Scubadude

So let me get this straight ... in order to avoid low yield on relatively few bad solar days, add more panels which will compromise yield on the majority of good solar days? For a grid tied system. Makes very little sense other than for bragging rights.

D-day! Signs of life ... Inverter on DC power. System is functional but not yet tied in with the grid Batteries connected up and working as it should Minutes after go-live ... miserable day to be cutting the ribbon on a solar system, but even with a paltry 600W coming off the roof it is powering the house in Saturday afternoon mode and putting a bit into the batteries. Lesson learned today: installers do not necessarily know how to properly configure the inverter. Need to read some manuals and watch some youtube videos. Solarman Smart app ... I had the normal one installed but like this interface better. A full 1.5kWh produced today! 2nd lesson for the day ... after paying for a solar system whatever is generated feels like free electricity! First usage data - I installed the app after production stopped. Hope to see lots of blue tomorrow! Some nice generation and consumption metrics. Will be watching these with a hawk's eye in the coming days and weeks. Tomorrow I'm starting the snag list and will test what is connected where - that is the one thing I did not check during the installation. Also on the agenda tomorrow is to optimise the inverter settings as best I can.

CT coil wrong way around? Swop black and white wires and see what it does.

I'm sorry but I don't get the obsession with maxing out on panels. We average 30 units per day in summer, 40 in winter. Slapping on more panels will give next to zero benefit.

I seem to recall the main DB may not be closer than 1m from a water point. This is not the main DB and not a water point. So I think we'll be OK. Will check with the electrician when he comes for the COC.

OK, as I posted elsewhere I was looking out for a Black Friday deal for a "8kW System" - hate that way of thinking because I don't believe 8kWp PV, 8kW inverter and 8kWh storage is a balanced system for most users - almost certainly it will be way heavy on panels and light on storage, resulting in lots of unused energy. I got lucky with a super deal, fully installed with COC essentially for a little less than I could buy the main components in the retail market. In the end, my selected equipment reads like this: 14 x Canadian Solar CS3W-455MS HiKu Super High Power Mono PERC modules - that is 6.37kWp but with my roof angle of 7° I will start with a 8 or 10% drop off the bat 8kW Deye SUN-8K-SG01LP1 -US/EU Inverter 2x Shoto SDA10-48100 5.12kWh LiFePO4 batteries for 10.24kWh of storage. I think I'm still panel-heavy and storage-light but I do believe it is better balanced than a typical "8kW system". And a third battery is only a card swipe away... My installation started on Thursday, and will only be completed later today (Saturday), but here are some early pics: Before, looking true north. Stoep roof slopes 7° to north. Pool heater tubes more or less where the panels will go. Before, looking west. Notice palms that can only be touched at risk of permanent solitary confinement. Will keep them trimmed. Pool heater is history Mounting structure installed, panels being laid down First panels being installed. Finicky work this. All treehugger ... solar geyser framed by solar panels Most panels up - looks better than the pool heater tubes! All panels installed - looking west Another one looking east - roof looking tatty and needs some paint. Nice winter project coming up. All panels in looking east Surprise! The laundry room where the inverter will go has drywall cladding over face brick. To offset the inverter to an effective flush mount required some nifty brackets. Mecano courtesy of Builders. Only minor mods required. The loose end was tack welded after the pic was taken. Cutout for inverter done, brackets fitted. End day 1. Lesson for the day: Get your roof checked by a professional contractor before starting. The guys fastened some of the loose sheets but a coat of paint beforehand would have been ideal. Inverter, AC breakers (left), DC breakers (right), fusebox (below) and batteries installed. Should have been mounted 200-300mm higher to clear the counter top I want to install - will have to make a cutout for the fuse box. Inverter and associated hardware End day 2. Batteries comms tested. Unseen work was to connect the PV strings and bring the DC cable to the other side of the house, which required roof sheets to be lifted. Lesson for the day: do not attempt DIY for a project of this size if it is your first one - bound to cost more in time (and posisbly real money) when done. So on to final wiring and commisioning today!

Will this work with brand engineered Sunsynks like Deye and Fusion as well? If not I'm tempted to go Solar Assistant to be able to make remote changes (like charging up the battery with mains when loadshedding is announced).

Lesson I learnt today ... do not assume your roof is in good condition. I did ... and may live to regret it. Rather get a qualitfied contractor to check and prepare your roof before slapping on some panels.

The effect of the trees remains to be seen ... I dont think it is that severe. I added two panels more than needed to somewhat offset the shading effect. For now I'll keep the trees where they are and keep them trimmed. I dont follow your logic to max out on panels without knowing my usage and storage - 18 would be way too much. If I wanted to burn more cash I'd go for a 3rd 5.1kWh battery instead of generating more unused electricity. Also clearly you never had the misfortune of experiencing the total lack of compatibility between palm trees and pool cleaners.

