Denns

Lets just say its probably the BMS that limits it and not the cells. Good catch though lol

I get to see people doing "fancy" stuff on here and amazingly for not really much more than the price of the "cheap" inverters I got. Technology has come a long way and prices also have come down. I am closely following your updates so that I know what is available and possible for when I need to upgrade in the future especially as an EV will be in the mix there also.

That looks very nice and you have quite a bulletproof off grid system there. The Solis allows quite a bit of flexibility I see. This is my off-grid system at the moment. Slightly similar principle to yours. My 5kW supplies my whole house between 9am and 3pm. Every other time the 5kW and 3.6kW run independently and supply their own circuits. Whenever my energy demands go up, I will add about 4.5kWp of panels to the 24V inverter to have a real bullet proof system but for now this has been more than sufficient to keep me from buying a generator. Almost a year now being off grid. 7 months since I got completely disconnected from City Power (legally of course lol). Because my inverters are not as smart as the Solis, I had to add certain items such as Overload Relays to allow offloading of big loads between the 2 inverters between 9am and 3pm. So, if my 5kW goes is starting to supply a load over about 4.5kW my overload relay kicks in and lets the 3.6kW supply its own circuits again while the 5kW supplies the kitchen and lounge. There is a second overload relay on the 3.6kW to stop the 3.6 from overloading also (it has its own protection, but I would rather an external device take care of it). I also needed a contactor to take care of the neutral earth bonding for the secondary inverter when the 5kW gets disconnected from the 3.6kW. All this is not needed it seems when using smarter inverters like the Solis.

My concern is did he have electricity all this time before the meter was installed? Or was he postpaid and wanting to do prepaid conversion? If he was bridged and had electricity but was paying estimates then the city might have authority to request back pay on the fixed charges. If you had a connection even without the prepaid meter then the fixed charges need to be paid. if he was postpaid and paying his usage and fixed charges then they have no ground.

I agree with Gerhard. Just to add a bit. Your biggest issue with your current system is the geyser sitting on the inverter. You have a small 2kW element so for at least 4 hours during the day you only have less than 3kW of inverter capacity. On my side I have a 5kW that supplies the whole house between 9am and 3pm. My 3.6kW gets charged by the 5kW during that time. At which point my 3.6kW takes over its own circuits as my DB is split. So half the DB is supplied by 3.6kW and other high power circuits (kitchen and oven) are supplied by the 5kW. The reason I have no issues with overloading etc is because I have the full 5kW available for those 6 hours as my geyser is not on the inverter. It gets supplied by a Geyser controller on its own array. I had the same setup as you but I lasted a month keeping the geyser on the inverter as it just requires too much management. Especially as I’m offgrid. Geysers don’t belong on any inverter less than 8kW and array less than 6.5kW.

The main question is was it worse in summer than winter? And in winter does it happen early morning?

Can be anything really. Diagnosis of such a fault is almost impossible unless there is some tester I’m not aware of that can find it for you. I can be the light circuit, pool circuit, the DC side on the panels, it can be anything. Sometimes you just have to wait until it becomes really bad then you can easily identify which circuit is the problem. Until then you will be hunting for an intermittent ghost. If you are lucky the fault will stay on long enough so that when you attempt a reset of the EL it trips again then you need to quickly check which DB circuit it is.

And that could also explain the poor resale on Pylons. I would never get a Pylon unless it’s given to me for free. The warranty is worth less than the paper it’s printed on.

Completely agree. And the fact that solar adds little to no value on a home valuation. I still get surprised when I see people trying to sell their batteries and inverters for 1000 rand less than what a new one goes for. I understand trying to recoup money as you would have bought when batteries etc where 2 to 3x the price but it just won't get bought if the buyer just does the bare minimum in research. Perfect analogy you used btw, a used car that can still go another 300k km is still a used car and doesn't not warrant asking for almost new prices when being sold, a customer will just go and buy new.

You are gaining next to nothing except stressing your battery bank more by attempting to go lower than 47.5V. I would recommend getting an additional battery rather than killing your current bank squeezing the last 5% or so.

Good luck with sale as above. But I must say that is a high list price considering a brand new battery is retailing for under 13k now and comes with fire suppression built in.

I would personally max out the array if funds and space allow. Just cap the charge rate of the battery in the inverter settings. Its always better in my book to get it done right the first time. It will incur cost later on to add more panels and reconfigure the array. Otherwise just max out the one array and leave the other empty. If he wants to upgrade later on and cant find the same panels then they would need to move the other set to the one input and then get panels for the other side. You also get better cloud generation the more panels you can add so I see little benefit to limiting the array for the sake of the battery when it can be taken care off with a single setting. Having more panels also means the inverter will pull from the panels and not the battery even when loads exceed 5kW which is a plus.

It does tell you the main info you need. The PV range is 125 to 425 Vdc. That's the most important parameter and what you base your array around. Can I ask what additional information you want? I assume it has 2 MPPT inputs since it says 2x5500W PV. Current is the last thing I check if ever. If you happen to go over the current limit it just clips and at 22A that will be never unless you parallel your strings.

Feb is a bit too early. I went in June and it was bloody cold at night. During the day you can be in shirts and shorts.

Winter evenings in Zim gets very cold. It’s just the day that is warm in winter.