Greetings all. I’d again like to appeal to the wider group here to get some informed technical feedback about the 6000XP.
For this particular question, I’m actually tempted to tag one of our friends from Signature Solar, whose presence on these boards I’m grateful for.
Here is the situation in a nutshell.
I have an existing garage with a large roof surface. It’s not ideally oriented but it exists. It’s part of an off grid property near Manistee Michigan.
With the right panels, I can fit about 12 kW of solar on this garage roof surface. Because of the sub-optimal orientation, pvwatts tells me these will never produce more than about 9800 watts of actual output, and will only rarely go above the 6000 XPs rated “maximum usable power” of 8000 watts.
I’m perfectly happy with this. Panels and mounting hardware are relatively inexpensive compared to the effort, expense and property disruption of creating a ground mounted array with a more favorable orientation. I'd prefer to have the extra capacity to stretch my potential production as much as possible.
My string calculations also fall within the voltage and current limits listed in the 6000 XP specs.
There is one confusingly worded portion of the inverter specs that is giving me pause. The line reads:
“RECOMMENDED MAXIMUM SOLAR INPUT 10,000W”
There is no further mention of this limit that I can find elsewhere in the manual.
I can, on the one hand, assert that my array, although it will have a nameplate capacity of 12,000W actually satisfies this restriction, given that its actual max input based on geography and orientation will remain below 10,000W. I am further comforted by the fact that the string calculations are within spec.
However, I have some nagging concern that this 10,000W limit derives from some other poorly explained characteristic of the hardware.
Any informed opinions here? Am I good to go given the actual array or should I worry about the excess nameplate capacity?
For this particular question, I’m actually tempted to tag one of our friends from Signature Solar, whose presence on these boards I’m grateful for.
Here is the situation in a nutshell.
I have an existing garage with a large roof surface. It’s not ideally oriented but it exists. It’s part of an off grid property near Manistee Michigan.
With the right panels, I can fit about 12 kW of solar on this garage roof surface. Because of the sub-optimal orientation, pvwatts tells me these will never produce more than about 9800 watts of actual output, and will only rarely go above the 6000 XPs rated “maximum usable power” of 8000 watts.
I’m perfectly happy with this. Panels and mounting hardware are relatively inexpensive compared to the effort, expense and property disruption of creating a ground mounted array with a more favorable orientation. I'd prefer to have the extra capacity to stretch my potential production as much as possible.
My string calculations also fall within the voltage and current limits listed in the 6000 XP specs.
There is one confusingly worded portion of the inverter specs that is giving me pause. The line reads:
“RECOMMENDED MAXIMUM SOLAR INPUT 10,000W”
There is no further mention of this limit that I can find elsewhere in the manual.
I can, on the one hand, assert that my array, although it will have a nameplate capacity of 12,000W actually satisfies this restriction, given that its actual max input based on geography and orientation will remain below 10,000W. I am further comforted by the fact that the string calculations are within spec.
However, I have some nagging concern that this 10,000W limit derives from some other poorly explained characteristic of the hardware.
Any informed opinions here? Am I good to go given the actual array or should I worry about the excess nameplate capacity?
