One Year On - Solar Installation

Lupus said:
Is the new place setup for solar? Are you going to do it? As you seem to be enjoying the whole experience, sure you weren't supposed to be a meterologist?
Click to expand...

We plan to move in mid November, previous owners wanted transfer for end of October so we should take occupation on the 1st of November, so busy with planning all we want to do before we move. There is no solar/inverter/batteries there are the moment, only a 15kVa generator but I plan to do a sizeable install once we are in and keeping the generator as a backup.

Meteorologist :unsure: I like technology and I like data.
 
Neuk_ said:
We plan to move in mid November, previous owners wanted transfer for end of October so we should take occupation on the 1st of November, so busy with planning all we want to do before we move. There is no solar/inverter/batteries there are the moment, only a 15kVa generator but I plan to do a sizeable install once we are in and keeping the generator as a backup.

Meteorologist :unsure: I like technology and I like data.
Click to expand...
Yup and the amount of data the weather brings :-)
 
Neuk_ said:
Yep, there is quite a bit and when in the new house I want at least another sensor for pool temperature, then I'll integrate it with HA and can start automating based on weather variables.
Click to expand...
Nice so the pool pump will start at peak efficiency :)
 
Lupus said:
Nice so the pool pump will start at peak efficiency :)
Click to expand...

With the weather station and some calculations I should be able to evaluate how much 'excess' solar there is based on solar radiation value and electrical consumption which will allow me to use the 'excess' solar to say power the pool pump or an electric geyser or underfloor heating, etc. Or adjust the inverter mode if there isn't enough solar, it is getting late in the day and we want to keep batteries charged.
 
Neuk_ said:
We plan to move in mid November, previous owners wanted transfer for end of October so we should take occupation on the 1st of November, so busy with planning all we want to do before we move. There is no solar/inverter/batteries there are the moment, only a 15kVa generator but I plan to do a sizeable install once we are in and keeping the generator as a backup.

Meteorologist :unsure: I like technology and I like data.
Click to expand...
What kind of setup do you have in mind for the new place? Going team blue again or something else? We need details! And sommer a installation thread also.
 
W@P said:
What kind of setup do you have in mind for the new place? Going team blue again or something else? We need details! And sommer a installation thread also.
Click to expand...

I will start a thread in due course, if money was no object I would go Victron again but looking at an 8kW Sunsynk based setup, undecided on batteries as I am very happy with the PylonTech's we have now but my FIL has gone for Hubble's with his 12kW Sunsynk 3 phase so will see how he goes.
 
The last few days I have been running on battery from 20:00 through the night with the warmer temperatures as our son's wall panel heater wasn't being switched on as it normally would in cold weather. Colder temperatures arrived yesterday but left our ESS as is and our batteries got down to their lowest ever at 20% SOC this morning so they may not be charged fully by 16:00 when they are set for scheduled charging. Depending which app you look at, there are cloudy conditions forecast for today which may complicate things but we have been seeing decent PV production recently.
 
We are two years on from the PV install and four and a half months on from the LA battery replacement with LFP's, you can see the increased use of batteries and increased PV production as a result. The ESS is still small with only a 3kVa inverter and less than optimal PV setup but I think it still performs well and will do even better when my BIL is in the house as he will have less overnight electrical needs than we do with our son. We'll still be in the house for part os summer so I am keen to see how it will perform in warmer weather with better sun conditions...

1660547225132.png

1660547785401.png

1660547821803.png
 
Last edited:
Neuk_ said:
The last few days I have been running on battery from 20:00 through the night with the warmer temperatures as our son's wall panel heater wasn't being switched on as it normally would in cold weather. Colder temperatures arrived yesterday but left our ESS as is and our batteries got down to their lowest ever at 20% SOC this morning so they may not be charged fully by 16:00 when they are set for scheduled charging. Depending which app you look at, there are cloudy conditions forecast for today which may complicate things but we have been seeing decent PV production recently.
Click to expand...
If the batteries aren't charged by 4pm you may need more panels, though you won't be doing any upgrades to this one.
 
Lupus said:
If the batteries aren't charged by 4pm you may need more panels, though you won't be doing any upgrades to this one.
Click to expand...

Yeah, if all the panels were able to face north it may be different, so another string would do wonders but I'll leave that up to my BIL. A lot of school fee's paid in this house which will pay dividends at the next.
 
Neuk_ said:
We are two years on from the PV install and four and a half months on from the LA battery replacement with LFP's, you can see the increased use of batteries and increased PV production as a result. The ESS is still small with only a 3kVa inverter and less than optimal PV setup but I think it still performs well and will do even better when my BIL is in the house as he will have less overnight electrical needs than we do with our son. We'll still be in the house for part os summer so I am keen to see how it will perform in warmer weather with better sun conditions...
Click to expand...

Just to clarify my understanding: Are you unable to capture the full output of your panels due to the inverter being too small?

Also, what produces these graphs?
 
koffiejunkie said:
Just to clarify my understanding: Are you unable to capture the full output of your panels due to the inverter being too small?

Also, what produces these graphs?
Click to expand...

Although I would have preferred a 5kVa inverter, our 3kVa has done surprisingly well with handling loads in our house but we have adjusted to minimise over loading it like only running one large appliance at a time. The main issue we have with PV generation is physical limitations at our house, we have minimal North facing roof space and much of it is shaded for some part of the day, particularly in winter, so we compromised by splitting our panels in to two arrays facing East and West. This means we get PV early in the morning and late afternoon but sacrificed peak generation to an hour or two over midday.

The graphs I posted yesterday are produced by Victron's portal as part of their dashboard, there are a lot more you can look at depending what components you have and you can download data in csv or xls format.
 
last two days where batteries were taken down to 20% SOC overnight and we had heavier loads during the day with multiple washing machine and dishwasher runs. PV generation peaked at around 13kWh on each day but we aren't yet at peak theoretical generation yet...

1660723213296.png
 
Neuk_ said:
I will start a thread in due course, if money was no object I would go Victron again but looking at an 8kW Sunsynk based setup, undecided on batteries as I am very happy with the PylonTech's we have now but my FIL has gone for Hubble's with his 12kW Sunsynk 3 phase so will see how he goes.
Click to expand...
You might want to consider Luxpower, they make a great 10K inverter with a 16K MPPT, cheaper than the 8K Sunsynk.
 
RonSwanson said:
You might want to consider Luxpower, they make a great 10K inverter with a 16K MPPT, cheaper than the 8K Sunsynk.
Click to expand...

I'll take a look, Sunsynk has become very popular which means support, even non-official should be great and my FIL has recently commissioned his three phase Sunsynk based setup which I am going to piggyback off to learn.
 
We are largely over winter and our sons bedroom wall heater is getting used less and less with potential PV production rising meaning that we are hitting record PV production during the day as we use more battery over night. August was our highest PV generation month thus far averaging over 10kWh/day...

1662026180136.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X