Green Power

The solar panel system was removed from the old house and I moved it all last night to where I live now. Batteries are in place but not connected, panels are lying on the floor ready in position. Just need someone to connect it all up for me. Hoping for Saturday. EDIT: This was later installed and has been working since end Dec.

I have 10 325W panels

Thanks for your comments. I think I would put them on the gravel area. Some planks of wood or something like that could lift them off the ground, perhaps. It's summer and the grass has been left to suffer without watering and doesn't need cutting. I think I prefer the gravel because with grass you'd have to move all the panels probably once a week to avoid the grass dying. Also gravel ought to be dryer area so should be an advantage.

After 5.5 years at the same rented house, we are leaving and the panels are being removed (starting tomorrow and finishing ideally tomorrow but probably later this month). I am wondering if it makes sense to quickly put them into action at the same house I'm most likely currently at. I'm going to stay here most likely for 5 months, so I wonder if I could just do a very simple installation where I lie them flat on the ground. It looks like I can just pass the cables through an existing space and not a single hole would need to be drilled. Chat GPT says I'll lose about 10% energy with flat on the ground vs ideal orientation (Talagante Chile, latitude 34, assuming Jan 1 - May 31), and there may be say another 10% as I'll lose some early morning and late afternoon sun due to the hedges and the house blocking it so say a 20% loss. Allowing for that, I think I can save about US$250 in electricity costs. However in addition to that an environmental benefit and I would be able to avoid some power cuts. so if I can get it installed and then later taken down for $300-$400 it seems worth it. Any major issues with lying them flat on the ground? I assume some losses in efficiency due to heat not dissipating as well. Also wondering about safety issues.

Thank you both. I've reached out to a local electrician and the person that installed the system. If that doesn't work I'll hunt for another solar expert. And feel free anyone else to comment, thanks.

Not handy with electronics. A little reluctant to replace the inverter as it will be annoying if I spend say US$800 (I'm guessing the price) and it doesn't solve the problem. Also, there is probably a 50% chance we'll move out of the rented house this year and a 80% chance within 4 years. So we could end having to sell off the inverter for a fraction of the spend not long after. Also, looking at my above post, I'd interpret that for the time being as the inverter being most likely not the source of the problem?

@TaliaB @Coulomb (+please feel free to jump in anyone else of course). I have a panel switch. It is a big thing you flip up and down, possibly called an isolator/interrupter. When you flip it for some reason solar panel power can't be provided directly to the house/inverter. Since my last post this switch was disconnected every night for 10 days in a row (off/down 9pm-10pm, back on/up in the morning). When this was done, there were no power cuts overnight, or at any time, for the whole 10 days. After that, that panel switch was left continually up night and day for 4 days and there were 2-3 power cuts, all overnight. So it seems likely that something at the panels, or in the connection from the panels to elsewhere is causing power cuts at night, even with zero power being generated from the panels at that time. Could that make sense? What should I do now do you think, to avoid having to manually flip that switch all the time. I don't have any equipment - even an amp/volt meter. Could a regular electrician make some measurements to diagnose and solve the issue if one of you provides directions, or should I call a solar expert. I could also call the person that installed the system and they could come up send someone else, however the system has had many errors and issues during its years of operation, and I'm past the point of getting free fixes, so not sure if that is the best course of action. A new solar expert would be harder to find than a regular electrician for me at this time, so keep that in mind. I can do it if necessary though.

It hasn't rained at all for maybe a couple of months.

Hi, I changed the float voltage setting to about 51.8 V. We can try disconnecting the utility/panels at night although it could take weeks to get a useful answer from that if the power is cutting out once a week or so. One of the panels was slightly burnt (scorched) some months back. I had someone come by to look at it and they said that there was a small fire in the wiring and that had reached the panel rather than the panel itself set on fire. And that the fire was caused by heavy rains that affected the wiring somehow. They replaced some wiring, and determined that it wasn't necessary to replace the panel. I suspect this is not related since the errors are happening more recently rather than at that time.

