Very nice Julian! Hey....for all you folks that are considering solar; I would highly recommend consulting with Julian. I was on my way to getting taken advantage of by various companies here in SoCal. I didn’t have a clue as to what I should be paying or what equipment I should have. Julian fixed me up with a contractor who was fantastic and saved me thousands of dollars. Thank you again Julian! Since Oct 2020 I'm already a negative $487.00 with SCE.
Talk w/ Cody today. He was honest and upfront about my inquiry. So, I just Subscribed. Will give you THUMBS UP on all your videos. Definitely will refer you to my friends. Stay Safe Ruben Tiosejo
Hi Julian, I like your videos. But 'statistically speaking,' where are the stats? I don't think there are any. Neither Enphase or SolarEdge publish their failure rates.
The manufacturers try to keep that info on the down low. SolarEdge wouldn’t want people to know that currently it takes 4-6 months to get the refurbished replacement. I’m my experience these central inverters go down all the time and I very rarely deal with an Enphase issue
I bought a Tesla 9.1Kw system in 2017. Squirrels have chewed a few wires. I had an arc fault occur and while checking the system the tech found the damage. They shut down my system and have offered a contract for $2100 minimum to lift ALL panels and check for damage. They said they had to do the work but my contract says for non-warranty repairs I can use a third party. I am a contractor with a fair amount of electrical experience. I am thinking I will do this myself. It doesn't appear Tesla uses a remote solar isolator. Do I have to do this project at night or cover the invertors to disconnect panels and work on them? Would a plastic blue tarp qualify to stop solar production so I can disconnect them?
Great video Julian! I think as it goes for groundmount or car port systems, micros can be overkill but also situationally dependent too! I have an Enphase 16kW GM and it's great
There is a place for every product and sometimes string inverters will ultimately be the logical answer. But for most residential sized systems Enphase is the proven beast
Julian do you know anything about the new tesla solar inverters vs enphase IQ8m i have salesman trying to sell me tesla solar vs enphase IQ8M for same price im central florida? Just needed help in choosing
Call or text me today. This requires a conversation. More than I can reply in this comment. I also have the best Florida consultant. Talk today. 760-473-5878
Just found your videos and enjoy them - hope to use your services in San Diego someday soon. Our Rep in Palm Springs (current house) told us not to do micro inverters in PS because he said they get too hot and have been "popping like pop corn" ... I believe we'll be getting 4 strings with 40ish panels (I believe our battery is SolarEdge). Have you heard of problems with extreme heat? Does this sound OK? Thank you.
Heat is not a solar systems friend but under each panel on a SolarEdge system you have power optimizers which can get hot and fail as well. If the centralized inverter is sitting in the sun it can fail as well. The reliability between Enphase and SolarEdge is not really close. I believe most people selling solar edge in today’s market are only doing so because it costs grand or two less to install. I think Enphase is still the best option by far. I actually work all over California, including Palm Springs. If you ever need any help in the future let me know
Thank you Julian. My understanding is the Tesla Gigafactory in Buffalo New York makes solar shingles for their solar roof. I read that the dummy shingles the non-electricity generating shingles are made in China. However the solar roof shingles are made in Buffalo and they also make their powerwall battery.
My God, I wish Tesla was cheap in Australia. Without doubt, it is one of the more expensive options in here. You're looking at $19,000 - $20,000 AUD for an installed Powerwall with backup at the moment here ($12800 - $13500 USD). Every few months the price seems to increase for some reason. For my fully installed SolarEdge with backup, it was $14000 AUD ($9450). Still more than you guys probably pay in the USA. I understand there is shipping costs to Australia, and we have strong consumer protection laws, where manufacturer's warranty can easily be overridden by authorities. It is essentially how long a reasonable person would expect an item to last given the price. So, if I pay $3k for a phone and the manufacturer has only a 6-month warranty, it's bad luck for the manufacturer if it stops working at 18 months as any reasonable person would expect a $3k phone to last that long. I do believe this is factored into our pricing here.
Great solar training videos. Thanks for helping us understand the pros and cons for solar systems to help prevent us from making mistakes in our , solar investment. ???QQQ Do you have any experience in the best power efficient setups for Solar to Vehicle, Vehicle to Grid, Vehicle to home backup power setups. There are so many considerations like DC charging vs AC charging, High Voltage vs Low Voltage and how that ties into designing the best home solar system to accommodate full use of EVs
We purchased our 27-panel system in 2019 and had it installed in 2020. I don't know if the downside of a Solar Edge inverter was apparent then, but since installation we've had two fail, and two months without solar energy. I'm curioous about how much it would cost to convert to an Enphse system.
