Tigo TS4-A-O Testing Optimization & Overview
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- Опубликовано: 26 июн 2024
- Testing how well Tigo optimizers will manage 1, 2 shaded panels in 3 panels array.
Setting up a new PV array with Tigo optimizers, commission system and see performance.
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:46 - installing panels
01:52 - connecting CCA and TAP
02:33 - commissioning
04:15 - test setup
05:00 - performing tests
07:16 - outro
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tigo ts4-a-o 500w 
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Very interesting results. Look forward to hearing what others think the problem is.
Thank you for a great test and review, it is much appreciated, Thank you again
WOW!!! Very Interesting! Great test man!!!
thanks!
This is what I've known for a while after setting up my array. The same thing is true of microinverters. I shaded my panels the same way you did. I have 15 panel strings so it was easy to get results quickly. I even shaded different strings. The results were the same. If I shaded half of 1 panel the output dropped by half a panel, not half a string. This is with and without optimizers. The only benefit of optimizers is that they clamp the panel voltage so the open circuit voltage stays at 35 volts.
It would be interesting to see the same test with micro inverters. 👍
Fantastic thank you.
Is it possible that type of the inverter you have is not matching what you have chosen during the commissioning (Sol-Ark) and this is where your problem originates from?
great video. many tks
You just saved me some money, panels I bought have some bypass diodes so optimizers are not needed
for me I want data from the panels not optimization, to be code rss compliant I will buy 2f and f tigo rss ones. Great test, saved me alot of wieghing options
I would like to see more testing on this, preferably addressing some of the comments here.
Due to losses, I've always been highly skeptical of these products...
As other commentators have mentioned optimizers only help with light shading because the solar panels have built-in diodes that will bypass when you have full shade so they don't need optimizers.
Optimizer will also help if one panel is producing slightly less than others due to age.
Basically anytime the diode does not kick in but the panel is producing slightly less power the optimizers will help the other panels keep full production.
Another time they can help is sunrise or sunset when you don't have enough power for the panels to kick on the optimizers can make them work a bit earlier and later.
interesting, thank you for the information.
In my opinion, optimizers are useless. As the test showed, the output power was 12% lower even without shading, although theoretically it should be higher, because each module supplies a few watts of different energy, with the weakest module dominating.
Thanks for that clear explaination.
May i ask your knowledgBle self, do you need to have broad band for these optimizers to work, are they dependant on the "cloud" in oorder to "kick in"?
Im being told this by the installers....
@@loukili63I guess one advantage is seeing how much each panel is producing when designing using a string inverter. If a panel develops an internal issue later on it will be easier to pinpoint. Cost vs benefit ratio is subjective in this situation
@@minghiy , this can also be found out with an IR-Camera, which can show heated areas even if power delivery looks normal.
Modern solar panels have blocking diodes in them and dont need optimizers. Thanks for the test, I was hoping this would be the result! Rapid shutdown should be a DC Isolator?
Solar panels have bypass diodes, not blocking diodes.
Yes i concur with your results.
Its taken a bit of time but im going to do some more reverse testing too.
But they dont do anything.
Ive a small array, one panel suffers with shading.
The array acts the same as with ans without, the diodes function as they should i get the drop and the current is maintained in the array.
If anything i think it may have been a bit smoother, for the diode to kick in. But that could be the tigo being a capacitor.
Ive withdrawn it from sale from my website... I will be offering diode kits and back boxes which should cover people who have panels that are end of life or are using non diode panels to make an array.
I had alwasy wondered if they were a bick coverter or a diode... Now i know..
Worthless
I suspect the rapid shut down is a penny relay.
I have now 16x 370w panels without tigos = 5.92 kWp 15 panels with tigos 10x410w, + 5 x 370w= 5,95 kWp ) Quite similar output power they make, my yard is full of neighbour house + trees shadows this time of year , hard to tell yet how tigos are performing. Now in november only about 2 kWh / day solar power produced here in Finland
I think you should shade whole panel. That would be real shading test. I have my install of 4kW on a car port and depending on the time of the year panels are shaded by the building. For example now half of 10 panels are shaded and I get around 0.5kW instead of 2kW. The limiting stops when last half panel is shaded. I wonder if Tigo optimizers would help in such situation.
у меня Deye 12k инвертер, с 8х550Вт панелями, стоят на гараже, сейчас зимой немного перекрывают друг друга тенью в нижней трети, купил систему с этими тиго - результат либо нулевой либо негативный, с ними пик мощности в начала ноября был 950Вт, без них на следующий день в тоже время - 980-1050Вт
Лично пообщался с людьми с тиго по телефону, показывал фото и пр - не смог получить ни единого внятного ответа кроме как "надо подождать две недели", так же у них нет ни единого видео где показываются реальные сценарии как тут с тенями на панелях и результатв измерений с TS4-A-O и без них, что б можно было судить о каких то разницах в можности ... отправил все назад продавцу и вернул деньги.
