Tag Archives: inverters

Solar system components and setup: what you need to know

Once solar panels are set up on a property, they’ve relatively maintenance free. This is because the majority of solar panel systems have no moving parts; as long as they’re receiving sunlight and the products aren’t faulty, they will be a reliable source of electricity for at least 25 to 30 years.

Because of their ease of use, most people don’t think about the actual setup of a solar panel system. What parts are required? And how do they all connect to produce power for your property? Here’s a quick intro to the most important solar system components, and how they’re set up on your home or business.

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What solar energy equipment do I need to go solar?

If you’re considering installing a solar panel system, you’ve probably spent some time researching financing, tax breaks, and solar installers. However, you should also educate yourself about the solar energy equipment your system needs to get up and running. While the components of a PV system are simple, the different product options and brands can make the equipment selection process fairly complex. We’ll break down all things solar power equipment in order to best prepare you to select your hardware.

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Q&A with GoodWe

Inverters are an integral part of all solar systems – and the options available to homeowners and business owners continue to expand. One such option is GoodWe, a leading manufacturer of solar and storage inverters globally, with almost 400,000 inverters currently online. GoodWe is a global company, with call centers spanning across eight separate countries. Recently, they entered the United States market, providing inverters for residential, commercial, and utility-scale solar installations. To learn more about GoodWe and the products they offer, we asked them a series of questions – here’s what they had to say: 

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Cheap solar panels: how to get the lowest price per watt on the market

You may be looking for cheap solar panels available in order to really cash in on solar power. And sure, when you install solar on your home or business, you can save thousands on your electricity bills. But going solar isn’t automatically cheap: buying solar panels to install on your roof typically costs thousands of dollars. It’s no wonder that the cost of solar is among the most important considerations for today’s homeowners. If you’re thinking about going solar and worried about prices, you’re probably wondering: what are the best value solar panels and will solar get even cheaper?

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Introducing the Tigo Energy Intelligence Residential Solution

If you’re familiar with the residential solar market, you’re probably aware of the two main players providing inverters to residential solar installations in the US. But those two companies are far from the only companies providing inverter (and inverter-adjacent) products in the residential solar market in the US. 

While their optimizers and rapid shutdown devices have been installed on many roofs throughout the country, one company you may not yet be familiar with is Tigo Energy. However, Tigo Energy is banking on that changing with their latest product launch: the Tigo Energy Intelligence (EI) Residential Solution, which brings Tigo-branded products to the forefront of a solar and solar-plus-storage installation. 

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Microinverters: what you need to know

Inverters are an essential component of any solar panel system. They’re responsible for converting direct current energy (DC) generated at your solar panels into usable alternating current (AC) electricity for your home’s appliances. When it comes to choosing an inverter solution for your solar panel system, there are a few options to consider. In this article, we’ll go over one of the more popular types of inverter technologies: microinverters.

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Does your battery come with its own inverter?

While shopping for storage solutions, it can be hard to break down which products come with an integrated inverter, which will need an additional inverter, and how many boxes will be installed on your wall. This is one of the key factors to pay attention to as you’re comparing storage solutions, as it will impact the overall efficiency and cost of your battery setup, as well as how you integrate it into a solar panel system.

Here’s a breakdown of this info for some of the biggest storage companies in the market today:

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Cybersecurity: why it’s important for your solar panel system

In May 2021, the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline made headlines across the country. After Colonial shut down their pipelines, gasoline shortages rapidly drove up the price of gasoline and spurred panic buying at fuel stations, particularly across hard-hit southern states. With cyberattacks on energy infrastructure increasing in frequency and severity, many are starting to wonder: what else could be at risk?

Unfortunately, the energy sector has already seen serious cyberattacks in the past–which could be an indicator of future risk. In 2015, Ukraine experienced the first known cyberattack on the power grid, which caused outages at 30 substations throughout the country and left about 230,000 people without electricity for up to six hours. People with solar-plus-storage systems would typically have the benefit of grid resiliency in such a situation and would be able to keep the power running–however, solar systems are not entirely immune to the risk of cyberattacks without proper protections.

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Rapid shutdown: what you need to know

If you’ve just installed a solar panel system or are looking at a picture of one, you may notice a box with an on/off switch that says “rapid shutdown.” But what does rapid shutdown mean, and why is it important for a solar panel system? In this article, we’ll give an overview of rapid shutdown requirements, how they vary by state, and list some popular inverter options that are compliant with rapid shutdown requirements.

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How have solar equipment costs declined over time?

Over the last decade, the costs of solar have decreased from over $8 per Watt in 2009 ($/W) to $2.75/W in 2019 on EnergySage, a decline of more than 65 percent in 11 years. Over this timeframe, a primary driver of the declining cost of solar in the US has been technological improvements in the actual hardware that’s included in solar energy systems: solar panels and solar inverters.

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