Tesla panels are just Q.Cell? Good to know! I have other Q.Cell for an off-grid system, I like them. I am going with Tesla Solar right now, but they're the cheap shitty option that handles all the legal hurdles and literal heavy lifting. I know enough to keep an eye on performance and I'm willing to do upgrades if necessary. My biggest question is if the current gen powerwall can function with micro-inverters. I know previous generations can keep a micro-grid running during a power failure and down-tune micro-inverter by changing the power frequency. This generation may only work with their string inverter. There's very little technical information available. Hopefully I'll be able to look up individual components in the powerwall when it's installed, or find a way to test it without setting anything on fire.
I'm an confused, Tesla and I have seen other videos saying they make their own inverters and I don't know if it is their new version 3.5 but I thought 3.0 was made now by Tesla and not the Korean company they used to buy from (sorry, name escapes me but started with "Hu").
Why just emphase? Other firms make micro inverters that are high power and less expensive than enphase. Solar surge guy likes the newest hoymiles how power micro inverters.
There’s no micro-inverter on the market worth looking at other than Enphase. Still extremely high failure rates everywhere else. Generac purchased Chilicon last year but that product isn’t close to the quality of Enphase. AP systems have virtually no market share. The Huawei micros are good but illegal for American import. There’s no reason to gamble on the most vulnerable component of the system to save a few hundred bucks on a 25 year investment.
@@Superiorsolarconsulting maybe, you can have an opinion but cite no authority. , Solar Surge guy like may disagree with you. So you keep up with all of the new equipment and specs and reliability of each brand? Please post that content. I’m needing 16 or more micro inverters for an array and it’s not a small amount of money.
Microinverters are a huge reliability risk in my opinion. They do not actually last anywhere near the 25 years the warranty implies and given the difficult serviceability being under your array, and that labor is not paid for by the company, it is bad choice. Putting hard to service electronics on a hot roof is just a huge risk. Companies that install enphase are going to be out of business ten years out when the failures overwhelm them.
Ive had less than 10 micro-inverters fail in a 7 year period. They are statistically perfectly reliable if looking an the iq6, iq7, or iq8. SolarEdge had close to a 25% failure rate through around 2021
@@Superiorsolarconsulting of course I'm in Arizona, but I've had replaced many microinverters so far and having worked in the electronics world for 50 years I do not trust the 25 year claims one little bit and being on the hook for replacing them as they fail one by one is not what I'm going to risk my business on....
Microinverters... maybe if you have a flat roof that you can access. My roof is at a good incline so if a microinverter fails you have to call a specialist out there to fix that. They are installing 24 panels, so could you imaging you have 24 extra points of failure? or would you rather have one box in the garage. If the inverter dies then I'm still on grid so no biggie. I can change out the inverter also, so no one to call out. I talked to Sunpower (40K) Tesla (30K) so trying Solar Surge next. If course you get the govt credit of 26% but that's still quite expensive.
I don’t think the decision is nearly as clear-cut as you make it seem. A number of your claims don’t pass the smell test for me (I’m a retired EE). A couple of claims I question: 1. You say string inverters are “designed” for a 10-12 year life. That makes no sense at all given that SolarEdge provides a 12 year warranty on their string inverters. Most products will not be profitable if the warranty replacement rate is above even 5%. If the average life of a product is centered at 12 years, this means that half of the products would fail in 12 years or less and thus have a 50% warranty replacement rate. That simply doesn’t stand up logically. 2. If the failure rates and parts availability are even close to being the same (I have heard claims all over the map on relative reliability, so I am not sure where reality lies on this area), then it doesn’t matter much if you have a single point of failure or not. For example, let’s assume it takes a month to get either an Enphase microinverter or a SolarEdge string inverter replaced. If the string inverter fails, you will lost full production for an entire month which is really bad. However, with say 25 microinverters, you will have 25 times more failures per unit time simply due to having 25 times more things to fail. Each failure loses 1/25 of your production for one week. However, 25 times the number of one week failures times 1/25 magically equals 1 full week of array lost, exactly the same as the string inverter loss. So, this is a red herring argument also. The only way there is a material difference is if there is a significant difference in the reliability of the string inverter vs the microinverter and I doubt that is the case given that one is on the roof and one is inside and better protected. These are two of the biggest fallacies I see in the video. There are other reasons to select one over the other that seem more legitimate to me. If you plan to charge batteries, I think the SolarEdge architecture is better as you have less power loss due to AC to DC and vice versa conversions. If you plan to expand your array later, then Enphase has advantages. I have been researching this extensively and it isn’t obvious to me that there is a clear winner in the architecture game.