Can you please do a video of full review of a Tigo system? This is really important for people to know. I checked your channel and other videos of systems you did afterwards had micro inverters on them. Did you stop using Tigo? Please let us know what happend.
I do wonder how people imagine that adding devices that use some energy to work and cannot be 100% efficient could improve anything.
Did anything change with Tigo optimizers? Are you able to see the difference of full array production with or without Tigo to compare? Becouse I installed my system and feel like they slowing my system down.
I did install it for 17 panels system.
2 strings, one of the string is fully unshaded, 2nd string has 1 panel shaded.
All unshaded panels in 2nd string producing about 10% less than panels from string #1
I mean Tigo vs no Tigo test? In the case you reffering to, all panels have Tigo on them correct. Can you please elaborate your findings a bit more. Like say: Tigo panels slowing system down then half panels shaded or one panel shaded or they really helping in this or that particular case?
Very disappointing since Sol Ark has yet to release their announced micro inverters/optimizers, so we're stick with Tigo
I have seen the optimizers work in shade caused by trees and similar Shadows... They Will not work when you have a "hard shade" on the painel.
They do work on difuse shading... (If i am explaining myself well 😉)
Hopefully you are right.
@@SolarEngineering i am, i have tested it 😉
The shading with the papar board is not precise. If you are a bit uneaven so that only a smart portion of the left or right third of the panel is covered, it leads to kicking in of the bypass diode also for the outer parts of the panel.
The point here is that the panels are hardly shaded, so that the current drops to 0. The optimizer bypass that panel and no bypass diode kicks in! This is the disadvantage of the optimizer.
Therefore in this situation a half cut panel would work much better with the optimizer.
There might be a problem with the optimizers or the setup. The point is, that the third uncovered panel should deliver more then the 40Ws while the other two are just bypassed by the optimizer. Did you check the monitoring in the Tigo App? The app should give you a good monitoring on the panel level.
interesting, thank you for the information.
He made sure that the covers covered exactly the same area, because they were glued to the plate with strips, which ensures the same position when folded.
And without shading, the output was 12% lower. This is very disappointing.
very strange
maybe the Tigo need to know the inverter cause of the minimum MPPT starting voltage - and they try to reach that 150V (just a guess for the SolArk) which could not be provided by the 3-Series-string?
Would also be cool if you can repeat the test by shading horizontal over the panels (that will shut them completely down due to the bypass diods.
How do the optimizers work on your roof?
It was installed for a customer, and we are waiting for permit to operate from power provider. So I don't know yet.
>>maybe the Tigo need to know the inverter cause of the minimum MPPT starting voltage
might be
@@SolarEngineering Doesn't make sense, partially shaded panels would provide the same voltage, maybe they are dumb optimisers which just bypass the panel and do not have an onboard dc-dc converter like solar-edge ones.
My understanding is the MPPT needs to be compatible with the optimizers. Pretty sure yours is not on the approved list. I had the same problem with Victron MPPT but the Tigos work amazingly well with Sol-Ark.
Wasn't the input data saying he entered in SolArk 8k?
@@alvingallegos6367 No, you can see in 4:21 that he is using PowMr Charge Controller
The other point at 7:18 just doesn't make sense. The panels look old and i'm not sure how many bypass diodes do the have and what it is cell organization. Total system power is 750Wp at perfect conditions. Without optimizers it is delivering whooping 678W which is 90% of the total Wp. Almost impossible? Without optimizers, one panel shading production drops to 600W, 80% of the total? With 2 panels shaded production is still 60% of the total? What is the panel diode configuration? Is this possible? Would be good to hear author and others comments. Maybe I miss understand something..... Может быть....
Hi Emin, I'm not sure how many diodes are in the panel. Reading all of the comments, I think test setup must be changed:
- partial dissipated panels shading
- compatible MPPT
In the solar system that I recently installed, I see that it works well with one panel shaded in array, planning to do video about it.
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Hi everyone, i made a Solar installation with 20 pannels and inverter Growatt. But i don’t know How to start the optimizers, cause at the end of cable no DC voltage, just 1 volt. Thank you a lot, Alex
In the optimizers installation manual, should be steps on how to activate them. Usually, it's some wireless connection (like in the video), or another way is some kind of coil that you have to pass PV wires through it and the signal will be passed to optimizers to wake them.
I have seen some of the explanations below, but that doesn't explain the significant difference for all three panels unshaded.
