De0n19

How about using a standard grid tied inverter with export power limiting, you can switch on your geyser at midday with a timer to use the solar power and the rest of the day your house loads can also make use of solar energy. Your geyser would probably take like 2 hours to heat up, so plenty of solar energy for other stuff to run then.

I can say that running a 5kw sunsynk with 6.5kwp of panels and a single pylontech 3.55kwh battery is currently saving me about R20 000 per year in electricity. Battery is only used for lighting, tv, internet, alarm, electric fence, gate motor and can supply power for 6 hours during the night. A sunsynk or deye inverter with minimal battery is allot cheaper than a cheaper inverter and then being forced to spend money on lots more battery storage.

I would think the best would be to remove comms cable and set inverter to user setting for batteries. You just need to use the correct settings. 

I'm not following why he needs a grid interactive inverter when he has no grid connection.
3 axpert max 8kw were made specifically for this scenario, one for each phase? Then an Lpg generator and maybe a windmill?
If you are next to a stream hydro generators are very reliable sources of electricity. 
Anyway I'm always confused when I read that there is no grid connection and we are recommending the latest grid interactive inverters.

Temperature makes a big difference. When a dark cloud moves over the shading lets the panel cool down, once the sun peeks around the edge you have full radiation on a nice cool panel, it will produce more power than stated on the label... till the panel heats up

If you put a 30amp circuit breaker inside the DB on the 4mm cable feeding the inverter and a 30amp circuit breaker on the 4mm cable coming back from the inverter into the DB that will be to code. Provided that your inverter doesnt draw more than 30amps you will be ok. As it stands the 4mm cable supplying the inverter is connected before your homes main switch meaning that you are not able to switch it off via the mains (very dodgy) The 30amp circuit breaker feeding the inverter should be connected after the 60amp mains isolator switch.
I'd suggest you have an electrician have a look at the other shortcuts they took as this is very concerning.

in my opinion skip growatt go sunsynk. its a few K difference, but you wont look back with a sunsynk. Sorry growatt owners, no offense meant.
I typically determine a products actual value by its 2nd hand value, ie you want to sell it and the market interest/price point attainable, before I even buy it. Compare away.
Sunsynk also has a proven comprehensive feature set, no mess no fuss.
 

Off-grid is a costly and sometimes unobtainable goal.  My 6.37kWp panels make something miserable 5kWh on a day with really crappy weather.  To get to my average 25kWh per day consumption on such a day I would need 5 times as many panels, or a lot more battery storage to save the sun for a rainy day.  My objective was 75% off-grid and somewhere around this mark is probably realistic. Most days it is more like 95%, but those gloomy days typically come with higher consumption (less heat from solar geyser, longer showers, a few extra cups of coffee, maybe run the tumble drier for a while) and drag the average down. 

My personal favorite choice. I have avoided Gas cookers because that just means im paying for gas which works out more expensive than using a traditional electric stove top.
Maybe im incorrect on this though.

I have a single us3000 and have the max charge rate set to 30 amps in the battery screen, when my battery is under 90% it will charge at a max of 30 amps even though the bms can allow it to charge up to 37amps. After 90% the BMS restricts the charge rate to 14 amps and since that is lower it will not exceed 14 amps.
So the bms charge values cannot be exceeded but the charge rates can be reduced on the battery setup screen. 

"Note that battery charge / discharge rates in the timer are overridden by the values in the Battery Setup screen, Batt Type, Batt Charge and Shut Down tabs." This should be 
Note that battery discharge rates in the timer override the values up to the maximum specified in the Battery Setup screen, Batt Type, Batt Charge and Shut Down tabs. The timer screen cannot control the battery charge rates but rather it controls the battery charge sources. PV charging is always active and will charge to 100% if sufficient power is available, whilst grid or generator will only charge up to the percentage value set on the timer screen for that time period.

