Solar PV battery options

DrPhilG

mp3guy wrote: »

So 15c day rate you lose, €1.20? But CO2 is high today so you're saving about 3.75kg of CO2 by letting someone else on the grid use your clean energy!

No consolation.

I'll mourn my €1.20 lol.

Deagol

DrPhilG wrote: »

No consolation.

I'll mourn my €1.20 lol.

Just checked, I’m offshore so only Mrs at home, I exported 16kwh today- €2.20!!! I could’ve bought a bottle of beer!!!!

DrPhilG

It's all good, I only exported 0.4 of my 18.5 so far.

And I'm working from home tomorrow with a scorching forecast.

Anyway for anyone interested, this is what the ZEVA BMS looks like. Impressive delivery speed from DHL. Perth to Donegal in exactly a week.

championc

So just be careful that you start 01 at the Battery Minus (B-) end of the string, and take your time wiring them up, one by one. You could start making a loom now in preparation for your batteries arrival.

Have you the breakers and cabling bought ? And have you space to do the whole sting in one long line, or will you split it in two halves ?

samdeluxjones

Inverter online.jpg

Brand new setup, when my battery was set to auto it was charging up and discharging during day rate so I changed it to time.

Charge up during the night/morning/afternoon and discharge in the evening.

Now its discharging while the panels are still generating more than the house needs which is mad, thought the inverters job was to prevent this sort of thing happening?

It's a Solis hybrid 6kw

Deagol

samdeluxjones wrote: »

Inverter online.jpg

Brand new setup, when my battery was set to auto it was charging up and discharging during day rate so I changed it to time.

Charge up during the night/morning/afternoon and discharge in the evening.

Now its discharging while the panels are still generating more than the house needs which is mad, thought the inverters job was to prevent this sort of thing happening?

It's a Solis hybrid 6kw

GO and watch the screen itself rather than the App. The app is moment in time and my inverter / battery is sometimes momentarily pulling from the grid to charge the battery when it shouldn't be. Seems to be some issue with the inverter and CT clamp not reacting fast enough or too fast.

I actually checked my main ESB meter one morning and found that I'm not using any power from the grid despite it showing I am for very short bursts. Meter didn't move by more than 100watts in 7 hours.

Other suggestion is, I think my Solis is set to time charging but the table is blank. Haven't had any issues other than mentioned above with it drawing / supplying from the battery incorrectly.

samdeluxjones

[/QUOTE]Other suggestion is, I think my Solis is set to time charging but the table is blank. Haven't had any issues other than mentioned above with it drawing / supplying from the battery incorrectly.[/QUOTE]

So turn on time charging to run but leave the times for charge and discharge completely blank?

Thanks.

Deagol

samdeluxjones wrote: »

Other suggestion is, I think my Solis is set to time charging but the table is blank. Haven't had any issues other than mentioned above with it drawing / supplying from the battery incorrectly.[/QUOTE]

So turn on time charging to run but leave the times for charge and discharge completely blank?

Thanks.[/quote]

I’m travelling at the moment so can’t double check it. Back home Saturday and I’ll check the exact way it’s setup.

samdeluxjones

Deagol wrote: »

Other suggestion is, I think my Solis is set to time charging but the table is blank. Haven't had any issues other than mentioned above with it drawing / supplying from the battery incorrectly.

OK I think I have it half sussed.

The solis hybrid inverter doesn't distinguish between solar and battery DC so if the battery is set to discharge between certain times and the house doesn't need the load then it gives it free to the grid which is feckin nuts.

If the battery is set to charge between certain hours normally from solar between 9am and 3-4pm and it gets cloudy then it draws from the grid to charge which is also nuts.

My house base load is 600-700 watts evening time, if I set the battery discharge rate from 50amps to 18amps it will trickle out about 800 watts with 100 going back out to the grid & 10kw battery will last 10+ hours.

Was wondering in the event of a power cut the battery will power the house just fine with no big loads like heat pump, washing machine or dishwasher and with 800w from the battery what will happen if I switch on the dishwasher?

Deagol

samdeluxjones wrote: »

OK I think I have it half sussed.

The solis hybrid inverter doesn't distinguish between solar and battery DC so if the battery is set to discharge between certain times and the house doesn't need the load then it gives it free to the grid which is feckin nuts.

If the battery is set to charge between certain hours normally from solar between 9am and 3-4pm and it gets cloudy then it draws from the grid to charge which is also nuts.

My house base load is 600-700 watts evening time, if I set the battery discharge rate from 50amps to 18amps it will trickle out about 800 watts with 100 going back out to the grid & 10kw battery will last 10+ hours.