Just the time of the day and the temperature of the panels (hot panels lose 0.3% aprox for each 1C above 25C) and if there was a bit of haze can all cause a 10% difference.
Did Tigo comment on this? Did you contacted them about this? This is unfair to the customer. Tigo lowering initial output of the panels in full sun and then completly failing with partial shading.
I didn't reach out to Tigo, I think my setup is not correct (incompatible MPPT and panels hard shade, instead of dissipated). I'll do another video soon about Tigo system installed on real PV system.
@@SolarEngineering Signature Solar Did similar test. Initial non shaded output droped by 360W with Tigo form 1470W to 1100W. Same 450w panels in both tests. Is there a pattern here? I reched out to Tigo they gave me some regional manager, his reply was shaddy at best. Signature solar did not respond or comment at all.
@SolarEngineering nicely done video but I'm afraid the tested environment was not properly designed. The optimizer reduces the voltage of one / two panels so that the current of the whole loop can be maintained and the performance of the others is not degraded. The Tigo includes a DC to DC converter and works well in a proper circuit where the resulting voltage needs to be within the working voltage of the MPPT inverter. For this reason, the type of inverter is specified as well as the number of panels. See a simple video where Tigo optimizers get 2x more power than an installation without them. This is a lab in the garden. ruclips.net/video/f9lyu5CGb3U/видео.html
thank you for detailed explanation
This video does not show anything. Show me inverter output (not tigo app) with 2 string same panles on both strigs, but one string with tigo other with no Tigo.
it's good that there were no optimizers on sale. I won't buy them now, it's a waste of money.😀
haha, I still hope something is wrong with tests. Cannot believe.
А можно на Русском?
Короче перевёл Яндексом. Больше спасибо за видос. Наверное куплю 10 штук на 10 панелей.
I think before writing off a product you need 3 other products to compare it against.
Then you will realize that they are levels below rubbish, and rubbish isn't so bad when it does the basic things really well.
The First thing you need to work out what is the efficiency of the Micro Grid Tie? Is your Unit 87% / 77% / 67%. Efficient?
Next you need to work out what is the efficiency at different power levels, for example at 50% solar output is the Unit at 95% efficiency?
These out puts will determine if you should connect 2 panels instead of 3 panels to a unit. You might be wasting 20% of your solar energy by connecting too many panels. That's more costly than just buying more micro grid ties.
I have a Grid Tie that's only 55% efficient...That's a huge waist of power.
These backyard tests using 3 modules and cardboard crack me up. This is not how it works in the real world.
But to get dramatically worse results when shaded with the inverters. If you look at Tigo's marketing material it shows it's supposed to work under this situation. You might have a hard shadow from a nearby chimney. So people saying the cardboard is not a fair test are making excuses!
@@markyates5744 Yes, theTigos do work but (any) module level device is not magic. They can only do so much to recover lost energy. A hard shadow from a chimney is much different than a piece of cardboard lying on top of the module. There are no excuses, just an abundance of ignorance about how these things work. There are plenty of peer-reviewed scientific studies out there that do not include throwing garbage on the array to see how the system behaves.
It’s not as bad of a test as you think
If your inverter needs a minimum Voltage from the panels to work you use optimizer to grant the range of voltage that is needed ... Only bypass and a lot of shadows ...voltage can decrease under the minimum stops the inverter
So, optimizers are a gimmick? Everyone says to get them, but if these are the real results of using them ... why? I have a small setup, so I need everything I can get from them.
it's performing better in real life.
so a yes or a no?? very little time showing and explaining the results and too much time showing the making of the rig??????????
Your shadow (paper) is to small!!
Because my install is shaded 4 months of the year I spent £1000 on these same models after 2 years, adding 20 Tigo optimisers! And like you got very disappointing results! Wish I'd never bought them! My array is shaded in the winter, and in October and Feb it's part shaded. The optimisers made zero improvement to the output. As soon as one panel is part shaded the output crashes for that string to 10-15% of what it was doing unshaded when it should have only dropped by 1/7th (1 panel). For another string we had 3 panels on one side of the house and 7 on the other. After several visits my installer kindly let me pay the extra for a 2 string inverter so each side would act 100% independent. Emails to Tigo confirmed that the optimisers won't work when a certain percent of panels are shaded?! It seems what Tigo claim on their website in their marketing and what actually happens is totally different - the product is a load of rubbish. My install was done by a credited MCS installer with a decade of experience. If you have shading, ignore it, get micro-inverters, don't get Tigo!
Hi there, I installed tigo on another array (17 panels), and in real life, when panels are slightly shaded it's performing better. So don't get upset till you see your results :)
What does it mean slightly shaded? Trees? Building?
They are completely useless! I have 8 in a string with a lot of shadow and the result is the same as without! Sorry totally fail