Denns

Very nice!

My saving this year will be 36000 rand. Will be paying off my system next year in June. A bit over 2 years payback.

Very nice!

My saving this year will be 36000 rand. Will be paying off my system next year in June. A bit over 2 years payback.

The 4000W solar power rating is not really important.
I have seen my inverter pull 4000W and no more. The extra 550W on it it’s there for extra generation during cloudy days that’s all. His would do the same, just pull up to a max of 4kW when he installs the 8 panels on it.
Even if he had 6000W on his 4000W MPPt it would be fine.

Your panels VOC is a bit too high. I have 650W panels and each has a VOC of 45V and Vmp of 42 so I could overspec my inverter quite a bit. 9 with your panels would be around 470VOC but with 10% leeway you overshoot the 500Vdc limit. So 8 would be the safest.

If you had similar panels to me you could have done 10 panels very easily and hit about 6500W. Not the 4480W you will potentially hit now. Not bad though as you are still over-paneling your inverter decently well.

Adding the fixed charge section for when off grid dropped my payback quite a bit. That 1485 rand in fixed charges with Citi power was the reason I got disconnected. And your calculator reinforced it, especially with the long-term money back in my pocket. Being Off-grid was one of the best financial decisions I made in the last year. Only spent about 20k on my battery bank for the 17kWh I have so unless prices more than double in the next couple of years your 43k calculation should be good.

Maybe add in for those that are off-grid their monthly fuel expenses etc if they have a generator. I don't use a generator so your calculator is perfect for someone like me.

Thanks for the suggestion, Generator fuel cost field added

Adding the fixed charge section for when off grid dropped my payback quite a bit. That 1485 rand in fixed charges with Citi power was the reason I got disconnected. And your calculator reinforced it, especially with the long-term money back in my pocket. Being Off-grid was one of the best financial decisions I made in the last year. Only spent about 20k on my battery bank for the 17kWh I have so unless prices more than double in the next couple of years your 43k calculation should be good.

Maybe add in for those that are off-grid their monthly fuel expenses etc if they have a generator. I don't use a generator so your calculator is perfect for someone like me.

Its time to cover the lawn with ground mounted solar panels🤣

Ja Swaer - cleaning panels beats mowing the lawn hands down 😁

Its time to cover the lawn with ground mounted solar panels🤣

I fully agree with @Denns
Although many manufacturers rate their batteries as "1.0C" (or even higher) as an advertising gimmick, they don't refer to their own small print that normally state something like "... if operated at 25ºC". The service life of Lithium ion batteries depends on charge and discharge temperatures, depth of discharge, and rate of charge or discharge, and any deviation from any one (or worse, two or all three) or these parameters from the optimum values will have an effect on the total number of cycles that your batteries can provide. Now, given that our batteries are our single most expensive hardware, to my mind it just makes sense to look after the batteries by keeping them close to their optimum parameters.
I have a 12kW Sunsynk inverter and two 10kWh Sunsynk batteries, and my charge rate set in the inverter is 0.15C and the discharge rate is set at 0.25C. This not only nurse the batteries (and I do realise that I'm over-doing this...) but also allow me to be "virtually off-grid" by spreading the charging over a longer daylight period in order to also simultaneously run the geyser from my PV without needing any grid input (except when it's really cloudy, of course...).

Any reason you need to charge quicker? 50A on 2 batteries will already get them full in 4 hours assuming 5kWh each.
You dont have the array to charge any higher really unless you dont run any load during the day. Your array will max out at peak generation at 100A into the batteries with ZERO load. Only the grid will get you anywhere near the 100A limit of the inverter.
More current means more heat, you inverter will work a little harder, your fans also, and your batteries work a little harder also even though its mostly safe for most LFP to be charged at 0.5C which is about 50A per battery.
My only concern going higher is that you have 2 batteries, lets say each is rated for 0.5C max charging. If one gets full before the other and you set the inverter to charge at 75A for example then when one battery gets full, its own BMS will kill the charge to it, the remaining charge will go to the remaining battery and you will charge it higher than its spec.
But a quick check shows your batteries can do 100A charging. So you can set it to whatever you want. I would leave it at 50A personally.

