DieDusman

A very good month so far

So after reading through WannabeSolarSparky's thread about his self induced load shedding and the one post where he mentioned that he uses less power on the days that he has load shedding, it got me thinking. I have small spikes during the day on my grid power graph: Zoomed in: Will I be better off switching off the mains during the day? Is there a way to prevent this on the Deye? Thanks G

I'm like a kid in a sweet shop. The new equipment has been installed and immediately I can see an improvement on the solar efficiency with the Deye inverter over the old Growatt. I have been waiting for a sunny day to get an idea of my full yield, but seems like I'm out of luck this week. Still happy with the performance. One thing that I note is that I will need to install more PV panels and another battery... Something I knew before embarking on this upgrade. Some installation pics: I have set the DoD to 70% as I don't want to sit without power when load shedding hits. Yesterday: Today: Not too bad, considering the total PV capacity is 1980W. One thing with the Deye, the monitoring is absolutely horses arse. I got the Solman Smart account, but the latency is too high for my liking and the app crashes frequently. So I ordered my Pi with the Solar Assistant today. Seems like you can do much more with it and have almost real time info. Laters DieDusman

Thanks. I think I'll be okay, I'm adding 2 more 330W panels on the 1st MPPT.

In February 2020, I had a typical "load shedding beater" system installed, as I work from home and need a constant power supply and a steady internet connection. It consisted of the following: 1 x 24V Growatt 3kVA Inverter 2 x 200Ah lead acid batteries 3 x 330 Canadian Solar Panels 1 x Geyser plate with a Geyserwise control panel. The system was installed by a company that should most definitely be added on the no-go list and there were a lot of teething issues. Everything ran from the inverter, except my kitchen plugs, jacuzzi and the geyser. In December 2020 I added a 4th 330W panel, just to carry me through the day, should there be load shedding. Inverter and batteries. DBs with no blanking plates... Sies! My 4 panels. Geyser plate. This system served me well, until I discovered this forum... sigh. Watching all of you post about your nice batteries, inverters, monitoring, etc. got me all depressed. So I decided to jump into the endless money pit called solar energy, or whatever your flavour is. Since the 24V Growatt is not really upgradeable, I needed to get a new inverter. New inverter means new batteries and before I realised it, my wish list was worth more than my car. Here goes. Version 1.0 of the upgrade: Tomorrow is the day. I am replacing the Growatt with a 8kW Deye inverter, with 2 x Pylontech US3000C batteries. I will also be adding two more 330W panels to fill the current frame, mounted on the roof. I realise that I will be light on batteries and solar generation, but that will have to wait for upgrade version 1.1 or 2.0 or maybe 3.0. I bought a secondhand 19" server cabinet, where my batteries will live. It has space for 4/5 batteries, so it's futureproof. While I was at it, I moved my fibre router, PoE's and media laptop into the top cabinet. (the wiring is still a mess). The nice thing about the enclosure is that it already has fans to keep the batteries cool: I will post more pictures after the upgrade tomorrow, or as the installer goes along... Part of V2.0 will be to add an array of 450W panels for the 2nd MPPT, as I still have plenty of roof space available: That is me for now. DieDusman out

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your system. Yeah, another battery will be a great addition.

Very neat install. Looks great!

@Leshen, just curious about the reaction on the thread? If it is because of the Victron comment, then I understand 😅 I'm in the market for a unit as advertised, am I missing something? If there is a warranty, I don't see an issue... @Dean, is the 5 year warranty offered by Sunsynk?

This. And if you look at the office address, it is one of those "rent and desk and chair" places. Steer clear.

