MPPT Charge Controllers

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.

We have arranged the different solar charge controllers in a table below to allow easy selection of the right charge controller for your needs. The table shows recommended maximum nameplate PV array sizes for the various solar charge controllers we carry. The wattages shown can be exceeded by up to 20% without damaging the controller, but some clipping of potential peak current may occur under cool, clear conditions at the peak of the day. While exceeding these wattages may reduce power harvest at peak times of the day, the total daily amp hours delivered to the battery bank will be greater because the larger array will produce more power in less than peak conditions such as mornings, afternoons and in hazy or cloudy weather.