In that case, I do understand where you are coming from. I had assumed incorrectly that the warranty is always handled by the installer, as that is how we do it in the industry. I work in the Engineering sector as an Electrical Engineer, and all the new installs, retrofits, etc., I have done or have been part of, we as the company take care of the warranty for the customer.
If the PLC or RTU dies, for example, the client calls us, and we then deal with the manufacturer in that regard with the warranty. The client pays nothing for us to go to the site and investigate. The first point of call is always us, the installer of the equipment. They don't phone the actual manufacturer. The only issue is that the electricians on the plants, substations, or mines don't exactly go out of their way to actually learn the system. We will get calls as simple as a device not coming on, but the guy hasn't checked the breaker.
In the poster's case, then yeah, I actually wouldn't be happy. You are right there.

I would get this then. All you need is a voltage reference. So 2 1.5mm2 cables from your live and neutral. Then, clamp the CTs to any of the individual circuits in your DB. Or you can do it per device; it depends on how you want to do it.
Then you check daily consumption for each circuit or device. When done, move it to the next circuit in your DB or to the next device if you do it that way. You will quickly know which circuit or device is using power. The App is free. I used this to get energy consumption figures for everything in the house, basically.
I was able to go off-grid because of that.

Thanks for your positive comments @Denns . It would be interesting to hear from installers on this Forum regarding their warranty obligations.
In my opinion, if the manufacturers warranty was registered under the installers name, then he would be liable for the duration of the warranty. If it was registered under the name of the home owner, then the installer is only liable for defective installation - and as in the case presented by @PearlJam in the original post, the installer would not be liable for a manufacturing defect, and would thus be entitled to be compensated by the home owner for his time and expenses to travel to the house, disconnect the dongle, test the power supply voltage (5V, I think...), re-connect the dongle, and drive back to his place of work. It would then be up to the home owner to claim these expenses back from the supplier or manufacturer, but as everyone should realize, these organizations would not pay up without a legal fight, so nothing will ever come from that due to the high cost of litigation. The old law of Transvaal still rules supreme 🥴

Not to be that guy but 40k seems a bit high when you can get a new one fo 46.

Thanks Denns for the suggestion and the pics, much appreciated!

0.5C is good for extended battery life, as @TaliaB and @Scorp007 confirmed - just be aware that the manufacturer's warranty also state "@ 25 degrees Celsius"...
Inverters generate a lot of heat, and batteries also heat up when charging. It was mentioned earlier in this thread by @Denns that the "inverter room" being quite small, and with an IBR (metal) roof with no ceiling could become hot. The response from @jdido87 did confirm that insulation would be installed, and that this would (obviously) keep external heat out... but the same insulation would tend to keep internal heat in... Just something else to keep in mind...

Just to add some info on the great replies around busbars. ACDC stock a great range of insulators to mount the copper busbars.

It's very useful for avoiding shorting them out by mistakenly dropping a conductive item on them. So still would have had them installed as he recommended.

Providing the charger have a current limiting curcuit, that is not always the case with cheap Chinese chargers. I have previously used a switch mode supply rated for 20 amps to charge a 12v 100ah Lfp battery it lasted less than 30 minutes.

True. I bought 2 x 1000W trolleys for my Mom for backup 2 years ago. First thing I did was remove the Gel batteries and replace them with 8 x Lithium cells each (200Ah). Both running on cheap Daly BMS.

Not true at all. A LA charger can charge lithium batteries. There is a whole thread with hundreds of comments on MBB with people replacing their LA batteries with Lithium with no issues.
as long as the Float is not significantly higher than the resting voltage of the lithium battery it will charge it just fine.
The story of La chargers not working on Lithium is a myth and has been disproven time and time again.

Not true at all. A LA charger can charge lithium batteries. There is a whole thread with hundreds of comments on MBB with people replacing their LA batteries with Lithium with no issues.
as long as the Float is not significantly higher than the resting voltage of the lithium battery it will charge it just fine.
The story of La chargers not working on Lithium is a myth and has been disproven time and time again.

Individual enclosures for dc busbars are not legally required. Even a very small gap is sufficient to stop quite a bit of voltage. IPC-2221B would specify 0.6mm for 48V for an exposed gap on a PCB.
Breakdown voltage of an air gap is much higher than that 48V will hardly start an arc over any non-microscopic gap.
High DC voltages are a different story. A single enclosure for 48v dc battery systems would be in order. See airgap on Sunsynk inverter battery terminals.
Have a look at Voltex they have various busbar in enclosures available but be prepared they are expensive. If possible make your own busbar box.