1. SolarEdge’s failure rates are not easy to find as they aren’t advertised. But if you’re really in the trenches working with these products you know which company is easier to work with… it’s really not even close. 2. The reliability with micros is far greater so in reality you aren’t going to see all of your micros fail. It’s never happened even once in my experience. My opinions aren’t fallacies. I’m just reporting my experience.
7:53 - NO It's not very difficult. This guy is talking out of his ass right now. It's a centralized inverter in one place. It's not hard to replace or troubleshoot. Wow. Blown away by the misinformation in this trash video too.
Your average, everyday person is not going to attempt to replace and commission a new inverter. Simple for a trained installer, yes. But to the average homeowner it’s very difficult
1:45 - You just love to downplay the truth don' t you? MICRO INVERTERS ARE NOT BETTER They are much more expensive and not easy or safe to replace. This guy really knows how to sell you on his ideas by talking badly about other companies and products. TRASH
How are micros not better? If an installer is on roofs installing systems everyday, what’s the difference with hopping up on the roof for 10 minutes to do the swap? I understand arguments for AC vs DC coupled systems with batteries but string inverters are only cheaper and that’s the only real advantage
Very nice Julian! Hey....for all you folks that are considering solar; I would highly recommend consulting with Julian. I was on my way to getting taken advantage of by various companies here in SoCal. I didn’t have a clue as to what I should be paying or what equipment I should have. Julian fixed me up with a contractor who was fantastic and saved me thousands of dollars. Thank you again Julian! Since Oct 2020 I'm already a negative $487.00 with SCE.
Thanks so much for sharing!!
Great info, thanks!
Glad to see you're making videos again. It's been awhile.
More to come. Been crazy busy
great info as always
Talk w/ Cody today. He was honest and upfront about my inquiry. So, I just Subscribed. Will give you THUMBS UP on all your videos. Definitely will refer you to my friends. Stay Safe Ruben Tiosejo
Are you currently installing Enphase IQ 7s or Enphase IQ 8s?
Iq8
Good video, thanks. I got some quotes in Chicagoland area, Enphase was about $7K more expensive for the same size system than SolarEdge in 2022.
Woah that doesn’t seem right. Should only be $500-1500 difference. Some installers manipulatively steer you a certain way
Hi Julian, I like your videos. But 'statistically speaking,' where are the stats? I don't think there are any. Neither Enphase or SolarEdge publish their failure rates.
The manufacturers try to keep that info on the down low. SolarEdge wouldn’t want people to know that currently it takes 4-6 months to get the refurbished replacement. I’m my experience these central inverters go down all the time and I very rarely deal with an Enphase issue
How are the AP systems microinverters as compared to enphase?
I’ve heard that there are still reliability issues
I bought a Tesla 9.1Kw system in 2017. Squirrels have chewed a few wires. I had an arc fault occur and while checking the system the tech found the damage. They shut down my system and have offered a contract for $2100 minimum to lift ALL panels and check for damage. They said they had to do the work but my contract says for non-warranty repairs I can use a third party. I am a contractor with a fair amount of electrical experience. I am thinking I will do this myself. It doesn't appear Tesla uses a remote solar isolator. Do I have to do this project at night or cover the invertors to disconnect panels and work on them? Would a plastic blue tarp qualify to stop solar production so I can disconnect them?
To be honest I am not the right person answer this question. Do you need a licensed electrician
Great video Julian! I think as it goes for groundmount or car port systems, micros can be overkill but also situationally dependent too! I have an Enphase 16kW GM and it's great
There is a place for every product and sometimes string inverters will ultimately be the logical answer. But for most residential sized systems Enphase is the proven beast
Julian do you know anything about the new tesla solar inverters vs enphase IQ8m i have salesman trying to sell me tesla solar vs enphase IQ8M for same price im central florida? Just needed help in choosing
Call or text me today. This requires a conversation. More than I can reply in this comment. I also have the best Florida consultant. Talk today. 760-473-5878
Just found your videos and enjoy them - hope to use your services in San Diego someday soon. Our Rep in Palm Springs (current house) told us not to do micro inverters in PS because he said they get too hot and have been "popping like pop corn" ... I believe we'll be getting 4 strings with 40ish panels (I believe our battery is SolarEdge). Have you heard of problems with extreme heat? Does this sound OK? Thank you.
