Gandalf

The easiest way to test if you can cope without Eksdom is to turn off the main feed to your house, either at the kiosk outside or on your main DB. If you don’t have to turn it on again for a year, you know you are fine.

You could be onto something here. I did see that setting, but left it on the factory default assuming it would be fine. I will try change the setting to see if there is a difference. I agree that 50% output seems a rather odd clipping, as if a setting is wrong.

Correct, 4S1P to MPPT 1. I haven't been able to get back to site to do these tests, but here is a screenshot from a few days ago with a 3.38Kw load and the panels giving "full' power at around midday. It was a sunny day. I will return as soon as possible to test each panel.

I was on site this Saturday and did a test. It was around 13:30 and the battery was at 81% SOC. I turned on a few items getting the load up to 5.1Kw. The solar maxed out at 1.3Kw (325W from each 615W panel). I checked the crimping of the MC4's and also checked if the DC breaker connections were tight. I tried different battery settings and user settings, but the solar production stayed the same. Looking at your previous post stating the NOCT output of this panel, factoring in the temperature of the panels at midday as well as losses over 30M of 6mm PV cable, maybe this is correct...

This has been my thinking for a few days now. Maybe the battery is telling the inverter via CAN-BUS to not charge any higher. I will be visiting the site tomorrow and plan to unplug the communication cable and set the battery to lead-acid to see what happens.

These NOCT specs of 463W along with temp losses are more consistent with what I am seeing. I think these panels are sub-par. I am not really worried about it because I didn't supply them. I was just curious as to why these fancy new panels produce the same power as my 6 year old 330W panels.

I totally agree with you and this is what I was expecting to see, but in this setup they peak at 300w per panel. I thin it might be something in the settings of the inverter. Sadly the settings are rather basic compared to the usual Sunsunk or Deye inverters I am used to.

Panels are on rails attached to roof hooks, roughly 65mm off the tile. I don't think there is any light falling on the rear of the panels. I have no idea about the bi-facial factor of the panel, I just fitted what the customer bought. I will find out more...

You make a good point about adding a heavy load to see how much power is drawn, I will try that this weekend. As for the panels themselves, the sticker says 615W and it is a big heavy panel, but the figures printed on the sticker could be an exaggeration. The funny thing is the IMP on the sticker is 13.46A, but I have never seen more than 7.08A being drawn. Once again this could be because of small loads not pulling enough juice from the panels. I will do some more tests and report back...

Sofar HYD 6K-EP inverter with CAN communication established. I suspect there may be clipping. Perhaps I should try remove communication and program the charge settings manually.

VOC was around 196V when I tested. A bit low for my liking, but this is what the customer supplied. I doubt it is a bad crimp on the MC4 because both sites are the same in terms of production, roughly 300W per panel.

Hi Guys I did two installations for a client over the December holidays, one for him and one for his mother. Both systems are using the same components: Sofar 6kw inverter, Amass 5Kwh battery and 4 x Jinko 615W bi-facial panels. Cust supplied all components, I just did the labour. While these panels don't face true north, they are probably only a few degrees off of true north and the roof pitch is around 28 to 32 degrees. On both of these systems the most those panels ever output is 1200w, nowhere near the 2460W they are rated for. I am well aware of losses in cable, heat of the panels etc, but these panels seem to only operate at around 50% of their rated power. Of all the many systems I have installed over the last 9 years, I've never seen any panel perform so badly. Has anyone else ever experienced this kind of under-performance with a bi-facial Jinko panel?

Just a suggestion,... why not add this battery to your existing house bank? Sadly with the price of new batteries right now you will not even get half of that R32K back.

Just for reference my 100a Microcare MPPT’s hover at around 70 degrees at midday. When I contacted Microcare in P.E. Their sales manger said to not worry about the heat, they are designed to run at those temperatures . Being the overly cautious, I added an external fan to try try cool things down. They have been running non-stop for the past 5 years.

Looking forward to see your findings. I have contemplated a similar solution, but never got around to try it. Subscribed!