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Community Solar Prices at All-Time Low

It’s been widely publicized that the cost of residential solar electric systems in the United States is falling faster than ever before. This downward pricing trend is projected to continue through 2016 and then stabilize, according to a September 2014 report compiled by researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Lawre

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Listen Up: Improving Solar Panel Output with Optimizers

Solar panels keep getting more efficient. That’s a great thing. But they can’t communicate, can’t adjust to environmental circumstances, and don’t have automatic shutdown capabilities. Fortunately — and with apologies to the Farrelly brothers (who seem to have similar limitations) — solar panels aren’t getting any dumber. Many of the newest solar panels are equipped with optimizers, either built into the junction box or attached as a separate component to the back of the panel. Microinverters (which convert the DC output of a panel to AC) provide the same basic benefits at similar costs; however, unlike microinverters, optimizers operate on the DC side of the system and are always connected to a central or string inverter.

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