Solar PV Hints, Tips & Troubleshooting Part 2

Hi all,

Looking for some advice on expanding my ground-mounted solar setup. I’m currently running 18 × 415W panels on a Huawei SUN2000-6KTL-L1 inverter. The panels are in two strings of 9, both facing southwest, each on its own MPPT. It’s working great so far.

I’m planning to add another 18 panels on my front roof, which is northwest-facing. The idea is to spread out generation into the evening and make use of the roof space.

The thing is, I know I’m getting close to the 600V MPPT limit if I try to run 18 panels on a single string, and paralleling two 9-panel strings would go over the 13.5A current limit unless I use optimizers — which gets expensive.

So I’m wondering if it would just make more sense to add a second inverter and run the new panels separately. Has anyone done something similar? Would love to hear what others would do in this situation.

HS.

I already have a huawei battery. And it’s great. Just noodling on options. Yeah I spoke to Orla in ESB about the NC7; that’s a possibility too.

Finally got my 12 panel ground array re-wired.

Instead of using 4mm2 like I had I asked the sparky to run 6mm2 cable this time. The run from the ground array to the inverter is about 35m.

Straightaway I noticed production was markedly up on what is was in similar days last year. In addition for the first time ever the myenergi app and the data on the screen of the inverter match exactly to the kWh - even the monthly total match bang on. A clear sign to me that the losses from using the larger cable is minimal compared to the 4mm2.

I just thought I'd post my findings as some might find the anecdote interesting.

If datalogger says plant offline, will my inverter still send solar readings.to smart meter and onto grid? Away on holidays and plant reading offline for first time.

Hi. Would anyone have any idea why my PV to grid readings on the Solis app are suddenly reversed. When panels are producing app shows as importing from grid and exporting to grid when not producing. Myenergi app shows correct flows. System installed last Feb and everything worked fine up until a few weeks ago. No physical changes made to system. See screenshot attached from each app taken a few minutes apart.

Thanks

Have you got other sources of data like MyEnergi devices ? The inverter could have tripped off.

You could check your HDF file (which will of course be a day or two delayed), and that would pretty much confirm if the inverter has completely stopped (for whatever reason).

The other option could simply be that your internet router is down