Pylontech said in the past that lower than 52.5V float is OK, but not higher. ME: If float charging voltage of 52.5V is OK, then I guess a lower float voltage 51.0V or 52.0V might be OK for charging to less than 100%. But never >52.5V. Do you agree? Pylontech: (That's correct! Because sometimes the voltage sensors on the inverter terminals are not very accurate, the full battery voltage is around 53.2V(smaller than 54V). So 52.5V is a charge voltage value that has been limited in a safe range! You do not need to worry about this. ) However, isn't higher voltage associated with higher charge? Most of my power cuts are happening at low % charge, but the error says high bus voltage.

I don't really understand the relationship between "bulk" voltage and "floating" voltage and "bus" voltage. if I reduce the "bulk" or "floating" will it stop bus voltage getting too high?

Here are the inverter settings: Note that although the thread is from 2022 I still have the same settings now. 26. Bulk charging voltage is 52.5V and 27 Floating charging voltage is 52.5V Any suggestion here? The most common error I get is "Bus Voltage is too high".

Thanks for that. I'm a little reluctant to take high power items onto the grid because it does have some disadvantages, it would cause more pollution and climate change, and cost more money. It would also require some hassle to setup. I am not even sure how I would go about that, but as a minimum it feels like some electrical wiring is needed to achieve it. The load tends to vary between 60W and 2200W mostly but there can be 2200-3000W for half an hour here and there when people are doing kitchen things and maybe 4000-5000W but that's usually just a few minutes when someone adds kettle or microwave onto existing loads. I assume total power draw to the house, and consequently to the inverter, is what you mean by loads. However the power cuts are happening during the night when the load is around 60W or 100W.

Thanks @Colulomb you said a couple of years ago, as I mentioned above, I think in relation to no communication between inverter and battery that "if one cell gets over- or under-voltage, the BMS can't tell the inverter to back off with charging or with loads, so it might have to disconnect itself". We are getting 08 bus voltage errors so do you think the issue would be solved with a new inverter that has communication?

3.25kWP Risen panels ; Battery Pylontech US2000C x 2 ; Inverter Axpert MKS II 5kW Hi, haven't been on the forum for a year or two but I did a few threads mainly in 2020-2022 with various problems and questions. My current issue is that the inverter sometimes fails (or at least that's where the error is displayed) causing a power cut. The problem can be solved by turning everything off and back and on again. The power cuts only happen with a low battery (except once), and the transition from battery to grid seems to be a problem. The power cuts seem to happen in the middle of the night or early morning requiring a reset when waking up. Every time it happens I have to go to the back of the garden and reset the time on the watering system. I actually separated from my wife and kids so I don't live there any more (I am 5 minute walk away though) meaning our tolerance for power cuts and resets is lower than before, and I can't manage the system any more during the day to keep the battery level high. My inverter does not communicate with my batteries. This may be causing the problem. In this case Coulomb said in the first comment on the 2022 thread 'Are Pylontech UP5000 and US3000C compatible with Axpert MKS II 5kW?' that "if one cell gets over- or under-voltage, the BMS can't tell the inverter to back off with charging or with loads, so it might have to disconnect itself. But hopefully those cases should be quite rare." I wonder if this is the main issue here, since some of the errors are fault code 08 'Bus voltage is too high'. Would that be the expected error when the system disconnects itself for the error Coulomb described above. At least once the error was "BP" battery not connected. A few ideas I have are: 1 Get a solar specialist to come by and recommend action. 2 Buy new inverter. 3 Get a new circuit bypass . connection or whatever you call it so that in the event of an inverter or battery fail all of that can be automatically bypassed and automatically connect the house to the grid without going through the inverter. At the moment, if the inverter is off or the battery is off there is a power cut even if there is grid connection available. I suspect buying a new inverter will have a moderate to high chance of fixing the problem, but it will be quite expensive, especially considering we are renting the house, and might leave next year. Any easy inexpensive solution would be welcomed obviously! I think there's some software/monitoring solution that's been mentioned before but I never really understood it. If you think that's the solution, you'll have to imagine you're talking to a 5-year old child or an idiot and explain in as much detail as possible, as otherwise it's just gibberish to me. Thanks if you can help.

