Scorp007

For better guidance just share with us what inverter/MPPT you're using and how will panels be connected. Series/parallel.
Off the cuff 2 thoughts.
A lot of MPPTs will throttle once they reach their maximum amps.
If you can use the 2 panels in series with the new panels they will ensure that the current does not exceed the 10A of the MPPT.
This does mean you might loose some efficiency if you buy higher current panels.
This might be a way to go as those 10A panels are not always available.

The power landscape could look totally different in years to come. Not it looks good to be off grid but if wheeling/virtual networks take off those with space might want to be on TOU and buy during off peak to sell during peak.
Hybrids would serve one well. Just a thought to have the extra functionality.

@DylanP As above, no need for grid-tied hybrid inverters if staying off-grid, maybe two 6kW Deye off-grid inverters, and put the savings towards batteries.

Some one once told me its like the worst restaurant you have ever been to. The service is slow, the food is cold and the the food of very poor quality. So you have a bad experience & you keep going back and pricing keeps going up.
For many that have the choice we never go back but for many they stop noticing and actually just put up with it.
In the end I think for many they just become irrelevant.
But people don't realise their biggest customers are farmers & that's our food security & based on that fact I guess they will have to keep being a going concern one way or another even if it's by hand outs by the state.

1st we had the so called report that had to be issued by an registered engineer. Cannot put it as a requirement as a COC meets the condition of the law. Then they tried to line their own pockets with the R30th fine.
Let's sit back and watch the soapy unfolding going forward.
Some other news out is that they might this year only sell the same GWh of power as 30 years ago. Can such a business survive with less customers and still wanting to increase the free power for the poor. The rich customers they showed the door are all off the grid.

1st we had the so called report that had to be issued by an registered engineer. Cannot put it as a requirement as a COC meets the condition of the law. Then they tried to line their own pockets with the R30th fine.
Let's sit back and watch the soapy unfolding going forward.
Some other news out is that they might this year only sell the same GWh of power as 30 years ago. Can such a business survive with less customers and still wanting to increase the free power for the poor. The rich customers they showed the door are all off the grid.

I love this part - "Eskom has no authority to issue fines. It is not a court, it is not a statutory authority, it doesn’t write the law, and there is no provision for Eskom to issue fines,”

Hi Corne, not really a unique situation. The modern Commercial sites have this type of Micro Grid topology mostly if there are Grid ties involved with a Hybrid BESS system that's are AC coupled on the Load side. The advantage of AC coupling on the load side is the Grid tie gets Voltage ref from the Load side and will produce power all the time. If on the Grid side it will island if Grid power is lost. I used to know the Victron architecture well but I certainly am not current on it at all. The Victron does feature Frequency shifting, however, it's only possible when there is no Grid power involved because it can shift the frequency & the Grid tie will ramp. When there is Grid power that's not an option.
If costs were no issue I'd DC couple with a Victron MPPT because the extra power goes to the Battery and the Mppt will self regulate as it's a Victron product. But price is an issue and the Solis is cheaper. I wouldn't worry about losses at this power level of AC coupling Vs DC coupling I think it's going to be negligible.
There is a another way depending on how handy you can be with HA and Venus OS. Modern Grid tied inverters don't rely solely on frequency shifting to limit power. They also support RS485/ serial Comms & use Modbus. The Solis will definitely feature Power dispatching. Basically you tell Mr. Solis: hey I need 2kW from you & he will produce 2kW. So in HA you will have your instance looking at battery SoC from your Victron & tell the Sols to limit to Load when the battery is above 95%. I actively work in this field with much larger megawatt plants & a controller that can arbitrage and dispatch power as required to service the plant as a micro grid.
However, this is small residential project & all said & done probably the best & bulletproof option is the Mppt from Victron. The Grid tie option is affordable but adding an EMS (Energy management system) doesn't really make financial sense. If you however, you have the time and patience it's doable, there is a Solis integration available on HACS as well as a Venus OS integration. Blend the 2 together and write some automation rules and you in business. Doesn't even have to be complicated, can even program something simple like Above 98% SoC Shutdown the Solis and startup again below 95%. Keep it simple...

