the output power ranging from 288 to 291 Watts at each module.  But you might ask yourself, how does the system know which module/microinverter is which?  The answer is easy - each microinverter has an associated serial number, and it sends that serial number to the monitoring device (called an Envoy) when it reports its performance.  When the installer “builds” the array in the cloud, she maps the serial numbers from the microinverters to the layout as installed.

To facilitate that mapping, Enphase provides a peel-off label on each microinverter.  The installer removes the sticker and places it on a map, to be pared with the online layout.  When we are doing our installs, I am often the person responsible for collecting the labels onto the map, and then later using that map to build the system online.  I’ve been doing this for years, and never had a problem.

Until the other day.

I got back to the office, ready to build out our array online, only to discover - there’s no map!  Mind you, I remember clearly creating the map, and I would have sworn I put it in the car right after doing so, but it was nowhere to be found!  Yikes!  Now what do we do?

To be sure, the serial number were still on the microinverters, but they could not be read from where they are located on the roof!  Ugh - we could remove the modules (of our otherwise operational system) but that would be a huge amount of work - there has got to be a better way!

Cue Sara - Problem Solver Extraordinaire!

Indeed there was as Project Coordinator, and problem solver extraordinaire, Sara Pavey quickly observed.  We could connect to the Envoy using a smart phone (it has a WiFi hot spot built in), and look at the data coming from the array.  If we were to shade one module at a time, we could see which microinverter’s power output went to zero, and then record the corresponding serial number!

Jim paying dues on the roof for losing the map!

One module at a time, we covered a portion of the module so that we could detect it’s loss of output, and record that serial number in the proper position.  (The per-microinverter data is not instantaneous, so we had to wait until the Envoy polled each one to detect the change.  Hint to Enphase: it would be nice to be able to get that data in real time, as that would greatly speed up the process!  Maybe as part of a special, troubleshooting-for-idiots mode?)

Nevertheless, with a minimum of fuss and bother, after an hour we had mapped all twenty-six microinverters, without having to unbolt a single module.  Well done, Sara, you more than earned your keep that day!

(Oh, and we now take a picture of the map as soon as it is completed!)

So there you go folks, live and learn!  If anyone out there has faced this problem in the field, how did you resolve it?  We would love to hear from you in the comments below!