DIY Home Solar: Planning a Solar Array (Beginner's Guide)

Step 5 Solar Inverters

Picking an inverter for your system is pretty important. Fortunately, there's not too much room for error. You need to make sure that you're buying a grid-tie inverter, rather than off-grid. You'll also need to check the wattage rating to make sure it can handle your solar array. Finally, you can consider buying micro inverters. Remember how I said that a single panel in the shade can affect the efficiency of your entire system? A micro inverter system uses a small inverter for each panel, instead of one inverter for all of the panels. The shoddy performance of one panel won't be able to affect the rest of the system.

For our hypothetical 6kW array, we could use a 6kW SunnyBoy inverter - $3,999.00 at SolarTown.

Now that you've picked panels and inverters, the hardest parts of the planning phase are over. Whew!

Further Reading:
The Good, Bad, and Ugly in Inverters: All the Questions You Need to Ask