Solar for Beginners [ask your questions here]

Off grid only, and its a three phase inverter. It may not be possible to energise individual phases without a reference 3 phase grid connection at the input, i.e, fully off grid. More tech reading required, but Cananda v Bosnia about to kick off, and I have a duty of care to watch the World Cup. All of it.

It can charge the battery with excess, but the max it can place on your grid is 5.5kw. it has no way of knowing if there's self consumption or if its all going to FIT. If your hybrid inverter has dynamic Export Power Management (EPM), and a CT clamp on the live cable from the meter, to measure reverse current back into the grid, then it will know how much is going to local load, and should be able to allocate the available solar output to fulfill the local load and send the max 5 5 to the grid.

Yes it will work. North facing will contribute little in winter, its potential output may not even reach the mppt voltage determined by the mppt string, i.e, the south panels will supply current to the inverter, but effectively reverse bias the north panels if their Open Circuit voltage does not reach the mppt setting when loading the panels. In most cases though they will contribute, and in summer, early morning and later in the evening, they will be on par, and north will briefly be dominant towards sunset or from sunrise.

There is debate about reverse current through the weaker lit panels, but this will be very low and will only occur when their OC voltage can't make mppt voltage. In large parallel arrays some might fit reverse blocking diodes on the end of each parallel set, to avoid reverse currents, but this is generally only considered when paralleling uneven number sets of panels, or paralleling more than two sets. There is some debate on this in Reddit, also AI Google answers are substantially correct. It's probably not popular as users tend to just use two strings, but there was a query here a while back from a user who inquired about three string inverters, as he had a large south facing set, and wished to add equal E and W facing sets. Paralleling the latter offered a solution.

I think you're confusing thermal solar panels with PV (photovoltaic). Thermal are filled with a fluid, heated by the sun. and the hot fluid pumped to your HW cylinder, (which you dont have). PV generate electricity during bright daylight which can be used to supplement your electricity consumption, fed back into the grid for a modest payment, or to charge a battery for later use. Car charging is nominally independent of solar. If you have some solar being generated, some charge in the solar battery also, this will reduce your electricity bills, the amount dependent on the number of panels and the time of year. Hot can also be heated by an electric immersion, which is not economical compared to combi on demand oil or gas heating, but could be heated by solar when available.

Now cut to the chase. WIth room for 4 solar panels, you are not remotely in a position to heat water, charge cars, fill Batteries, install HW cylinder economically. 4 panels will run your fridge and background electronics. It won't boil a kettle. It certainly won't pay for and run the installation of a Hot water electrically heated storage cylinder. It will contribute almost nothing to charging an EV with average mileage (1600 km/month requires about10kwh per day, most of which will come from your supplier at flat rate or punitive day rate. Charging at night rate on a smart plan will reduce the costs somewhat, with the meagre solar available to supplement your household demand during day/peak rates

Unless you can get ten south facing or maybe your four South panels plus another 10 or 12 EW panels, there is simply not the potential power incoming to pay back on PV heated HW cylinder installation or solar Battery installation.

A 4 panel non hybrid installation might stil cost you €4000, none of these installers get out of bed for less. Fir that you can expect some reduction in bright daylight home consumption, plus a measure of feed in tariff rebate. A member of family with a basic builders 4 panels on his roof got about €500 FIT rebate after 5 years, and the rest is used running the fridge/freezer and other plugged devices in strong daylight. In winter it makes very little contribution.