Comment by mooreds

I “installed” two APsystems EZ1-LV-NA microinverters at my house in Guatemala this year. It’s easy here because there is effectively zero regulation or monitoring by the power companies.

It was stupidly simple. I laid four giant ~700 W panels flat on my upstairs patio, plugged the MC4 extension cables into the microinverters, and plugged the microinverter into a normal AC extension cord running to a wall outlet. After less than 10 minutes of fiddling with wires, I was generating power.

Moving the giant solar panels was the part that actually took some effort.

---------------------------

I’ve been following these types of systems for a long time, since before people started calling them plug-in or balcony solar. For the longest time, I thought they were just stupid. Paying a premium for an inverter that has lower input and output capacity than a string inverter, can’t be connected to batteries, and can’t generate power when the grid is down seemed obscene to me.

To be honest, I still think they’re kind of dumb. Why can’t microinverters provide a DC tap so that I can also connect them to a battery system?

All that said, as a middle-aged man who has now had to deal with electricians more than a few times, the appeal has become crystal clear. Microinverters basically exist because electricians as a whole are downright awful and rip everyone off.

I went with On demand Instant Solar. They are great and ship very fast,. The customer support is awesome.

I went with On Denmand Instant Solar. They ship very fast and have great customer service.