I have experience with the SI/SB designs, and can warn you that they typically need a boatload of additional switchgear to support a good robust design. That being said they work great together, handle battery charging like no other and we rarely get calls on them.
I have seen the XW system, and although have no firsthand experience with it, was walked through one by another trusted wrench, and his experience with both systems may have swayed me - almost all the wall of additional switchgear has been incorporated into the XW. My next GTWB system will be an XW system. YMMV, Glenn From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Allan Sindelar Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2012 10:39 AM To: RE-wrenches Subject: [RE-wrenches] Sunny Island vs. XW system - advice requested Wrenches, We have worked with Outback Radian and Schneider XW once or twice each for grid-tie with backup, and with Sunny Boy/Sunny Island numerous times. The SMA is certainly the most sophisticated equipment, but also the most expensive. For a particular job coming up, the loads are not excessive, and the array will be 8kW. The main hitch is that the array will be located on a barn roof that is about 500' from the BOS and home. I suspect that running high-voltage DC from the array to a Sunny Boy, and then feeding a pair of Sunny Islands makes the most sense. My question is this: does it make any sense to consider running two high-voltage subarrays 500' to two Schneider XW-MPPT-80 600V charge controllers, feeding two XW inverters (in order to handle the full 8kW) in a DC-coupled approach? Is there ever a situation in which this would be a better solution than SMA? Thank you, as always, Allan -- Allan Sindelar <mailto:al...@positiveenergysolar.com> al...@positiveenergysolar.com NABCEP Certified Photovoltaic Installer NABCEP Certified Technical Sales Professional New Mexico EE98J Journeyman Electrician Founder and Chief Technology Officer Positive Energy, Inc. 3209 Richards Lane (note new address) Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507 505 424-1112 www.positiveenergysolar.com <http://www.positiveenergysolar.com/>
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