Need Advice: Expanding My Solar System Due to EV Commute

[zanydroid]

Are all existing panels and the new ones going too be same orientation?

I assume you’re saying this in the sense that the orientation should only matter in terms of clipping. Different orientation would be ideal from clipping perspective.

Orienting to optimize for late afternoon may provide more value.

SolarEdge inverters are likely a dime a dozen if you’re clipping.

Really the big constraint here is PG&E NEM rules and whether you will fall off the roof.

If you decide to do this guerilla style you should at least follow structural rules and setback/access path rules. Then you only get in trouble with PG&E

 

[Hedges]

While I like multiple orientations in parallel, doing that with panels in series drags down string performance to the lowest current produced. With optimizers, current can increase some amount, have to go by specs of the optimizers. There would be some sun angles when two different orientations produce similar enough current for optimizers to make them the same. Beyond that there would be production loss.

PG&E meter will log net production/consumption within any given time period (assuming single meter). It might log peak export.

 

[zanydroid]

I think these have 15A max output current and broader range to adjust compared to Tigo (probably has 2-4x up and down voltage ability, limited by the ratio between input and output voltage; i'm assuming 30Vmpp and 8V-60V output for these guestimates). Worth looking in detail at installation guide though. The tricky thing I don't totally understand is how the global constant voltage optimization works if there's a large matching ratio.

There's some interesting hints here on what the internal limits are

https://www.pvsyst.com/help/solaredge_architecture.htm