Accompany proposed to do a solar system on my home but still I need an inverter on every single solar panel. Does this seem excessive?

[Hedges]

I'm anti-battery reasons :
Adds to much cost to a system you'll perhaps use once, twice.
I have had 1 power outage in 20 years I'll take my chances.

I had 10kW of GT PV for 17 years before I added battery backup.
I only did it because a bargain appeared for the inverters. Then I had to buy batteries ($5k) and balance of system.
You're right about the cost and somewhat right about the frequency of outages (had a couple same year I put it in, maybe you aren't served by PG&E.)
But its fun to do as you get older and richer. Or still young and well enough off to splurge.
I put my cappuccinos during power outage at $1000 apiece. But if it lets my wife do a couple on-line jobs a year during power outages, it would eventually pay for itself (admittedly a 12V system for a fraction the cost could have done the same, just not with A/C running.)

 

[HarryN]

I'm anti-battery reasons :
Adds to much cost to a system you'll perhaps use once, twice.
I have had 1 power outage in 20 years I'll take my chances.
How long will they carry the load you bought them for? Power outages seldom happen on bright sunny days to recharge the batteries.
Many on here are doomsday worriers I'll take my chances on mankind.
My 2 cents for what it's worth

That makes perfect sense given your experience.

When I grew up in OH, we rarely had complete power failures as there was a lot of redundancy in the grid.

Here in N CA, this redundancy does not seem to be nearly as common.

We have fire season and this happens every year - goes on for at least a month - sometimes more.

It often starts during the hottest part of the year - which means 100 - 110 F - literally every day at least for a few hours.

Outages can last anywhere from 1 hr to 50 hrs at a time.

The air is sometimes quite smoky and people often use air filters, fans, etc to try to keep from breathing it. ( it is possible to run a hours air conditioner on solar but that is a fairly healthy system )

Loosing 1 - 2 refrigerators of food is not only a financial loss, but it is difficult to replace, especially when the same thing has happened to many others.

Roads can be closed and people are encouraged to work from home when possible - so that requires enough to run the internet, cell phone and router.

The politicians, especially Gov Newsom, in their infinite wisdom, decided to just shut down or stop buying power from coal / nuclear, and rely on solar for grid power as much as possible. That works when the sky is clear to some level, but it doesn't work very well when the sky is full of smoke - so there are large shortfalls and rotating outages.

For us - this is really an annual event.
_____________

In addition to these somewhat avoidable outage, then we have the very real potential / reality that an earthquake will take out some infrastructure.

Most earthquakes I just sleep through - but a few are more exciting.

__________

And that is why I suggested the battery back up aspect.

 

[Landon McKeester]

I chose Enphase M190 inverters in 2010 - 1 per panel - because it was easier to add-on solar panels after the first 18 (235 W Sharp) were installed.
Now I'm trying to figure out if I can upgrade the 235W and swap for some (used) higher-power (300W or more) panels while keeping my old M190 Microinverters. But data re: compatibility issues and overpowering/clipping has been hard to find.
I added-on 4 more (260W) panels/microinverters last year for a cost of $1.22/watt (not including labor).