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diy solar

Mixing different bifacial panels in a string?

Zero_PD

New Member
Joined
May 20, 2022
Messages
74
Location
SF Bay Area
Hi there,
I know it's a common question and I've read a few threads, but thanks for humoring me.

  1. I have 4 bifacial panels I'm trying to put in a string. Two are JA Solar JAM72D09-380 with an Isc of about 10.09. One is a Canadian Solar [CS3W-390PB-AG-N] with an Isc of about 10.14. The third has a higher ISC, about 14A.
  2. Would this be disastrous for a string? This is for a temporary (one week) off grid installation.
  3. Alternatively, I have a cheap mono facial with a lower Isc. Though I don't have its model number, I believe it's Isc is 5-8A. Would this be better or worse or similarly bad?
  4. I am using a Growatt SPF3000TL inverter (well, 4x in parallel).

Thanks, appreciate the help.
 
your string will be limited to the Amperage of the lowest rated panel and you will loose efficiency. Also your MPPT could have a "fun time" trying to find the Max Power Point because when you add panels that are different, especially a multitude of specs you could create a Power Curve that actually has more than 1 Max Power Point and has a slope that is not expected by the MPPT algorithm.
Other than that you should be fine as long as your MPPT Max Voltage can accept the string.

I hope you are not connecting 4 inverters in parallel to one MPPT string, not sure how that would go. One string can go to One MPPT; A few strings can go to One MPPT, I'm not aware of any working configuration where one string is shared by multiple MPPTs.
 
The one that will give you the most power based on the specs of your MPPTs, that could be single strings or parallel string.
Or the one that you can afford.
 

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