Heat is not a solar systems friend but under each panel on a SolarEdge system you have power optimizers which can get hot and fail as well. If the centralized inverter is sitting in the sun it can fail as well. The reliability between Enphase and SolarEdge is not really close. I believe most people selling solar edge in today’s market are only doing so because it costs grand or two less to install. I think Enphase is still the best option by far. I actually work all over California, including Palm Springs. If you ever need any help in the future let me know
Thank you Julian. My understanding is the Tesla Gigafactory in Buffalo New York makes solar shingles for their solar roof. I read that the dummy shingles the non-electricity generating shingles are made in China. However the solar roof shingles are made in Buffalo and they also make their powerwall battery.
My God, I wish Tesla was cheap in Australia. Without doubt, it is one of the more expensive options in here. You're looking at $19,000 - $20,000 AUD for an installed Powerwall with backup at the moment here ($12800 - $13500 USD). Every few months the price seems to increase for some reason.
For my fully installed SolarEdge with backup, it was $14000 AUD ($9450). Still more than you guys probably pay in the USA.
I understand there is shipping costs to Australia, and we have strong consumer protection laws, where manufacturer's warranty can easily be overridden by authorities. It is essentially how long a reasonable person would expect an item to last given the price. So, if I pay $3k for a phone and the manufacturer has only a 6-month warranty, it's bad luck for the manufacturer if it stops working at 18 months as any reasonable person would expect a $3k phone to last that long. I do believe this is factored into our pricing here.
Solar is so cheap in Australia. You guys have it going on over there
Great solar training videos. Thanks for helping us understand the pros and cons for solar systems to help prevent us from making mistakes in our , solar investment.
???QQQ Do you have any experience in the best power efficient setups for Solar to Vehicle, Vehicle to Grid, Vehicle to home backup power setups. There are so many considerations like DC charging vs AC charging, High Voltage vs Low Voltage and how that ties into designing the best home solar system to accommodate full use of EVs
No videos as of now but that’s a good idea. Text if you want a proposal. We can do this for you. 760-473-5878
It sounds like Tesla began manufacturing their own inverter in house beginning in mid 2021, so they're no longer rebranded 3rd party inverters.
I’m not 100% sure on that. I do not believe Tesla manufactures anything except the Tesla power wall
We purchased our 27-panel system in 2019 and had it installed in 2020. I don't know if the downside of a Solar Edge inverter was apparent then, but since installation we've had two fail, and two months without solar energy. I'm curioous about how much it would cost to convert to an Enphse system.
I’m sorry to hear that. It happens all much too often. It’s definitely a few thousand dollars at least to convert over
Thanks for the video, I have a very steep roof , can all the micro converts be mounted in a easy spot to serves them , 20' longest run and 6' closest?
Still best to mount under the panel
Anybody have the link to the central inverter vs power optimiser video?
It’s an old video on my channel if you search under videos
What company do you work for looking to get 26 panels system enphase in ca?
I work with multiple. Depends on your location. Text me 7604735878
I work with multiple. Depends on your location. Text me 7604735878
@@Superiorsolarconsulting Hi, how much it will be in California, for 30 panels
Tesla panels are just Q.Cell? Good to know! I have other Q.Cell for an off-grid system, I like them. I am going with Tesla Solar right now, but they're the cheap shitty option that handles all the legal hurdles and literal heavy lifting. I know enough to keep an eye on performance and I'm willing to do upgrades if necessary. My biggest question is if the current gen powerwall can function with micro-inverters. I know previous generations can keep a micro-grid running during a power failure and down-tune micro-inverter by changing the power frequency. This generation may only work with their string inverter. There's very little technical information available. Hopefully I'll be able to look up individual components in the powerwall when it's installed, or find a way to test it without setting anything on fire.
There is an AC coupled Tesla Powerwall for micro inverting systems
I'm an confused, Tesla and I have seen other videos saying they make their own inverters and I don't know if it is their new version 3.5 but I thought 3.0 was made now by Tesla and not the Korean company they used to buy from (sorry, name escapes me but started with "Hu").
They’ve historically rebranded
Are you a solar company or contractor?
Consultant connected with multiple contractors throughout the nation
Curious what your thoughts are on this video that compared a string inverter to a micro inverter? th-cam.com/video/UQ9Szhl1ceQ/w-d-xo.html
I’ll have to watch and get back to you on that. So sorry about the slow response
Why just emphase? Other firms make micro inverters that are high power and less expensive than enphase. Solar surge guy likes the newest hoymiles how power micro inverters.
There’s no micro-inverter on the market worth looking at other than Enphase. Still extremely high failure rates everywhere else. Generac purchased Chilicon last year but that product isn’t close to the quality of Enphase. AP systems have virtually no market share. The Huawei micros are good but illegal for American import. There’s no reason to gamble on the most vulnerable component of the system to save a few hundred bucks on a 25 year investment.
