FixAMess

I am not familiar with your inverter at all, so please consider this when reading the below. I think you are referring to allowing pass-through current from the grid+inverter power. However, it sounds to me like your wiring setup is not allowing current to get to the inverter to allow pass-through current. What is the "max allowed from grid" on the inverter?

Its always nice to say "mine is bigger than yours", BUT... You said your consumption from the FARM HOUSE averages out at 25kWh/day and the heavy equipment runs off a generator. So what is your plan with the 7200W panels, lets say in winter you'll get minimum 4 X 7200 = 28 800kWh and in summer minimum 5 times 7200 = 36kWh (figures based on JHB, not sure if Upington, ( 8 SAI if you know, you know) , will get more than that)..The 4 and 5 multiplies are based on forum averages, a good indicator. In effect, if you don't plan to use that "extra" power and you're not feeding back into the grid, its wasted... You have over-speced your setup. Your other option is to go with a 5kW, 6000W panels and an extra battery...What is more important to you, backup power (battery) or plenty power during the day?? Decision time!

Hi, How many cycles, state of health?

Is that not what its supposed to do? My pylontechs have the same feature, most BMS's do.... So why is this special or are you just impressed? The entire solar system impresses me, its magical! Sun, battery, escom all combined, constantly juggling from the different sources, beautiful to watch.

Just a quick FYI.... I had a goodwe that died after 3 months usage. It was replaced with new after about 2 weeks. I learnt a valuable lesson. When you buy from xxx.co.za, they are the 3rd or even 4th vendor in the SA side, supply chain. I bought my unit from X, but the repair was logged against Y....Only after intervening and much discussion with a really helpful lady at Segen was my problem.solved. Your installer has to argue with many people in the supply chain to fix the problem, it's a full time job handling the supply chain issues on a return/repair. I can't complain with my Goodwe. A really boring item, it just works. Simple to use and after 4 yrs it's still going! No screeching or high pitch fans. I believe there's a 6kW unit arriving in April, priced competitively vs the sunsync 5kW.

I need to test on my system and see what it does...Never tried pushing non essentials > 5kW with grid up...I've tested lights, microwave, fridges, kettle all at once and it came to < 5kW....I'll add a hairdryer, and see what happens.

Just reading through my own replies I'm confused as well! 😂 There are many concepts to understand as well as the grid up, grid down scenarios!

The non essential side sits before the inverter (from grid) and after the current meter, so strictly speaking, no non essential power goes through the inverter when the grid is down. When the grid is up, you can feed the entire house up to the 5/8 kW rating of the inverter, but it should not trip if you draw power on the essential side > 5kW, since the inverter will blend power from the grid and pv..On the non essential side, when escom up, you have pass through current , which allows > 5kW to non essential (up to 32A, ??? I think, sunsync) . When escom down, you will only have the 5/8kW available on the essential side, which is what you've stated.

The C rating only becomes an issue when you don't have many batteries. E.g , I have 4xus3000 pylons, max discharge is 37x4 A..I usually max out st 80 Amps, odd.. And remember, compare C rating of charge vs discharge. Do they charge at 1C as well? Most do not, usually C/2 + thereabouts, so even if you discharge at 1C, you can only charge at c/2, so your 1C battery will not fully charge in the time between loafshedding , sun,rain,cloud. So you end up buying another battery and so we go...The primary battery consideration is duration of use, 6hrs of load minimum, for loadshedding, not drain as quickly as possible.

Hi, you are correct in being overwhelmed with all the info out there and what is the "correct" battery and Inverter. The flavour of the day is definitely sunsync and in all honesty, it is a good choice, 1 of many, for the average home. 8kW is a lot for a home bt everybody seems to insist that 8kW is the way to go. Consider this; the 8kW is what the inverter can take from the sun/panels (DC) and convert to AC. You will only get the full 8kW at noon (if your panels face N) and you have approximately 10kW of panels. You will get a bell curve of solar production from 6am to 6pm (location dependent) in summer, starting from zero and increasing, then decreasing. To provide 8kW of power from batteries you will need at least a 10kW battery bank (and that will only last you an hour or so)..Rule of thumb, in winter you will get production of 4*installed solar capacity and in summer 5+...E.g You have 6kW panels, in summer you'll get 30+ kWh of power/day, in winter 20kwh/day, again depends where you are and the angle of your panels to the sun. The point is 8kW is a lot for a household, I have 5kW system and it does what is required with the panels and battery combination I have...The inverter capacity, PV panels kW, battery bank must all align to give your 8kW. If you don't plan to run your geyser, washing machine during load-shedding then 8kW is probably not required. One should consider the following when buying an inverter; (this is for the average guy, non technical and just wants a system that does the job with minimal fuss) 1) After sales support 2) Functionality (does it do what YOU require) 3) Ease of use 4) Talk natively to the battery The above is what the average person requires from an inverter. I'll bet that MOST users don't want anything more than an inverter that allows the following; 1) Blend PV, battery, Escom 2) Talk natively to their battery 3) Maybe configure the inverter to charge/discharge from battery at specific times 4) Configure inverter to provide PV to the entire house but NOT feed back to the grid. The sunsync/Deye does all this, but so does the Goodwe, Kodak etc...There are many out there that do a good job. The next issue is cost...Whatever you are prepared to pay will depend on the inverter you get. As for batteries which are the most expensive part of the entire setup, consider the below, and remember, once you have 1 battery, you will want more and you are pretty much locked into the same battery supplier if you don't want to make config changes to your system. E.g. Pylontechs are simple to augment. Batteries talk to each other, use the same cables, plug and play. Simple! To add a different battery to the pylontechs will require some work and they probably will not talk to each other so you will have issues with knowing exactly what your SOC/DoD is. Batteries; 1) Must be able to talk to the inverter natively. Look on the forum, its full of people trying to connect some obscure battery to their inverter. It becomes an issue of charge, discharge profiles, warranty issues,no support etc...What a mess! 2) Must have a good BMS (difficult to tell unfortunately) 3) Must have after sales support (and we are starting to see the issues with warranties now) Frankly, batteries are unfortunately not required to go through a thorough testing process, certification in SA before they can be sold, so there are a lot of "new" battery brands out there that seem inexpensive, and therefore very enticing to a cash strapped buyer. Pylontechs are well tested, seem reliable but are relatively expensive when considering the other brands, but you cant go wrong with pylontechs...Its a safe-to- buy battery. I'm sure you'll get many more views, many criticizing my above opinion, so yes, its a difficult choice..