Thanks @P1000

* Suppose I should have added the panels are Canadian CS3W-455MS 455W.

Hi all, I'm getting an 8kW Sunsynk system installed today. The attached pic shows my roof looking true north. Roof has 7° slope to the north - not much but enough to not warrant lifting the panels. The pool heater is going. There are 3 tall palm trees - two to the left and one to the right. The question I have I about how to group the panels in strings. Obviously the left (as we look) will catch more morning sun, and the right more afternoon sun as the palm shade moves over the array. There is also the parrapit that will cast afternoon shade over panel 9. My thinkning is to group it as follows: - String 1: 1 & 2 - String 2: 8 & 14 - String 3: 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 - String 4: 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 ... and then put strings 1&4 on one MPPT and 2&3 on the other. Sort of one morning and one afternoon string totalling 7 panels per MPPT. Is this a workable solution to balance the workload between the MPPTs? Are there other considerations I need to bear in mind? Thanks!

Quick question ... Must batteries in a solar system be identical? Or is it good enough to have the same type and capacity? Why I'm asking ... If I install a Shoto 5.12kWh battery today and want to add another a year or two from now, the charge and discharge characteristics will be similar rather than identical to a battery that's done 1000 cycles. Or not?

That is great news as my installer only uses Deye and me a really great deal, so Sunsynk not presently an option. Also makes my decision of Wifi donlge/Solarman vs RS232-to-USB/Raspberry Pi/ SolarAssistant so much easier. I have an unused Pi 3 which will cope fine wirg running SolarAssistant. Any RSR232-USB cable can work, right? Initially I'll run Solarman on the supplied Wifi dongle, but longer term I'll definitely go the SolarAssistenat route. Planning to run a 10m cable to put the Pi where it is within easy reach of Wifi. Or maybe just run an ethernet cable?

OK, getting close to signing on the dotted line. Inverter is Deye ... From first impressions the remote monitoring is not as slick as Sunsynk. Am I right to say the various stick data loggers (WiFi / LAN / GPRS) are optional, not standard? And also there is no Deye specific monitoring platform or app? So what are the options?

I dont have domestic experience but what I have learnt with a 500kWp industrial installation this year you would be lucky to achieve half of that in the real world.

Been wondering about that ... Does all the panels in a string have to have the same orientation. If so 2 x 5kW may just serve my needs better as I want to have some east and west facing panels to grab early and late light.

Not NoDist, no. The company is Ecoblu Turnkey Solutions ... they seem to have a reasonable presence on Facebook but cannot find any ratings or review there or on Google or Hello Peter. Anyone have any experience with them, whether good or bad?

Alright, a little misleading ... I dont have BF specials, I'm looking for one. Think I narrowed down my requirement to +/- 6kWp of mono-crystaline PV panels, 8 kVA Sunsynk / Deye / Fusion inverter and 8-10 kWh of LiFePO4. R100k fully installed Pretoria East would be too much to ask for, but if anyone sees anything along these lined pop up in the next week please let me know. Thanks! Francois

Half-price batteries sound interesting! What did you get and how does it integrate with the rest of your system?

My rough sum was R19000 for a 3kWh battery, 80% DOD and 3000 cycles (half of the claimed 6000 cycles as real world never matches theoretical calculations or similated conditions in a lab) for a conservative R 2.64/kWh without taking time value of money into consideration. I am on prepaid and currently pay between R2.24 and 2.69 per kWh, so lets call it parity for now, but there is no great saving in trying to bump battery capacity to save the last R 2.24 kWh. Not yet, but Eskom increases and battery decreases will get us there soon. Most articles I read point to a sharp drop in storage prices in the next 2 to 3 years. Where my thinking is now is to install a 5kW hybrid inverter with just enough gel battery capacity to bridge essential use on a 4 hour loadshedding stint at night (already an overkill as we normally have 2 hours). For this calc essential is lighting, security and low draw pugs only; no geyser, stove or kitchen appliances, not even the fridge. When the battery clutches out in a 2 or 3 years I'll replace it with better tech at lower than current prices. Good iead, bad idea?

Hi all! While debating the optimal storage capacity of a hybrid PV storage installation with my brother-in-law I made a quick sum and, from what I can see, even the most cost effective batteries cost more than Eskom power per kWh (at least for now). If this is true storage capacity should only cover night-time loadshedding for essential appliances. Has anyone done a comparison like this one based on locally available batteries and pricing? [URL]https://www.fortresspower.com/how-to-calculate-the-energy-cost-of-different-battery-chemistries/[/URL]

That is very close to the setup I envisage (maybe I'll just drop to 5kW as I recently installed a solar geyser). If you dont mind me asking ... who did the install and what was the damage?