----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 7:12
AM
Subject: [pvusers] PV inverter
reliability
<I heard that PV inverter reliability
is not good. i.e they fail within five years.
<Is it true?. Is so, PV will not be a successful one
considering the high investment cost.
<Does anybody - any PV owner have experience with PV inverter
failure? What is
<the actual failed
component? Inverter or the PV module? What is the issue?
We've used a Trace DR2412 for all residential purposes
since about January of '96.
So far, so good - but can't say the same
about the off-brand small inverters (400W or smaller) - we tried a few of them
in the early days of our system and they had a failure rate of 100% within 200
days. One of these small inverters took a VCR down with it.
I don't know it for a fact but strongly suspect
that many inverter failures are due to abuses such as poor system
maintenance,
incorrect installation procedures, user abuse,
etc. This of course excluding models with known reliability
problems.
Best to all
Teri
