Please help Decide between 2 quotes

[nnpfromhome]

Hi,

First of, this forum has been immensely helpful the last couple of weeks. This is a great community that is invaluable for folks like me. Thank you all for chipping in.

We are getting to install solar at our house in central NJ. I am not very technical or engineer oriented so need help in deciphering the woods from the jungle. We currently use about 7500 kWh per year and by my estimate we need about 8200-8400 kWh per year in future so that's the target output we are shooting for. We have narrowed down to 2 quotes. Both are Monocrystalline panels. Roof is ideally located direction(as we were told by all vendors and PVWatts)

QUOTE 1: From Trinity Solar , Centro Solar Panel -CM60 290 W panel. 25 year warranty. SolarEdge SE6000A-US Inverter that would have 10 year warranty. Installed system would be 6380 kWh with claimed output for 8421 kWh. Cost is 20k before credits

QUOTE 2: From RGS, SILFAB SLA300M 300 W panel, 25 year warranty. Enphase M250 Inverter with 25 year warranty. Installed system would be 6600 kWh with claimed output for 8588 kWH for about 19.4k before credits.

They are very close to each other - major difference being the panels themselves for which we are clueless.

If you could you please give your opinions and whatever gotchas that we might surely have missed, it would be very very helpful...


Much appreciated.....

[ButchDeal]

QUOTE 1: From Trinity Solar , Centro Solar Panel -CM60 290 W panel. 25 year warranty. Don't know which inverter but that would have 10 year warranty. Installed system would be 6380 kWh with claimed output for 8421 kWh. Cost is 20k before credits

QUOTE 2: From RGS, SILFAB SLA300M 300 W panel, 25 year warranty. Enphase M250 Inverter with 25 year warranty. Installed system would be 6600 kWh with claimed output for 8588 kWH for about 19.4k before credits.

Your two systems must be 6.38 kW and 6.6kW

no residential rooftop system is in the MW range

[nnpfromhome]

Your two systems must be 6.38 kW and 6.6kW

no residential rooftop system is in the MW range

ah yes.. Typo. My bad. Apologies

You are correct 6.38 kW and 6.6kW

[tyab]

Butch is just making sure your terminology is correct kW is 1000's of watts of output. kWH is that output for an hour. Thus your system is in the 6kW output range.

If would help if we had more details. Type of inverter(s) for system #1. And for both systems the number of panels. I think they are doing 22 panels for you thus it really is a 5280W output.

Just so you know - on quote 2 the M250 microinverter is current output limited to 1 amp. This means that it outputs 240W (and peaks to slightly over 250W), so some of that 300W output under peak conditions will be lost. This means that some of the panel DC output is wasted. There are several names used for this but a common one is oversizing and in your case it is 125%. Thus you are paying some extra $ for that 300W output, but not all of it can be used. That said, oversizing can be very helpful in maintaining your expected output under normal less than ideal conditions and times. Its a tradeoff between available roof space and desired output and cost. So back to your system it will have the continuous max output of a 5280W system (minus the losses from microinverter and wiring).

[nnpfromhome]

Both quotes are saying 22 panels..

I don't have the inverter to be used for the first quote. I am trying to find that

So these systems are actually only 5280W and not 6340W and 6600W as claimed? That would affect my required of 8200W - 8400W no?

[nnpfromhome]

Inverter for Quote 1 SolarEdge SE6000A-US Inverter . Updated Original Post

[J.P.M.]

OP: As a neophyte in solar, and as a respectful suggestion: Buy nothing until you get the basics down. As w/other posters who show up here and are about to spend thousands of $$ on something they are clueless about, do yourself a big favor and get educated. Your ignorance is very likely to cost you money and make you a sitting duck for con artists. If you have been looking at this forum for a couple of weeks, you may have seen one of my mantras. FWIW:

1.) Download and read :" Solar Power Your Home for Dummies", a free but slightly outdated version from the net. A more recent version is ~ $25 in bookstores/Amazon.

2.) Run PVWatts for your self after reading the help/info screens a couple of times.

Once you do those two things, come back here and fill in the blanks/info voids. The answers you get on your own will be better understood. Any remaining questions will be better informed and the answers you get here will be better and more informative. GIGO.

Take what you want of the above. Scrap the rest.

[rich_bcn]

New in this forum and nice to see some real life examples, I'm starting to look into solar panels myself for my new country house, but newbie in this field!