The issue has greatly reduced, I don´t think as a result of anything I did, but it just seemed to get better. Only theory I can really think of it is it was to do with the hot weather somehow, some component overheating or something. It seemed to get better when the weather cooled a bit. Totally guessing though. Probably isn´t that. I half expect this issue to recur at some point, however.

Thanks for your comments. Assuming the performance of my system doesn't deteriorate rapidly with this issue, then I will likely wait until later to deal with this, possibly the second half of March as I have a couple of trips coming up and I'll want to be home to keep an eye on it.

Yes, stable load. Voltage also seems to be OK, but haven't watched closely. Good idea on the wiring but everything looks OK to me, not that I'd necessarily be able to tell. Do I really need to set the loads to zero to Coulomb for the firmware update to work? Can I at least leave the internet box on and have a low load of 30 or 40W? I want a low carbon lifestyle to be attractive to my family and others, if it's really necessary to set loads to zero I'll probably wait until the next time I will be at home alone to do the firmware update. That would be mid to late March most likely. Is there any significant chance at all that the firmware update will make this work, or cause the inverter to stop working? Or is the realistic worst case scenario that it doesn't work and I'm just back where I started?

A firmware update is worth looking into. I will check it out. The inverter is: Axpert MKS II 5kW UI 71 80 is what appears on the inverter and I think is the firmware. I think I discussed this with @Coulomb once. Does this look right:.It is 2021 so maybe we need something like this but more recent. Not sure how you actually update firmware. I assume you need the right cable to connect a laptop to the inverter. Is there someone with basic instructions?

Here is a video: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/797553667 (Please ignore the flashing number 4 error. That is a low battery warming that wrongly happens all the time, I think because this inverter was designed to work with lead acid batteries so it just correlates something like 48V or 49V = low battery which doesn't make sense for the lithium batteries it is currently working with. This flashing error is almost certainly nothing to do with the solar input variation so don't be distracted by this.)

My solar input is flickering around like mad. It will show 2000W generation then a second later 1500W then back to 2000W then 200W for a fraction of a second, it's all over the place. This is not due to cloud, happens in clear blue sky. When it is at 2000W that is where it should be, when it has fallen down to lower it looks like some solar is being wasted somehow. It happens a lot, I reckon I am losing at least a few percent of my total generation. Mostly happens in middle of sunny days. I did wonder if it was the battery not accepting the solar, but this also happens sometimes when load is greater than solar input, so perhaps not. Certainly if the battery is full solar input displayed falls, as I don't sell back to the grid. I suspect the inverter a bit, but replacing the inverter would be a case of the medicine being worse than the illness given the cost and hassle. It's also not going to be worth spending hours and hours on this, or paying for a professional to look at this, at least not for now. I am also a little worried about the affect on the inverter lifetime of having the solar input constantly jumping about the place. It makes more noise when this is happening and seems to be working harder. Any idea what's going on? Or ideas to fix? Or does this error/behaviour have a name so I can google it for more info?

6 weeks since the BMS board was replaced; error has not repeated; not even once. Looks likely the correct fix was done. The battery charge levels still go out of alignment by 2% - 5% as before, e.g. one battery might be at 68% and another at 72%. So likely that has nothing to do with the problem. Edit Feb 2023: Now nearly a year, still fine.

I will try and figure out how to do that at some point. If you would like to suggest a method, or point to an online article showing the procedure, I can look into it

The battery BMS board (tarjeta de control in Spanish) has been replaced and the battery returned to me and the system is now working again with two batteries Since the error previously occurred occasionally in the past with gaps of days or weeks in between we won't know for sure if this was the correct solution to stop the error until some time has passed - maybe a month or two. This also confirms that the guarantee's vaidity has been accepted in spite of using the battery with an inverter with no communication. I was not charged for the replacement.

Pylontech had suggested sending the board to me but the installation instructions looked tricky for me so instead it was arranged to leave the battery with the company that sold the battery, where it currently is. May have further update in June.