A few corrections.  Not to nitpick but some of your terminology and calculations will confuse some.   Remember that  kWh is a measure of energy, whilst kW is a measure of power.  If you have a geyser that has a power rating of 2kW that you run for 3 hours, you will have consumed 6kWh of energy.
 
Clearly you mean kWh, not kW.  But, it would be 0.2c per Wh, not 2.
 
Actually, 6000 cycles at 50% DOD will yield exactly the same energy as 3000 at 100% DOD.
 
There is normally no good reason to cycle your battery several times in one day - once it is full you will simply use your input power (grid or PV) to power your loads, keeping the battery full.  Discharging the batteries whilst you PV exceeds your loads makes no sense at all.
 

Winter is when i run my solar at max, as the days are shorter and solar output is less and more power is required for heaters. I would use then take say 3250w / 185w = 17.5 panels per string. But 17 panels x 37.4 volts = 635 volts, which would blow your inverters mppt. I would recomend a panel that has an imp @ stc much closer to 11, to be able to get full power from the inverter during winter. I like the JA solar JAM72S20 panels.

That argument is irrelevant for majority of the use cases in this country. Isolated installs for backup purposes with zero export in to the grid, actually with zero export capability at all, really shouldn't warrant arbitrary folks knocking on your door to make more money from taxpayers trying to save a dime and only compensating for already present inadequacy in government.

Looks like the battery voltage is indeed 40v to 450v.

Maybe a solis grid tied inverter could work with its ct coil to stop power going back into the grid. And also allow the goodwe to charge from grid in the afternoons, hopefully it should just pull the power being generated from the other inverter. This is something i would also like to try in the future.

Hopefully I'm wrong but i think you might have your battery cables swoped. It's a sad day when an inverter dies.

Your system will work but if everything is connected on the UPS side of the inverter your battery will not be able to handle the loads which may be running when an unplanned outage hits you.
The part that is not clear to me is: "Whole house connected ..."
By virtue of the CT coils being placed at the correct position, the inverter will send solar power to your whole house thereby giving you a saving irrespective of having it connected to the Grid or Load side. So you will get the benefit of the sun.
But if the power goes out (unexpectedly), and you have all of these loads on the UPS side, I suspect that it would trip since the battery will just not be able to manage it (especially at night/cloudy conditions).
So maybe what you could do is leave two phases on the non-ups side (the ones with the geysers, oven etc) and have the lights phase on the UPS side.
This way you will make sure that the battery will only carry light loads during an outage. You can then later on move more loads over to the ups side as you expand your batteries.
Not sure if this makes sense to you. Maybe someone else has better idea or experience with this.
 

 

1)I would also like to know the proper placement and quantity of the fuse as normally you would place a fuse at the power source, so to me the best place is at the panels so that if a short occurs on the cable the fuse has a chance to blow and protect the cable from burning.
2) you would need to look at the voltage that your panels would produce in winter and the max voltage of your mppt. The surge protection should be between those two ratings but closer to the mppt max voltage should be best.
3) double pole isolater is a must

I would say to leave the second change over switch so that those loads get permanently powered from the grid, just because I'm not a fan of switching power on and off daily to any equipment. In the event of an abnormal loss of power like power cables being stolen or transformers blowing up and such you can easily just power those loads from the solar.

I read about those issues too. They have made changes to the newer units, being fanless, the ct coil connection board is different, the mppt now handles 13A instead of the 11A of the older type. I think its safe to assume the noise issue is fixed. Mine certainly has no noise.

If you are connecting the entire load of the house to the inverter then the growatt is as good as the sunsynk, if not the sunsynk can still send back power to the house to feed your loads not connected to the inverter.
 
It uses current clamp which should be connected before your main db. It measures the power being drawn from the grid and will push back a max of just enough power or how ever much the solar can supply so that no power is drawn from the grid

When you have enough panels to supply your load and charge your batteries early in the day and you have loads not connected to the inverter. In this case a grid tied hybrid inverter like the deye or sunsynk  could still feed the loads with solar power that are not connected to the inverter, like your geysers, oven, stove, pool pump,heaters.