kamos

So far my experience has been amazing and I'm super stoked. Before I bought the equipment, I did so much research and calculations on ROI, not once did I consider the quality of life improvement that solar brings. My area has had multiple outages since Friday, averaging 6-8 hours DAILY. You can't put a number on how good it feels to not have to worry about loadshedding, it's priceless and I have zero regrets.
Quick question, my solar system was installed on 24 November and I've been running the system for 5 days. I've basically been running on PV and Battery, with very little to no import from Eskom. Here's an overview:


 
I do have one question though. There are spikes in during the day where we do pull from the grid initially (even though the battery has 100% SOC), and they the PV / Battery will take over moments later. And then other times it solely relies on PV / Battery to deal with the load, See the examples below:


Is this normal behaviour? Why isn't the inverter always pulling from Battery / PV first?
 

I believe it's simply a case of PV not able to ramp up quickly enough to provide the required power.

Hi @kamosto answer your question: Yes this was as directed by Niko, the Felicity Solar engineer. My absolute take on these batteries as I was not part of this battery purchase. I was merely as to install these as the client purchased all this equipment himself & I was contracted to carry out the installation only. 
I have shipped & built a few battery LFP packs myself. I have built 100ah (5kWh), 120ah(6kWh) & actually the 230ah(12kWh) 
my take on these batteries is that at R46k for this built pack is an absolute bargain. You cannot order these 230ah cells for that money. They are 0.5C & this is where my mind & imagination runs away with me.
the reason is that why rate them at 0.5C? I have built packs using CATL as well as EVE cells. These cells are 1C rated. So why would they derate them ? There can be another reason & that could be the BMS limitation. Meaning they have 230ah cells but paired with a 120A BMS & this could be the reason, so I hope is the case. 
The Seplos local manufacturer here in SA have the same issue with their new 12kWh battery that is sold at R56k. They are using the old Seplos BMS & that derates to an output of at 0.5C. 
I Wish I could lay my hands on an example of these batteries & carry out some tests on the Felicity batteries. I have the necessary diagnostic & amp measuring equipment to tell the reel truth of capacity etc. I noticed that the enclosure is also screwed on & very easy to remove. But having deboxed these 2 units from supplier shipping as well as pair them with the Deye. The quality & easy of use was outstanding. The rest of the details lies hidden behind the skin. 
But the price of these tells me we are missing something. Either these are not 230ah cells & are actually 280ah cells that are derated due to being 2nd life. Or this is one of the best bang for ones buck. 
A Very intriguing journey awaits for owners of these. I hope its a winner !!!
 

So last night they completed the installation of my system, we did a few final configurations and the installer suggested that we run down the battery over night to see how it performs and how long I can go on battery with normal usage. So as soon as he left, I switched off the mains. These are the results:
 

 

The battery made it through the night, with no issues. The PV kicked in shortly after sunrise, and started charging the battery. I'm so stoked with this system, it is performing way beyond my expectations! 

And as an added bonus, there was a 6 hour outage in my area today from 9am to 3pm, and I had power all the way through it, no issues, while my neighbours were complaining like crazy. It feels so good being almost independent from Eksom.  It's cloudy in Joburg today, and my PV is handling the load just fine. I'm basically pulling nothing from the grid

So last night they completed the installation of my system, we did a few final configurations and the installer suggested that we run down the battery over night to see how it performs and how long I can go on battery with normal usage. So as soon as he left, I switched off the mains. These are the results:
 

 

The battery made it through the night, with no issues. The PV kicked in shortly after sunrise, and started charging the battery. I'm so stoked with this system, it is performing way beyond my expectations! 

And as an added bonus, there was a 6 hour outage in my area today from 9am to 3pm, and I had power all the way through it, no issues, while my neighbours were complaining like crazy. It feels so good being almost independent from Eksom.  It's cloudy in Joburg today, and my PV is handling the load just fine. I'm basically pulling nothing from the grid

It's looking great. Seems the battery dropped to about 38% SOC during the night but was fully charged before 10:00. And each time you used a little bit of battery due to load, the PV kicked in to recharge it back to 100%. That's a beautiful graph to sit and watch.

So last night they completed the installation of my system, we did a few final configurations and the installer suggested that we run down the battery over night to see how it performs and how long I can go on battery with normal usage. So as soon as he left, I switched off the mains. These are the results:
 

 

The battery made it through the night, with no issues. The PV kicked in shortly after sunrise, and started charging the battery. I'm so stoked with this system, it is performing way beyond my expectations! 

And as an added bonus, there was a 6 hour outage in my area today from 9am to 3pm, and I had power all the way through it, no issues, while my neighbours were complaining like crazy. It feels so good being almost independent from Eksom.  It's cloudy in Joburg today, and my PV is handling the load just fine. I'm basically pulling nothing from the grid

So last night they completed the installation of my system, we did a few final configurations and the installer suggested that we run down the battery over night to see how it performs and how long I can go on battery with normal usage. So as soon as he left, I switched off the mains. These are the results:
 

 

The battery made it through the night, with no issues. The PV kicked in shortly after sunrise, and started charging the battery. I'm so stoked with this system, it is performing way beyond my expectations! 

And as an added bonus, there was a 6 hour outage in my area today from 9am to 3pm, and I had power all the way through it, no issues, while my neighbours were complaining like crazy. It feels so good being almost independent from Eksom.  It's cloudy in Joburg today, and my PV is handling the load just fine. I'm basically pulling nothing from the grid

I ordered the equipment on Wednesday, took delivery on Thursday. Friday the installer did the cabling. Today they finished the install of the battery and inverter.
 

