MPPT Solar Charge Controllers from Outback, Apollo, Morningstar, Solar Boost, BZ

MPPT Charge Controllers

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Maximum Power Point Tracking solar charge controllers or MPPT charge controllers are relatively new to the renewable energy industry. These charge controllers are different than the traditional charge controllers in that they are more efficient and in many cases more feature rich. MPPT charge controllers allow your solar panels to operate at their optimum power output voltage, improving their performance by as much as 30%. Traditional charge controllers reduce the efficiency of one part of your system in order to make it work with another. Several MPPT charge controllers can accept high input voltages (up to 120V+ DC) from your solar array and efficiently down convert the DC voltage to that of your system (e.g. 12, 24, 48VDC, etc) which means you aren't losing any generated power and you are able to use what you generate more efficiently. Additionally, using a much higher DC voltage on the input side allows you to use thinner wire, decreasing your wire cost and making installation easier.

A higher voltage solar array also allows smaller wire to be used between the array and the charge controller, which can save wire and installation cost in large systems. Maximum power point tracking allows a PV array to deliver up to 30% more power to a battery than it would if it were connected directly to the battery.