ET-Solar Bifacial with Enphase Micro

[newburns]

Newbie here. Thanks for the forum.

Looking to purchase 40 - ET-Solar Bifacial 410watt panel to pair with Enphase 7A Microinverters and the full Ensemble system (40ft x 12ft x 16ft over the handicap ramp of my home).
I will install this using Iron Ridge racking system on a pergola style covering about 16ft above grade.
Here is my energy usage: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m6Z8Qi6okq6LLk99OTxmZzC-sNPWjAPU/view?usp=sharing

Does anyone know if the Bifacials can be paired with the 7A and still stay within the 133%? I know nothing about bifacials, only going based on the recommendation from Will's YouTube.

 

[svetz]

Welcome to the forums!

Nice place, did you do the deck? Looks great from the photo! I see that HAM tower , we have a number of them on the forums.

From the ET-Solar Bifacial datasheet shows a maximum voltage of 50V, the IQ7A is 58V
From the ET-Solar Bifacial datasheet shows a maximum of 533 watts at 30% albedo, the IQ7A is 295 W–460 W

Guess it really depends on the albedo. The microinverter is rated for 346 VA continuous (~340 watts). The panels will only produce maximum output on solar noon when the tilt is perfectly aligned (a few weeks out of the year). So usually clipping then isn't a big deal, but bifacials are new enough I don't have a good feel for it. You could run SAM and swap the IQ7A out for a string inverter to see what sort of difference it would make for your location.

Hope that helps!

 

[Scott SD]

Use the IQ8H? It is rated for a 500w panel and puts out 366w continuous. I have IQ7+ with LG 400w panels and only see clipping for a few weeks out of the year.

 

[GXMnow]

Over paneling on current will not hurt an Enphase inverter. Once it is outputting it's maximum power, it just won't pull more current from the panel. So it is fine as long as the open circuit voltage is not over the limit for the inverter. The only issue will be clipping, but it really is not that big of a deal. I am running 300 watt panels on iQ7 240 watt inverters. That is 25% over panel. And as others have said, it still only clips for a short time, near noon on very sunny but cool days.

The more you go over panel, the longer it might clip. In the morning, the large panel will hit the full output rating of the inverter sooner, and it will hold it longer until the power starts to fall off again in the evening. AND!! when it is cloudy and grey, you will still make more power due to the larger panels.

For my system, the best part about the microinverters limiting is that I was able to max out my main panel. When all 16 of my panels are at their clipping limit, I am right at 16 amps of back feed into a 20 amp breaker. If I only had 250 watt panels, I would never clip, but I would have less power all of the time. If I went with 360 watt panels, I would make more power all of the time, and it would clip at the 240 watt limit of each panel for more time of the day. So you get more watt hours, without overpowering your system. Sure, you are losing some power the panels could make, but that loss is not all that big.

If your main panel can handle more power, then you could get more by using higher rated inverters, but the small amount of extra energy you will harvest will take a long time to pay off more expensive inverters. The panels you are looking at are 410 watts from the front side. How much gain you might get from the back side is hard to estimate. Anything you do get is just bonus power.