Was wondering in the event of a power cut the battery will power the house just fine with no big loads like heat pump, washing machine or dishwasher and with 800w from the battery what will happen if I switch on the dishwasher?

In the event of a power cut it will also be cut off.

And you shouldn't be changing any settings TBH. Normally the system automatically uses the battery to provide entire house load up to 3.4kw until it runs out of charge.

I've just checked my settings. The Optimal Income Setting is st STOP. Is yours? I have a table for times alright but it doesn't seem to do anything.

samdeluxjones

Deagol wrote: »

In the event of a power cut it will also be cut off.

And you shouldn't be changing any settings TBH. Normally the system automatically uses the battery to provide entire house load up to 3.4kw until it runs out of charge.

I've just checked my settings. The Optimal Income Setting is st STOP. Is yours? I have a table for times alright but it doesn't seem to do anything.

It will just cut connection to the grid for safety reasons but still provide power to the house I hope, I have not tried to flick the switch yet.

Mine is set to run as advised by re-sellers tech support. Charge 9am to 5pm for summertime discharge 8pm to 6am trickle at 16amps. So I had free power almost all day yesterday in hazy sunshine.

I have pylontech 2.4 X 4

Looks like I will have the change the settings 4 times a year to get the best from the batteries.

My reserve battery is OFF
Export power set OFF
Backflow power 100w
Failsafe OFF

graememk

samdeluxjones wrote: »

It will just cut connection to the grid for safety reasons but still provide power to the house I hope, I have not tried to flick the switch yet.

Mine is set to run as advised by re-sellers tech support. Charge 9am to 5pm for summertime discharge 8pm to 6am trickle at 16amps. So I had free power almost all day yesterday in hazy sunshine.

I have pylontech 2.4 X 4

Looks like I will have the change the settings 4 times a year to get the best from the batteries.

My reserve battery is OFF
Export power set OFF
Backflow power 100w
Failsafe OFF

Why don't you just set it to auto? It will charge and discharge as needed?

samdeluxjones

graememk wrote: »

Why don't you just set it to auto? It will charge and discharge as needed?

I had originally and it charged on day rate and discharged on day rate to me that's a waste of a cycle. It also charged from the grid and discharged back into the grid. It charged on day rate and discharged on night rate which is pointless.

During the busy summer months we get regular power cuts because the local substation gets overloaded with the influx of tourists. Now I know I can charge up during the day and discharge evening and night.

Deagol

samdeluxjones wrote: »

I had originally and it charged on day rate and discharged on day rate to me that's a waste of a cycle. It also charged from the grid and discharged back into the grid. It charged on day rate and discharged on night rate which is pointless.

During the busy summer months we get regular power cuts because the local substation gets overloaded with the influx of tourists. Now I know I can charge up during the day and discharge evening and night.

Seems strange behaviour. Mine (Solis 5kw Hybrid) behaves perfectly as it should. It only charges from the panels never from the grid (might try and change that if we I get night rate) and never gives power from the battery to the grid.

Only thing I get is occasionally the Eddi diverter pulls from the battery but it stops after ~5 minutes or less, the Eddi seems to figure out from the CT clamp that it's not solar it's using.

samdeluxjones

Deagol wrote: »

Seems strange behaviour. Mine (Solis 5kw Hybrid) behaves perfectly as it should. It only charges from the panels never from the grid (might try and change that if we I get night rate) and never gives power from the battery to the grid.

Only thing I get is occasionally the Eddi diverter pulls from the battery but it stops after ~5 minutes or less, the Eddi seems to figure out from the CT clamp that it's not solar it's using.

That's what I thought that the inverter would be smart enough to prevent battery waste.
It's installed less than a week ago so maybe needs a bit to settle in maybe..

samdeluxjones

To keep on track a 2,4 Pylontech battery cost me €650 + VAT from wholesalers in Dublin.

I got 4 so 9.6kwh and after a few tweaks of the inverter I'm happy out with them as they powered a typical evening in watching the box with a few lights, Wi-Fi, cameras and chocka block comms cabinet running, less than quarter discharge between 8 pm and 12 am.

Evd-Burner

samdeluxjones wrote: »

To keep on track a 2,4 Pylontech battery cost me €650 + VAT from wholesalers in Dublin.

I got 4 so 9.6kwh and after a few tweaks of the inverter I'm happy out with them as they powered a typical evening in watching the box with a few lights, Wi-Fi, cameras and chocka block comms cabinet running, less than quarter discharge between 8 pm and 12 am.

can you ping me the wholesaler? cheapest I could find online was 800.

championc

samdeluxjones wrote: »

It will just cut connection to the grid for safety reasons but still provide power to the house I hope, I have not tried to flick the switch yet.