I have a Sunsynk 5K, 6kWp on roof since 2020, and recently upgraded storage to 32K Hina (Knyee white-label), been off-grid since January 2026. I have been optimising usage and current drain over the past 6 years:
Outdoor heatpump for hot water;
Gas stove, oven is still AC, but I built a Pizza oven outside (and a whole outdoor kitchen too!);
Added 2x Inverter aircons (24000 + 18000 BTU);
Gas heater;
Slowly migrated current hungry devices, like firewall / router / NAS / security cameras / NVR to fanless low current models;
Don't operate Class-A amplifiers continuously, or moved to Class-D.
Next on the list is the fridge freezer, eyeing a Bosch AAA+ model.
Optimising a power budget is basically the same as running a bank account: You either create more income, or you cut / replace expenses, or a combination.

I s running a 5kW Deye off grid 95% of the time. Saves me drawing the 36 units a month from grid by using 50W from grid to prevent export.
I run any kitchen gadgets at night and also my lawn mower during sun periods. Everything is on the UPS circuit. What I do 50% of the evening period is to switch on my grid to keep the battery at a good SOC for during the night via a smart switch on the grid input. This switch is also timed to have my grid on from 04h00 to 08h30. Some morning it would use as little as 100Wh to keep to my SOC. This mostly when fridges start that it gets some assistance from the grid.
The last 3 days I had to use grid even during the day due to the cloud. This cost me about 3 units a day. Up to Monday I only used 1 unit from the beginning of the month from the grid. Yes I use grid the way it suits me and not how Eskom would prefer.

As non essentials can only be fed when the grid is on this portion cannot cause the inverter to go into overload. The inverter will only feed as much as it can and if the non essential load is higher than what the PV via inverter can supply to non essential loads will be drawn from the grid so no tripping the inverter.

The question of whether to go with AC-Coupling or DC-Coupling should also consider when you will be needing the power.
If you're using the power mostly by day, maybe exporting it, or consuming it instantly as it is generated, then it's probably better to go with a grid-tie inverter on the AC (load) side.
If you're going to be storing power in the batteries to use later, then it's probably better to go with an MPPT on the DC (battery) side.
The difference is in how many DC-AC and AC-DC conversions you will be doing, ie. efficiency plays a role. But it's also taking into account that the inverter's rated capacity is likely to be the bottleneck in your system.

Not sure if you are looking for leads.
My 1st choice for a medium size system would be the Deye 6kW off grid inverter that can operate from 125V being 3 panels and can accept up to 12kW in PV.

Not sure if you are looking for leads.
My 1st choice for a medium size system would be the Deye 6kW off grid inverter that can operate from 125V being 3 panels and can accept up to 12kW in PV.

Not sure if you are looking for leads.
My 1st choice for a medium size system would be the Deye 6kW off grid inverter that can operate from 125V being 3 panels and can accept up to 12kW in PV.

Just stumbled on this while doing research.
Might be interesting to someone.
I've attached the link and the main table of the paper
https://repository.up.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/180113c2-501f-41ab-9625-9deef5f5b711/content

Enjoy the new toys 😀

AFAIK he is well and still recovering.

Enjoy the new toys 😀

AFAIK he is well and still recovering.

AFAIK he is well and still recovering.

I don't think you will get solis to display these details on the Solis. The Orion JR BMS also has these messages displayed in its CANbus. In fact the Orion can be configured to display any host of information as can be configured on the CANbus and you can make your own CANbus frames to configure with any inverter or EMS to read.
But this is what you have to understand: when a battery OEM decides to support an inverter they have no control over what the inverter integration team will want. Generally the bare bone basics will be battery temps, Charge and discharge limits & SoC. This is almost an industry standard of sorts. However, you can't force Solis nor FW to make or build features that only you want. They can see it as a suggestion but that's about it.
The points 1,2,3 &4 are all readily available on the BMS and on the Orion ready for broadcast if configured.

