How do solar panels perform in winter? Real world RESULTS!

Shame there is no mention of the potential down sides of micro inverters, and that is if one fails you'll likely need expensive scaffolding to replace it. You are far more likely to have a micro inverter fail than a panel. There is also no mention of efficiency losses when using an AC connected battery over a DC connected battery. I have two systems, Solaredge installed Iin 2015, and a Victron system last year, Victron will start working at around 53v, and as it's multiple strings in parallel it's less affected by shading like most DC systems. In fact I'm adding more solar to this system.

Nice video and good to see some real life output data. I had a similar Heatable system installed 5 weeks ago, also with a Giv AIO and Gateway located in a detached garage. The installers did a great job getting the power to the gateway 10 m from the incoming mains supply. Really pleased with the system performance so far. 14 panels and iQ8AC microinverters.

8:20 what you say about DC string connections used to be true years ago but is no longer the case with modern panels with bypass diodes.

This is my dream setup, just waiting for the dual battery option. Does this need the metered Enphase Envoy-s?

@heatable As a potential customer who is looking to increase solar coverage I've been trying to find real world data on these panels and systems you have installed. I'm especially interested in being able to substantiate the claim these panels are good in light light conditions vs other high end alternatives. Have you got any further data you can share beyond the spec sheets and youtube vids you have so far published? I was able to learn the following from this vid: 21:45 shows mid afternoon on Feb 23rd this system was generating 150wh with values from 4wh to 9wh per panel 23:05 shows data from March 2nd, 3rd and 4th with a total generation of 52.5kwh. That sounds decent, but 3rd and 4th were primarily sunny days and doesn't really do much to back up the claim of low light capability.

Southfacing nominal 3.3kW system on Tigos, no shading . Winter min 120kWh/month, summer max 470kWh/month, average 270kWh/month over the year. Going to add east some and west facing panels on the hips def going to look into bi-facial panels for that.

There seems to be a lot of discussion online about micro-inverters & AC panels vs central inverter & DC panels, would be great to understand long term support of the micro inverters. I like the idea of the REA AC panels & micro inverters, but my concerns are around reliability of the micro-inverters. If there was a failure in say 10 years time, assuming enphase micros are around, will there be compatibility issues? Would be good to discuss such scenarios.

REA panels from Australia. And you're saying they're designed for British low light in winter. That's not really correct... Designed for the UK?

If winter production is your aim I personally think the most effective thing is maximum coverage, every inch counts even if it's on a NNE roof. So for the given budget I would have some panels on the front roof and probably gone with Jinko Tiger Neo panels as I thinks they provide the best performance in the UK for the £ spent.

would there be an advantage of painting the roof white underneath?

Bifacial panels need light color roof and space between the panels and the roof to even take advantage of the rear cells. Nevertheless those panels are nice. Most bifacial panels are commercial use and have silver frame. Black on black bifacial panels are hard to find.

No, sorry but that issue with shaded pwm panels has been fixed with a bypass diode for some years now. These things are not clearly advertised

You say micros start at 9v Vs single inverter needs 300v. But each cell is 0.5v it's the amps that change based on the sunlight. I have 4 panels on a string 4x40v. In low light produce at 0.2amps in full sun at 12 amps. It's volts x amps and amps rise with the sun. Volts hardly change.

Nice video but they are some exaggerations. Most string inverters have start up voltage ranging from 80-150V, not 300V as stated in this video. Some string inverters like the goodwe ES G2 have startup voltage as low as 58V and mppt range of 60 - 550V. Why some installers feel it's necessary to oversell micro inverters is what I don't get. Micro and string inverters have their respective pros and cons so claiming one type is best for all situations is simply ridiculous. Also claiming that bifacial panels installed very close to a dark roof generate 18% more power is neither realistic nor believable unless they are being compared with non-equivalent low end solar panels.

16*£130 micro inverters is a lot more expensive than 1x£400-800 inverter.

I have a DC panel system here in SA and I designed it so that each panel give full power under circumstances without being effected by another panel lower performance. Also I can see each panel's performance in real time and over a long time. So, what you are saying is NOT true for all systems. You do like Lithium battery salesman, comparing the more expensive battery to the cheapest, low performance lead acid battery where in fact there are other lead acid batteries performing just as good as lithium. I have both lead and lithium combined for a long time now so I know how it work.

Enphase have not even come up with a micro inverter rated to the 440w (actually 500w given double glass). So your panels are being clipped by enphase limits. Otherwise a good video. Well made

You say that battery will fail in time. But really rested for 8000 cycles. That's over 25 years of daily cycling. So very very unlikely anyone is seeing these fail in a medium time frame. Otherwise good video

Shading from a soft edged cloud miles in the sky is also so far away as to cause zero difference on a roof. So really don't list clouds. Trees chimneys bird poo moss

It is a shame Heatable don't maximize your installation albedo gains by painting behind the bifacial panels like you're supposed to do. By not doing this, you're limiting potential performance of the panels that you claim are ideally suited for the UK, which is ironic!