@@Superiorsolarconsulting maybe, you can have an opinion but cite no authority. , Solar Surge guy like may disagree with you. So you keep up with all of the new equipment and specs and reliability of each brand? Please post that content. I’m needing 16 or more micro inverters for an array and it’s not a small amount of money.
@@dewholdingsllc1050 More videos on their way soon. Trying my best
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Microinverters are a huge reliability risk in my opinion. They do not actually last anywhere near the 25 years the warranty implies and given the difficult serviceability being under your array, and that labor is not paid for by the company, it is bad choice. Putting hard to service electronics on a hot roof is just a huge risk. Companies that install enphase are going to be out of business ten years out when the failures overwhelm them.
Ive had less than 10 micro-inverters fail in a 7 year period. They are statistically perfectly reliable if looking an the iq6, iq7, or iq8. SolarEdge had close to a 25% failure rate through around 2021
@@Superiorsolarconsulting of course I'm in Arizona, but I've had replaced many microinverters so far and having worked in the electronics world for 50 years I do not trust the 25 year claims one little bit and being on the hook for replacing them as they fail one by one is not what I'm going to risk my business on....
@@gregcollins3404 which models have you had to replace? I assume you’re also in the industry?
Microinverters... maybe if you have a flat roof that you can access. My roof is at a good incline so if a microinverter fails you have to call a specialist out there to fix that. They are installing 24 panels, so could you imaging you have 24 extra points of failure? or would you rather have one box in the garage. If the inverter dies then I'm still on grid so no biggie. I can change out the inverter also, so no one to call out. I talked to Sunpower (40K) Tesla (30K) so trying Solar Surge next. If course you get the govt credit of 26% but that's still quite expensive.
Randy Allen
I don’t think the decision is nearly as clear-cut as you make it seem. A number of your claims don’t pass the smell test for me (I’m a retired EE). A couple of claims I question:
1. You say string inverters are “designed” for a 10-12 year life. That makes no sense at all given that SolarEdge provides a 12 year warranty on their string inverters. Most products will not be profitable if the warranty replacement rate is above even 5%. If the average life of a product is centered at 12 years, this means that half of the products would fail in 12 years or less and thus have a 50% warranty replacement rate. That simply doesn’t stand up logically.
2. If the failure rates and parts availability are even close to being the same (I have heard claims all over the map on relative reliability, so I am not sure where reality lies on this area), then it doesn’t matter much if you have a single point of failure or not. For example, let’s assume it takes a month to get either an Enphase microinverter or a SolarEdge string inverter replaced. If the string inverter fails, you will lost full production for an entire month which is really bad. However, with say 25 microinverters, you will have 25 times more failures per unit time simply due to having 25 times more things to fail. Each failure loses 1/25 of your production for one week. However, 25 times the number of one week failures times 1/25 magically equals 1 full week of array lost, exactly the same as the string inverter loss. So, this is a red herring argument also. The only way there is a material difference is if there is a significant difference in the reliability of the string inverter vs the microinverter and I doubt that is the case given that one is on the roof and one is inside and better protected.
These are two of the biggest fallacies I see in the video. There are other reasons to select one over the other that seem more legitimate to me. If you plan to charge batteries, I think the SolarEdge architecture is better as you have less power loss due to AC to DC and vice versa conversions. If you plan to expand your array later, then Enphase has advantages.
I have been researching this extensively and it isn’t obvious to me that there is a clear winner in the architecture game.
1. SolarEdge’s failure rates are not easy to find as they aren’t advertised. But if you’re really in the trenches working with these products you know which company is easier to work with… it’s really not even close.
2. The reliability with micros is far greater so in reality you aren’t going to see all of your micros fail. It’s never happened even once in my experience.
My opinions aren’t fallacies. I’m just reporting my experience.
7:53 - NO It's not very difficult.
This guy is talking out of his ass right now.
It's a centralized inverter in one place.
It's not hard to replace or troubleshoot.
Wow. Blown away by the misinformation in this trash video too.
Your average, everyday person is not going to attempt to replace and commission a new inverter. Simple for a trained installer, yes. But to the average homeowner it’s very difficult
1:45 - You just love to downplay the truth don' t you?
MICRO INVERTERS ARE NOT BETTER
They are much more expensive and not easy or safe to replace.
This guy really knows how to sell you on his ideas by talking badly about other companies and products.
TRASH
How are micros not better? If an installer is on roofs installing systems everyday, what’s the difference with hopping up on the roof for 10 minutes to do the swap?
I understand arguments for AC vs DC coupled systems with batteries but string inverters are only cheaper and that’s the only real advantage