Kynee is a huge company in China, they even white-label their batteries to other manufacturers. I recently purchased the Hina ESS PowerGem Max, at the time I new nothing about Kynee and I assumed that they were new entrants with no track record, that's what steered me towards the Hina. Imagine my surprise last week when I discovered that the Hina ESS is basically a white-labelled Kynee!
The Hina ESS (Kynee) has excellent build quality, packaged very well, and the documentation that comes with it is glossy and superb. The Hina app is not as good as the Kynee one though, there is far more information and settings available on the Kynee app, so the Hina app in comparison looks a bit "dumbed down". I guess that it's OK if you don't want to be in control of everything.
Had I known what I know now, my purchase decision would have been different, and I would have benefitted from saving a few thousands of rands buying the Kynee.

@Bernardf your point is well noted & I don't disagree with you. I followed the same steps as you but unfortunately being off-grid I could not wait for 4 weeks and lose 10kWh of capacity. The same prospect arises for their HV batteries and the lightest one is +-400kg. So the concept of remove and take to service centre is not so straightforward for a logistics perspective. They usually visit the site with technicians and service and sort out on site.
In the past there was no issue with requiring assistance like this and they offered it willingly to all locations countrywide. Lately there has been the combination of refuting the warranty and wanting to get the customer to pay for travel and logistics to their site location as well boarding and lodging charges added in a quotation for such repair and evaluation. I have also seen on occasions that replacement of the LV & HV Orion BMSs be quoted prior to on site evaluation between R60k all the way up to R250k. Some have not been my installations but one of them was and the customer paid the R250k up front replacement costs before an onsite inspection was carried out on the equipment.
The Orion is great and all the bells and whistles but is this not becoming an Achilles heal for the end user. The Typical HV topology of BAU/ BCU / BMU doesn't cost R250k, this in the case of a Chinese production battery imported. In contrast it's along the lines of R35K maximum. It also does the same job & it's components are serviceable and repairable component wise. It's also adopted from the Chinese EV market.
I'm was a massive FW supporter and still am to a much lesser degree but unfortunately the market is shifting and in my humble opinion FW and other local OEMs will find it very hard to stay relevant in these modern times with the production Chinese equipment imported from the Motherland.

The Orion is in a different class to any other BMS out there. I have worked on multiple other BMSs. That BMS is made in the USA and it's a very polished specimen in terms of hardware and software. It's even used in the HV batteries to power up the Toyota Prius EV. Btw I'm not sure it's an OEM of the Prius but I do see documentation to supports it's applied use.
My battery got very ill due to my home being completely off-grid and not reaching 100% regularly to float. The first issue that I had was that Cell 1 had a massively weird difference in internal resistance to the others. Then when you charge it the Cell would peak crazily fast and during the discharge the opposite would happen. I logged a ticket and got some remote support but the particular service tech was adjusting software to fix what was very likely to me a physical hardware fault. You can fix hardware problems with software. You can maybe mask the problem but you can't fix it.
I then left it for a week or so & FW basically tried to close the ticket saying it was fixed. I knew the only issue that can arise as these symptoms are a loose cell sensing cable and the cell was not in balance.
The hardware of the 10/8 is on another planet quality wise. FW package this battery to a high level of quality. It's in a powder coated high gloss 3mm metal enclosure and the cells are very well protected inside a plastic types of rigid case with insulation covers. I wanted to remove the entire unit to get at the offensive cell. It's probably possible but given the welded topology and the fact they actually use 2 X 100ah cells laser welded with aluminium studs made that proposition almost impossible to deassemble the entire unit. So all I had to play with was the Harness or 16 cells and a slow charger...
Sorry will add more info later...