Mine is set to run as advised by re-sellers tech support. Charge 9am to 5pm for summertime discharge 8pm to 6am trickle at 16amps. So I had free power almost all day yesterday in hazy sunshine.

I have pylontech 2.4 X 4

Looks like I will have the change the settings 4 times a year to get the best from the batteries.

My reserve battery is OFF
Export power set OFF
Backflow power 100w
Failsafe OFF

I would expect you should have NO settings for Charging batteries. The solar should just charge them up and battery then suppliments the power required if solar power is low or gone for the day.

And these are Grid TIED inverters. When you lose the grid, you'll get Zero power even if the batteries are 100% - unless your installer has setup a dedicated EPS circuit for you.

It sounds like your installer has told you a few untruths - what size system have you ?

samdeluxjones wrote: »

I had originally and it charged on day rate and discharged on day rate to me that's a waste of a cycle. It also charged from the grid and discharged back into the grid. It charged on day rate and discharged on night rate which is pointless.

During the busy summer months we get regular power cuts because the local substation gets overloaded with the influx of tourists. Now I know I can charge up during the day and discharge evening and night.

Certainly, from March to October, you could / should run without any load shifting (charging batteries on night-rate and discharging during the daytime full rate periods. Dependent on your system size, you should be able to run for most of the daytime and evening on Solar and Battery.

samdeluxjones wrote: »

That's what I thought that the inverter would be smart enough to prevent battery waste.
It's installed less than a week ago so maybe needs a bit to settle in maybe..

Again, has your installer told you this ???? It works IMMEDIATELY as to how you have configured it. It sounds like someone has made a complete b****x of it TBH

samdeluxjones wrote: »

To keep on track a 2,4 Pylontech battery cost me €650 + VAT from wholesalers in Dublin.

I got 4 so 9.6kwh and after a few tweaks of the inverter I'm happy out with them as they powered a typical evening in watching the box with a few lights, Wi-Fi, cameras and chocka block comms cabinet running, less than quarter discharge between 8 pm and 12 am.

So one battery will basically allow you to use 2kW of stored power to replace 2kW of full rate power. That's a saving of 0.30c. As we go into the summer, you will not empty the whole 4 each day, so lets say you'll save an average of 0.90c per day during the summer, but you aren't likely to generate that amount of excess in Winter, so savings will likely be far less, especially if you charge the batteries on night rate and load shift. So at best, I think the savings are likely to be half that of summer - so maybe 0.45c - So 0.675c average.

So the investment of €3146 / 0.675c = 4661 days = the guts of 13 years .

Evd-Burner wrote: »

can you ping me the wholesaler? cheapest I could find online was 800.

He said €650 PLUS VAT - so €786.50 if I'm not mistaken.

samdeluxjones

True, the installer is me. I got a sparks to wire them in and I had to tell him what to wire where.

I don't really care about payback its about backup power in the event of power outages which we have plenty during the summer months. The re-seller and tech support have told me they will power the house in the event of a power outage.

One of the settings on the inverter is off grid so what does that do?

Deagol

samdeluxjones wrote: »

True, the installer is me. I got a sparks to wire them in and I had to tell him what to wire where.

I don't really care about payback its about backup power in the event of power outages which we have plenty during the summer months. The re-seller and tech support have told me they will power the house in the event of a power outage.

One of the settings on the inverter is off grid so what does that do?

Uh-oh, I'm seriously worried now. Do you have an automatic switch (rapid off) switch on the system?? This is a LEGAL requirement - if you don't have this you could electrocute someone working on the grid system as your solar system could be powering the whole local grid.

From memory, it was explained previously to you (I'm not looking through all the posts to check this but I'll apologize now if it was someone else) that the solar system SHOULDN'T work when your grid goes out.

If you try and power most things from the solar inverter when it's off grid you're likely to damage them as the system will be unable to provide enough power to all items. If you under power items, you'll likely damage a lot of them. I'm not sure what exactly will happen when inverter can't get enough power from the battery (will voltage or current drop ?) but if voltage drops you will blow the crap out of most appliances.

I'm sure someone else here will have better answers to this particular question though.

Seriously though, if you don't have the automatic switch off device you need to immediately turn off the solar system until you get it legal / up to code - worst case you could kill someone.

The offgrid setting is for the offgrid connection. You can connect a seperate AC circuit to the inverter that functions like a UPS.

SD_DRACULA

Is that the shunt isolator that cuts all solar power when AC goes out?
Some installer definitely told me something similar that with a battery you can power your house in case of an outage but I can't see how that's allowed by regulations?

