Solar For Apartments

An area of growth that is receiving increasing attention is solar energy systems for multi-tenant buildings. The opportunity for this market is large, especially in cities like San Francisco that have high multi-tenant occupancy and generous incentives for solar.

There are additional complexities in designing, installing and managing multi-tenant systems. These include having to deal with multiple systems and meters; financing challenges since the costs must be passed through from the property owner to the tenants; and legal issues such as rent control and tenant turnover.

The Enphase Microinverter system enables solar for apartment buildings because:

• Systems can be designed and installed for multiple variable system sizes, including very small systems (e.g. for house meters).
• Solar modules can be installed on multiple roof planes, thereby maximizing limited roof space.
• Effects of shading (a particular problem with dense urban areas) are greatly reduced.
• Limited space to locate a large central inverter is not an issue since microinverters are located beneath the modules.

To learn more about designing and installing multi-tenant solar systems:

Multi-Tenant Application Note
[pdf, 356KB]

Download the Enphase Multi-Tenant Introduction Recorded Presentation
[zip, 9.5MB (unzip the file and click index.htm)]

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