Good question. I'm not sure if the Goodwe has a setting for Dyness like it does for pylontechs, but I think the bms should do its job and prevent over voltage. Even on.pylontechs, when I added a new battery it also had over voltage warnings, but after a few days it was ok..

There are many. Google Goodwe HV inverters. You can get a 5kW inverter with a 150V-400V battery..

I have a Goodwe. Does not hum, make a noise, interfere with wifi, hearing aids, TV, radio or my sleep.... Its so quiet, I go kick it once a day to make sure its alive!

I'm investigating importing 5/10 kWh batteries. Price should be compareable with most of what's available in the SA market. Reliable supplier, good quality (?? - always an issue). Usual stuff, 1C discharge, 0.5C charge , 90% DoD giving 6000+ cycles. What is interesting is the 1C/0,5C discharge/charge rating. Which other batteries stipulate this?

BUT, beware that if you are adding it to US2000/3000 A/B then you will need to upgrade the firmware of the older batteries so they can talk to each other. What old batteries are you using?

Hi, please elaborate.What don't you like about pylontech?

Not sure what the point of the above is.... In a grid-tied system, with zero feedback to the grid your system (Panels + Inverter) will only satisfy the load. The answer is "panels should cover the load" So what are you comparing? You should be asking yourself how much of my daily load is covered by the power generated. Even then, if your load is constant over the entire day, you will have periods of drawing from the grid to supplement your loads in the early morning and late afternoon.

See here.... https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/home-battery-testing-results/

The "C" thing should not be your primary criteria for buying a battery. It only becomes an issue when one only has a few batteries, and with current loadshedding having 1c vs c/2 is irrelevant. One needs batteries to last at least 6 hrs. With an 8kW inverter, you'd need at least 2x5kW batteries. So in effect you'd drain your battery in just over an hour at 1C. What about the other 4,5,6 hrs of loadshedding? Also, if you have split your db do you actually need 8kW of power on the non-essential loads?

I've got 4 US3000 pylontechs (3Xus3000A, 1 US3000B) and want to add a UP5000. As per the data sheets the inter-battery cables (NOT to inverter) for the US3000 is 18cm center to center of plugs VS the UP5000 20cm+ between plugs, so probably 24cmin total. So its up3000 cable lengths t(18cm) to UP5000 cable length 24cm. I believe its best practice to keep the inter-battery parallel cables the same lengths. In this case does it make much difference? Has anybody else connected US3000 to UP 5000 using the different length cables and have you noticed any issues with the difference in discharge/charge rates of the batteries?

Here is a diagram given to me by SYC. Shows how the extra pair of cables are attached .

I'll double up on the std pylontech cables..

I have 4XPylontech us3000 batteries. I want to add a pylontech U5000. Question 1) Will the full capacity of the UP5000 be available to me at 95% DoD vs the other batteries 90% DoD, is this going to cause problems? Question 2) Will the full 4500W available from the UP5000 be available or will it be limited by the 4 X 3250 of the other batteries? Question 3) Will I have to connect the 4x us3000 in parallel with the 1Xu5000 (4X us3000 to busbar, 1Xu5000 to same busbar)or just connect the 5 together in 1 string.

Thanks everyone, I found some at powerforum-store.co.za ... I decided to have a spare set of all fuses on hand.

I have a Jean Muller DC battery disconnect and I am looking for 125A spare fuses. It looks like you cannot buy the fuses but have to order the complete assembly? The powerforum store only sells to installers, now I have to find an installer to buy 2 fuses from! Beware from which suppliers you buy Solar equipment, they may not be suppling you with equipment that has spares that are easily available.