SteveHarris59

Thanks for the input.

Greetings all. I have just been asked to assist a local (Zim) animal sanctuary with some upgrades to their existing solar system, given the parlous state of our local supply. At present they are running 3 x Mecer 5kW inverters in single phase parallel, off what was a 900 Ah battery bank, but has just been cut down to a 450Ah bank, due to a number of failed units. They would like to switch this all to lithium, which is great. At the same time, they have just been donated a Phocos Anygrid 5kW inverter, complete with panels and a single Pylontech US3000c battery. Obviously the issue I have here is to provide a sufficient depth of discharge capacity for their loads (mainly freezers, and a borehole, with some light power and lighting) Night-time use is minimal from this perspective, but their bank of old freezers can take a bit of starting-up. I then wondered if I could help them with the capacity on all fronts by creating one battery bank of US 3000's that both inverters can respond to. We have the wonderful situation of plenty of roof space, and of course 3 - and maybe 4 - mppt controllers for a really good spread of PV input throughout the year. The Mecers have performed well over the last 4 years, and there is no need to change them out. This Phocos has been donated specifically for the volunteer house, which is great, as that is where the visitor centre and refreshment kiosk is located. My thinking is to add a minimum of 4, and possibly (if their donors assist) 5 batteries to the brand new single unit, which would give them about 8-10kW discharge capacity on 17-20kWh of battery. I don't see too many complications here other than being very careful with the voltage settings on the Mecers Any observations will be gratefully accepted. Thanks for the input

The project is for a dairy and dairy product processing plant. The UPS would be located immediately adjacent to the new LV MDB which we are building, and will be feeding the essential services for the operation. There will be generator backup coming online, hence the relatively short autonomy required, although extending this is probably more realistic, especially with the consideration of a practical C1 discharge capability of the battery setup. One could also invoke a longer autonomy period to delay start-up of the generators in the event of nuisance outages.

Hello Forumites Whilst this enquiry is not strictly renewables oriented, I am looking for related product. To wit, I am needing approximately 1800 kVA/kW of UPS, with a 10 minute duration. Best case scenario would be 3 x 600kVA units to be paralleled, or whatever is a standard solution. I hoping a member has expertise in this field, and that we can do business together. Thanks Steve

Greetings fellow forumites. I wondering if anyone has any practical experience in using direct PV (DC) straight onto a series of heating elements in an industrial application. As part of our manufacturing process, we finish all our sheetmetal with an epoxy powder coating. Integral in this process is a chemical cleanse to degrease, etch and then clean. The cleaning part is carried out in a warm water tank, which has 3 x (2+2) kW heaters, so 12kW in total, spread over 3 phases. After the epoxy has been applied, the items are run into our baking oven which is thermostatically controlled at about 160degC, via 3 x (3 + 3 + 3) kW heater, meaning about 27kW in total, at 9kW per phase. We only use the plant during daylight hours, and once the oven is up to temperature a lot of the elements switch off, and a small recirculating fan keeps the temperatures constant thoughout the oven. My plan is to fit about 30kW of PV onto the roof of the factory, running strings of about 230-240V down to a combiner box, and then feeding these heating loads from here. We have an enormous north facing roof, so space and immediacy of location is no problem. I should mention that our business is the manufacture of a wide range of electrical switchboards and associated equipment, including many accessories and items for PV installations. We are also a registered EPC with our local regulatory authority. The reason I am looking to make this happen is two-fold. Energy saving is a substantial advantage, as the ovens constitute about 25% of our total loading. Reliability is the second option. We suffer from frequent power outages in our industrial area, often due to a single overloaded phase. If I need to continue running the plant, especially over the weekend, I can run the oven and tanks off the PV system, and the ancillary loads such as hoist, and standby compressor can be run off the 'office' single phase PV standby system, or the reserve single phase genset. It is completely ludicrous to start our large 3 phase genset, which runs the entire factory, for a maximum of 25% load, which could easily drop to 5% between cycles. I am interested to hear if other members have undertaken such a project, and would be keen to be guided by your experiences, both positive and negative.

How do we update the inverter? I put 2 Kings in parallel to give me 10kW single phase Batteries are 4 x US2000 Pylontech (possibly a bit light, upgrading to 4 x US3000 in New Year. PV input is 9 x 330w poly 72 cell per inverter, wired as 3s. Voc sits at about 120-125, on load is 99-105. Our temps rarely drop below +5celcius pre-dawn July. (Comments welcome) Each array of 9 is on the same roof, one immediately above the other. The system worked faultlessly for a week, (but plenty of error 69) To overcome this, we started switching the utility supply off between 09.00 and 16.30. The reason for this, is that if we run SUB, there is a possibility, with the overcast conditions at present, (it's our rainy season), the batteries may only be at 40-60% at the end of the day, and then we get a power outage with an evening storm. Overnight requirement is about 4-6kWh, to run security lights, cameras, routers and alarm systems. After about a week, we noticed suddenly no PV input on one of the inverters, but everything else was completely fine. I've swapped the inverter out, but would appreciate input as to why it is doing that, and can it be resolved, without a return - under warranty

Hello Beserker You don't advise your location, but here is a good place to start... https://www.sapvia.co.za/members-service-directory?p=2&category=11&zoom=15&is_mile=0&directory_radius=0&view=list&sort=title