Best Inverter Option - 1 or 2?

[Nicko1611]

Hi all - quick update.

My installer is looking for a SB4000TL-20 - they only use SMA inverters.

Wouldn't be surprised to have wait until after Dec 8th - when demand "might" drop off.

Many thanks to everyone who responded - really appreciate it.

Nick

[12TA]

Well for those following the topic I just mention this.
I have some complex shading issues because of a dormer window, chimney stack and council trees, neighbours Leylandii and Velux windows etc. I knew that there would be issues fitting in a 3.78Kw system even though the roof is large. I sent in several germane photos of the shading of the roof at different times of the day. The company changed their initial plan to include 2 inverters instead of one. I was pleased. I would also get some idea if the system is starting to fail, I suppose and the inverters are nearer the middle of their operating range.
BUT, when the guys came to actually fit the panels, the guys on the roof had been given no instructions from the office as to which panels to fit in which array. Not intuitive in the cloud on the day, at least on my roof. The sun moves so much! They wanted to wire them up just to be convenient with the panels near to each other connected into an array. Trying to aggregate the instantaneous shading would argue otherwise. The end result looks a bit random but I was in favour of efficiency One gets used to the look. So I have portrait and landscape and the arrays connected up appropriately. So far I seem to be just above 100% of expectation, having expected shading to only give 80%.
The moral:- If you split into two or more arrays because of shading, give a thought as to which panels go in which array. Obvious really.

[Nicko1611]

Hi

Happy to report that we had a new SB4000TL-20 inverter installed on the Jan 13 - thanks again to everyone for your advice.

We're seeing a noticeable improvement in output over the past 10 days (Sunny Sosh on PVOutput if you're interested) now that we have the 2 string connected separately.

I've also installed Sunny Explorer and was wondering if any of the smart folks on this forum had figured out how to export a report that shows the output from each string. I can see these as Power [001] and Power [002] if I view Spot Values / DC Side (Solar Inverters) so I know they are being measured but can't find away of exporting this in a report.

SMA tell me you can't do this in Sunny Explorer but I thought I would ask just in case.