Shading losses higher with SolarEdge?

[Gejege]

I am running a simulation comparing a Huawei system to a SolarEdge system with near identical panel layouts, and there is a fair amount of shading on certain sections of the array.

I would expect SolarEdge to outperform Huawei, however not only does it have a lower kWh yield, it also had a higher Mismatch (Configuration/Shading) loss? Is there anything I'm missing? I can't get my head around how this is the case.

SolarEdge losses below, with 0.56% mismatch losses.

Huawei simulation, with only 0.53% mismatch losses?

I also ran a Huawei option with a few TIGO optimsiers and this reduced the mismatch losses to 0.40% which makes sense, I just don't understand how SolarEdge is performing so poorly.

Thank you.

[developer_mh]

Hi Gejege,

interesting question, thanks for that. It is one advantage of a simulation software like PV*SOL that you can compare the different options directly. And yes, it might be astonishing at first sight that a PV system equipped with SolarEdge power optimizers isn't always the best option in terms of PV yield, but it is true. It always depends on the exact configuration and the shading situation.

In order to go into detail a bit more it would be helpful to get the project files. You can send them to me as private message here in the forum.

Thanks a lot, kind regards,

Martin

[developer_mh]

Hi George,

thanks a lot for the project files. The calculation of the shading losses is a complex algorithm that can lead to small differences in the results depending on how the PV modules are connected. Especially the calculation of the shading losses in module independent and module specific losses can vary a little. Please also see this thread:

Also, regarding the mismatch losses in the SolarEdge project, there is a 1 x 2 power optimizer layout in your configuration which is more susceptible to mismatch losses than the 1 x 1 layout.

Hope that helps, best regards,

Martin