I currently have a grid tied system, comprising of a 3kVA (24V) Growatt inverter, 4 x 330W Canadian PVs and 2 x 200Ah SLA batteries. It is fine for carrying most of the load, with the kitchen and geyser not being fed from the inverter. The time has come for me to upgrade since the electricity prices are increasing and the ability of Eskom to supply it, is decreasing. So firstly, I know the 3kVA Growatt inverter cannot be daisy chained, so I'll need a new inverter and I'm definitely looking at some LiFePO4 batteries. Power usage: At night, the load is hovering around 350W to 400W, while during the day it's around 500W to 700W. This is excluding the kettle and the geyser (which has it's own panel to heat the water, with one of those geyserwise controllers). Requirements: I would like to be as close to off the grid as possible. I have a gas oven and stove, solar geyser and the load draw is not that high. Questions: Can I still use the 3kVA Growatt inverter, or is it better to rip it out and try and sell it? 🤷‍♂️ I've read quite a few opinions on this forum on the debate of Growatt VS Sunsynk. I'm happy with the Growatt I currently have, is the Sunsynk really worth the few extra thousand Rands? In terms of batteries, I'm thinking of using 3 x Dyness 3.5kW batteries, but I've also read great reviews on the Hubble batteries? Which is better? Lastly, the PVs... Can I use the existing 4 x 330W panels in conjunction with let's say 8 x 550W panels? Thanks in advance.

Problem is, the inverter refuses to carry any load for more than a second without the mains (was not always the case). When I view the data, it shows that the output is something like 1.6V @ 50hz

Hi Plonkster, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I am trying to gather as much info as possible so that the installer cannot bull schei$$e me Anyway, did the test with the multimeter. It read 26.2V and almost immediately fell to 25.7V when I removed the mains, which is still well within the operating range. I suspect the inverter is faulty. Luckily it is still under warranty, as it was only installed in Feb 2020. Ideally I would like to get someone to do a basic survey at my place to see what needs to be done in terms of correctly installing the system. I know my DB is not done to COC standards, I have heard that my three panels might be wired incorrectly, etc. The problem is, nowadays everyone is a solar expert, but very few really understand the ins and outs. Ask me something about Azure or Active Directory, don't ask me something about PVs

My settings: 01 SbU 02 50A 03 APL 04 SdS 05 USE 06 LTE 07 tfd 08 230V 09 50hz 10 2 11 20A 12 23.0V 13 27.0V 14 CSO 15 BOF 16 LOF 17 AOF 18 bYE 19 28.2v 20 27.0v 21 21.0v 22 SbE 24 NEC dlS

Long story short, I have a 3kW Growatt Inverter, 2 x 200AH Lead Acid Gel batteries and 3 x 330W Canadian solar panels. The people who installed my system did not quite know what they were doing and this became evident when they procduced a COC without any labels or blanking plates on the DB boards. The settings on the inverter were mostly left defualt and I familirised myself with the various options. About 2 months in, I started to have issues where the inverter would switch between the utility power and battery every few minutes (only at night when the solar was not carrying the load), with the lights in the house flickering every time. I changed the 3rd option from APL to UPS to see if it makes a difference, but alas, it didn't. Every time it switched over, my pc would reboot, until I got fed up and got a seperate UPS for it. So last week I noticed that my solar charge during the day is hovering around 80W, down from the usual 500W+. Then load shedding started... Guess what, my power only lasts about 5 secs before the inverter shows 0V output, with the battery still at 26.0 V. Any ideas? Anyone willing to hazard a guess as to where I can start to poke? The supplier of the system has been promising to send soemone to check for the past two weeks, but I am not in the mood to be left in the dark until then. TIA. Screenshots of a normal day with the frequent switching, then another when it all went fubar.

I've recently had the following system installed at my house: 3kW Growatt Inverter 3 x 330W Canadian Solar Panels 2 x 200Ah 12V batteries (Champion 6FM200G) I'm not 100% convinced that the installers configured everything correctly and here is my thinking: Even when the system shows that the batteries are full, it will still use grid power (City Electric Bypass) and use the solar to "charge" the full batteries. It will do this even when the solar generates more than enough (550W) power to carry the load from the house (230W). Where does one get firmware updates for the Growatt? Might it be a simple firmware issue? I have switched the main incoming breaker from Eskom off and back on again, then the system functions as expected, using solar to carry the load and charge the batteries. This works fine until about 2am, when the batteries are low on power and require the Eskom power again to charge them up. As far as I know the battery setting should be set to "user" and then the charging voltage and floating point values will be used. Currently my battery type is set to the default. Anyway, that is my understanding. Anyone with experience on the Growatt systems?