Two quick questions:

"Approximately" how much would one expect to pay for a new GT (i.e. what kind of prices have people found)?

If installed by a certified electrician, "approximately" how much would one expect to pay to have one of these installed in their home? This includes hooking it up to the grid, the house, and running the necessary cable to the roof for attaching to the solar panels.

Thanks in advance!

I got mine from mrsolar.com for $1950 each. Other vendors should be similar in price.

Installation really is not that hard. I self installed a three inverter system over a period of four weekends. Hardest part is grounding the dang panels. If you're interested in keeping costs down, consider doing as much of the manual labor as possible. Mounting, conduit and wire pulling can all be done by you with the electrician only handling the final connections.

If you want to get quotes, I'd assume an hour for an electrician doing a first time install from the shipping box. As for cabling runs from the solar panels to the inverter and inverter to breaker panel, that depends on your site.

Sean

Thanks! My plan is to basically do my installation in parts where I first get the inverter installed and hooked to the grid with two panels. Hopefully, after that, I can start adding panels as funds allow .

You need alot more than 2 panels to power a GT3.0. You need a working voltage above 200 volts DC. Figure at a minimum , 8 , 24 volt panels

The Suntie is the only Gridtie inverter I know of that can do only 2 , 24 Volt panels (Gridtie only) , Outback GTFX inverters would work as well

My install uses the 54V Sanyo panels. I set up four panels just to see it work and later mounted the rest. It's not the best design, but it is a start. If you're planning to do-it-yourself I recommend the GT over the SunTie because the wiring is easier. A GT-3 plus four Sanyo panels is about $5700.

Sean

Great tips, thanks to you both. Seeing as I just dumped 3500 into my solar pool heater, I'll probably have to shelve this for a bit longer (hence my reasoning for wanting to do it a little bit at a time).

And for about 2K you could have a pair of Matrix 155 watts panels (seconds) and a Suntie ... all from Sun Electric in Miami www.sunelec.com

The Sanyo panels are nice , there also the most expensive on the market

As for wiring , the wiring is identical for a Suntie Vs GT3.0 for this small system. Just run larger PVC conduit and pull the additional 12 gauge runs for panel sets as you add them.

My arrays (East and West) on my current system is 9 Pairs of the PW-16500-155’s, each pair has a home run to the breaker panel. I've run both Suntie and GT3.0 and the Suntie is actually a Tad better harvest wise ... long series strings lose power due to panel mismatches.

I think the GT3.0 is a GREAT product and the best of the available string inverters, but comparing harvest data from last year, the Suntie is about 1% better in harvest.

This is really a BetaMax vs. VHS thing ... Low Voltage strings are technically better and get better harvests, High voltage series strings are easier to install, less wire and wiring costs ... since most folks are not do-it-yourself, the High voltage costs less in labor and a small savings in materials which is less cost to the owner, but its NOT better in energy harvest

Another important question is the distance from inverter to solar panels. LV systems are a lot more sensitive than HV to distance. Assuming 48V, 5A, 12AWG, 100' distance. The voltage drop is 4% for a LV system versus .4% for a 480V 5A HV system.

Sean

200 ft of 12 gauge is a loss of 3.4% ...

Then everything BUT your HIT panels would be in the 55-60 volt range, loss = 2.7%

I mis-wrote, I used rolls of 10 gauge THTN, cheap at home depot, at your 200 foot round trip that’s 1.69% , most of my runs are 1/3rd this length

All of the above is at peak power; solar systems run most of the time closer to 60% of this so now, even at long runs it’s closer to 1% loss.

Your HV example is a good one, but look at the SYSTEM, if you’re running ANY string inverter at 480V you’re losing 1-2% in efficiency in the inverter itself! The GT is just over 95% at 200V, at 500V is closer to 93%, Sunnyboy is no different and PVPowered (350 MAX) /Fronius (450 MAX) are lower voltage boxes and are lower (measured by me with Yokogawa WT2030 power analyzers) efficiency than the GT3.0.

This will all come out soon as the CEC has mandated retesting of ANY inverter that is on there list , this is to be witnessed by UL with Lab Quality power analyzer that were just verified and certify calibrated. SO much for PVpowered 97.5% claim using a DVM

It’s a complex world with many variables. I have two very large arrays , I've run for more than 6 months with both Sunties and GT3.0 and I've also run tests on PV-powered , Sunnyboy , Fronius inverters , In harvest the Suntie beats them all on my arrays

Wire is the cheapest part of the system, even at 100ft using 6 Gauge is only 90 bucks a roll for 500ft. either system can be built cost effectively.

The GT3.0 is a great inverter , there quiet , great communications abilities and for new installations that are pure Gridtie they are a top choice. The Suntie won’t be around much longer as the market is demanding HV , but as I have already said , LV , properly built will yield better harvest and it’s minimal the parts cost difference between they system.