 
They will install the panels on Monday.
Equipment:
8 kW Sunsynk inverter
12.5 kWh Felicity Solar Battery
14 x 660w Canadian Solar panels
 
Great sales and support from JC Solar Panels. I went with their recommended installer, Luke from Lights-On Electrical. So far so good.

Your battery is at 100%, so the system does not have an 'outlet' for the additional PV capacity. It hence 'restricts' the PV production to what is required by the load.
You will see that you PV generates as much as it can when your battery is not fully charged.
Also not that the PV ramp-up to a sudden change in load is not instantaneous. You will see a slight lag in PV production when you suddenly increase your load (e.g. switch on the kettle). In the meantime, your inverter will draw the balance from the other available sources (usually battery)

That's just how it works. PV can't provide power if there's nowhere for it to go, ie. nothing available to use it. As you noticed with the kettle, PV will provide the necessary power as soon as you need it.

What will likely happen is you will continually refine the settings for weeks to come then settle after that.
1 - nothing wrong with starting but as i said you will likely change as you understand how your household uses power. sunny days are a breeze - its the overcast / rainy ones than can be a challenge
2 - Your switch to grid + battery cutoff are the same value - so if you have loadshedding in the 4-6am slot and there isnt much sun around 6 then your system will likely switch off. Perhaps make your battery cut-off 15% to give you that buffer in those situations. you might also want to change your restart to something like 25% and loww batt 20%
3 -the battery will be charged to 100%, remember those % are the minimum before it switches to the grid. If there is excess PV it will go all the way up. If there is les then it will go down to say 80% then switch to grid until the next timeslot

According to this post, the inverter itself uses 50W, but there's further losses due to charging, etc. I can't seem the find the official value during quick googling. Maybe one of the forum experts will give us proper figures.
 

Based on this image compared the previous one, it might be self-consumption by the inverter, which is then roughly 231-239W based on the numbers shown (I don't know what the correct inverter self-consumption number is). Which means you didn't get enough power from PV and it supplemented that from the grid in the earlier image?
813+32-2-612=231W
871+0-2-630=239W

There's an arrow on the CT coil. It should be pointing towards the inverter, ie. inbound from Eskom on the outside.

That's probably the grid trickle charge - what is the value set to on your inverter? Installers usually set it between 10 and 50W as anything less might trip some prepaid meters

My system will be 24 months old in 4 days time and I am still adjusting settings every so often.
Everyone's goals are different, in my case I have set it up with the aim to use Eskom as little as possible. That means using every watt available from the 15.6kWh available battery bank and I often take them down to 5% SOC in winter when the weather is bad.

I ordered the equipment on Wednesday, took delivery on Thursday. Friday the installer did the cabling. Today they finished the install of the battery and inverter.
 

 
They will install the panels on Monday.
Equipment:
8 kW Sunsynk inverter
12.5 kWh Felicity Solar Battery
14 x 660w Canadian Solar panels
 
Great sales and support from JC Solar Panels. I went with their recommended installer, Luke from Lights-On Electrical. So far so good.

I ordered the equipment on Wednesday, took delivery on Thursday. Friday the installer did the cabling. Today they finished the install of the battery and inverter.
 

 
They will install the panels on Monday.
Equipment:
8 kW Sunsynk inverter
12.5 kWh Felicity Solar Battery
14 x 660w Canadian Solar panels
 
Great sales and support from JC Solar Panels. I went with their recommended installer, Luke from Lights-On Electrical. So far so good.

I ordered the equipment on Wednesday, took delivery on Thursday. Friday the installer did the cabling. Today they finished the install of the battery and inverter.
 

 
They will install the panels on Monday.
Equipment:
8 kW Sunsynk inverter
12.5 kWh Felicity Solar Battery
14 x 660w Canadian Solar panels
 
Great sales and support from JC Solar Panels. I went with their recommended installer, Luke from Lights-On Electrical. So far so good.

Panels in series raise the voltage of a string, panels in parralel raise the current of the string. You cannot go beyond the MPPT voltage but you can install more than the max current.
Overpanelling happens when you install more current capacity than the rated max Amps op the MPPT
Eg the 8KW MPPT takes 20A and you install panels 7S2P could produce max 22-24A in optimal conditions. The MPPT will clip beyond 20A and waste that energy
Most of the time conditions will not be optimal so the overpaneled configuration will yield far below the clipping point but yield more power overall.
I have 4S2P configuration (lots of trees and shade) with 22A output in ideal conditions and I very seldom see the current limited to 20A 

Thank you for the information.

So your inverter will have specific MPPT voltages to operate at, you can usually add panels in series until you match the voltage needed by your system. Then, you would duplicate that number of series panels on a parallel branch. By adding a parallel branch you increase the amount of current your system receives.
 
There is an upper limit to the MPPT voltage, exceeding this will result in damage to the unit. There is also a limit to the amount of current the MPPT board can draw, once you hit that current limit, adding more panels becomes pointless because you aren't going to get any more out of the system.

I confirmed with the supplier that the 8kW Sunsynk should safely handle 14 x 660W panels split across the two MPPT's.

I confirmed with the supplier that the 8kW Sunsynk should safely handle 14 x 660W panels split across the two MPPT's.