Deagol

SD_DRACULA wrote: »

Is that the shunt isolator that cuts all solar power when AC goes out?
Some installer definitely told me something similar that with a battery you can power your house in case of an outage but I can't see how that's allowed by regulations?

Yeah - various names I've seen for it.

You can power some items in the house from the inverter / battery via the offgrid connector. But you need to install a switch over that isolates the 'main' house power from the grid and switches it to the offgrid power. Someone (Graememk maybe?) has put up pictures of his one before.

For most people, probably easier to attach a simple extension lead to the offgrid connection and then plugging in whatever you want then into the extension lead manually in the case of a power outage. I'd still like to know what the inverter does if incoming power isn't enough to power the connected devices though before i'd risk anything beyond a phone charger...

graememk

Deagol wrote: »

Yeah - various names I've seen for it.

You can power some items in the house from the inverter / battery via the offgrid connector. But you need to install a switch over that isolates the 'main' house power from the grid and switches it to the offgrid power. Someone (Graememk maybe?) has put up pictures of his one before.

For most people, probably easier to attach a simple extension lead to the offgrid connection and then plugging in whatever you want then into the extension lead manually in the case of a power outage. I'd still like to know what the inverter does if incoming power isn't enough to power the connected devices though before i'd risk anything beyond a phone charger...

Not me but I know what your on about.

Not even sure if they are allowed in ireland (well in the consumer unit) , was discussing that with my Electrician. Afaik you can't have 2 "supplies" coming into the consumer unit, it has to be external to it. So your main supply and your "Emergency" supply comes into a box and that's how you change over.

Another option is a sub board with a few essential circuits, it then goes,

Consumer unit > changeover/generator switch> sub board.

I ended up going with a socket that only goes live in a power outage.

Deagol

graememk wrote: »

Not me but I know what your on about.

Not even sure if they are allowed in ireland (well in the consumer unit) , was discussing that with my Electrician. Afaik you can't have 2 "supplies" coming into the consumer unit, it has to be external to it. So your main supply and your "Emergency" supply comes into a box and that's how you change over.

Another option is a sub board with a few essential circuits, it then goes,

Consumer unit > changeover/generator switch> sub board.

I ended up going with a socket that only goes live in a power outage.

Do you know what happens if the demand on the offgrid is higher than inverter supply? And what happens for instance, if on battery only and battery is running towards empty?

graememk

Deagol wrote: »

Do you know what happens if the demand on the offgrid is higher than inverter supply? And what happens for instance, if on battery only and battery is running towards empty?

I would hope that it would shut down, Will Prowse recently done reviews of inverters and when he overloaded them, they just shut off.

In normal use my setup can provide the full 3kw until the required soc is reached.

samdeluxjones

Cert 1.jpg

This came with the inverter and was told very important to send off with my nc6 form.


Ahhh I have AC backup socket that's not used at the minute, maybe that's meant for the power cut scenario.

I assume I can wire this directly back to the fuse board?

Deagol

samdeluxjones wrote: »

Cert 1.jpg

This came with the inverter and was told very important to send off with my nc6 form.


Ahhh I have AC backup socket that's not used at the minute, maybe that's meant for the power cut scenario.

I assume I can wire this directly back to the fuse board?

You ain't listening so I'm no longer engaging with you - I'm not helping you kill someone.

samdeluxjones

Deagol wrote: »

You ain't listening so I'm no longer engaging with you - I'm not helping you kill someone.

I can only kill meself in the event of a power cut as the inverter will shut off the grid.

Have a listen to the expert... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA5Rz2A4SDQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oA5Rz2A4SDQ

graememk

samdeluxjones wrote: »

Ahhh I have AC backup socket that's not used at the minute, maybe that's meant for the power cut scenario.

I assume I can wire this directly back to the fuse board?

The inverter is designed to shutoff if the grid goes down for safety reasons.

The backup socket goes live when the grid goes down.

If that was simply wired back to the fuse box it would back feed into the grid. And could hurt/kill anyone working on the lines.

Automatic change overs need interlocks to physically prevent any back feed to the grid.

SD_DRACULA

graememk wrote: »

I would hope that it would shut down, Will Prowse recently done reviews of inverters and when he overloaded them, they just shut off.

In normal use my setup can provide the full 3kw until the required soc is reached.

Ok so the solis hybrid can do that then? That's pretty cool, I have all my network gear in the attic and wouldn't be a crazy idea to just wire that extension lead to it but only if safe to do so as Deagol mentioned (should be little power from virgin router/netgear switch/raspberry pi and camera DVR)