Inverter choice advise

Devices
1

I’m going to replace my 14 year old Omnik inverters. So atm I’m free to choose any brand/device to my liking.
My main wish is to have an inverter which’s export can be controlled by Homey, to avoid export when prices are negative.
Of course I’ve been searching around the internet, but I would very much appreciate advise from experienced users.

2

What’s the total PV power, how many strings do you have, 1 or 3 phase inverter?

After a long search, I chose the SMA Sunny boy Smart Energy series, the 3.6 (1-phase) model (models go up to 6kW). It 's price is high though, but I consider it to be as two or three inverters into one.

  1. Hybrid
  2. Off grid mode, with a special 230V output.
  3. Cloud & LOCAL interface, Modbus is a bonus
  4. Output power 0-100% adjustable (also by Homey)
  5. German design (not sure where it’s built); oh, the thing is HUGE
  6. Battery inverter as well, it takes SMA Home Storage batteries
  7. THREE Mpp trackers
  8. Smart shade functionality, resulting in more performance when partly shading occurs (compared to my Growatt (2019))
  9. Passive cooling. It has a noisy fan built in, which kicks in when it’s over 22°C in the room, depending on the PV power of course.

Size impression, next to a Growatt 2000-s:

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You can see the (black) 230V socket for off grid mode

Inside:

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There’s also 3-phase Smart Energy models, from 5kW to 10kW

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3

Thanks.
I should have supplied some more details. I’m looking for a 1-phase 2 or 3 mptt 3600W inverter. I don’t need a hybrid version, as I’m not a fan of a home battery.
I’ve indeed seen the SMA-brand, but I found it (as you say) expensive and huge. But I didn’t know output could be controlled by Homey, so I’ll have a look at the brand again.
Was integration in/control by Homey straightforward?

4

I’m not a home battery fan either, but I would have regretted buying an inverter without support for it, for future possibilities. Currently I’m convinced it’s not profitable for consumers.
Being less dependent of the grid (in summertime) is one of the pro’s.

What I believe in: we really need something which stores the summer solar energy surplus for winter usage.

Yes! Only the modbus connection gets lost after a while. But I’ve a Pro 2019 on wifi.
This doesn’t occur with Home Assistant.

I have the app restarted at sunrise, which seems to solve that almost completely.

The SMA inverter is wifi connected, which is pretty stable.
Oh, the SMA has an onboard LAN connector as well.

5

Got a SolarEdge SE7k. Quite happy with it… Could enable modbus after it was installed using some QR code with looking things up in the internet. So the respective community app works purely locally for me. Meanwhile there’s also another SolarEdge cloud app. There’s also a dedicated webapp and mobile app for the inverter. Not sure about preventing exports, wasn’t relevant to me, but afaik there are some flows in the homey app about power reduction.

6

I would prefer not to use modbus, as it involves wiring that ia quite impossible to do in my case.
Thanks all for your thoughts and information.
In the meantime I found Zonnedimmer - Draag bij aan een duurzame toekomst (sorry, Dutch only), which seems to be quite interesting.

7

Just FYI modbus also works via wifi. At least with my 2019 Homey and SMA inverter that is.

8

Ahh, again something I’ll have to learn.
Good to know!

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