Corné Posted March 30, 2022 Posted March 30, 2022 Hi Everyone I have been running a Victron system (4 x 370W panels, Multiplus II 3kVA, 150/35 MPPT, 2 x pylon 2000 and Venus GX) for more or less two years now. What a great experience. I find myself, now, again in a situation where I am in need of the collective advice of this forum as I would like to expand on my current system. Option 1: Additional Victron MPPT to cater for another 3000W odd of PV and the associated solar panels. Option 2: Solis grid-tie inverter to cater for another 3000W odd of PV and the associated solar panels. The MPPT will be more or less R10 000 model dependent, which incidentally is a little bit more than a 3.6 kw Solis. On the one hand I am considering option 1 since I am now familiar with such a setup. Install panels, connect MPPT to panels via combiner box, combiner box to battery, MPPT to Venus GX and Pylons. Same software platform. On the other hand, I am considering option 2 since in this instance the load will be spread amongst two inverters, hopefully bringing some redundancy to the party. No need for combiner box. With the two pylons my load shedding needs are pretty much covered. I now want to reduce my day time use of eskom. Currently I am basically using all the power generated during the day with not much left to charge the batteries. Should additional PV come into play by either an additional MPPT or Solis, batteries will be used as they were designed to be. Currently they don't discharge more than 60% otherwise they cannot be recharged in a single day. Thank you in advance. Quote
P1000 Posted March 31, 2022 Posted March 31, 2022 Personally I would go the Solis route. It is more efficient, and will greatly increase the capacity of your system while grid-connected. Energy-Jason 1 Quote
GreenFields Posted March 31, 2022 Posted March 31, 2022 Layman's 2c. Would it make sense to add one more 370W panel to the MPPT, on the assumption that it's a 48V battery, for which the MPPT is rated at 2000W. There's no inverter or MPPT cost involved in making optimum use of your current setup (just a thought, to be checked professionally for feasibility). Other Question is whether the 3kW of additional panel capacity is not overkill if you are already meeting your daytime consumption, unless you're planning with more batteries. That amount of power is enough to cycle through your batteries thrice a day on average, ie. you're basically tripling your current installed capacity. Maybe a 1-1.5kW Solis will do, at which point thoughts of an ESS could come into play, which is not not possible on the 3kw Solis with your 3kVA Multi. Again, just thinking out loud, might not be what you want or need, or might not even be possible, so definitely needs a professional opinion. Quote
P1000 Posted March 31, 2022 Posted March 31, 2022 9 minutes ago, GreenFields said: Layman's 2c. Would it make sense to add one more 370W panel to the MPPT, on the assumption that it's a 48V battery, for which the MPPT is rated at 2000W. There's no inverter or MPPT cost involved in making optimum use of your current setup (just a thought, to be checked professionally for feasibility). I don't think there is a feasible arrangement to put 5 of those panels on that MPPT. Quote
Scorp007 Posted April 2, 2022 Posted April 2, 2022 On 2022/03/30 at 10:03 PM, Corné said: Hi Everyone Option 1: Additional Victron MPPT to cater for another 3000W odd of PV and the associated solar panels. Option 2: Solis grid-tie inverter to cater for another 3000W odd of PV and the associated solar panels. The MPPT will be more or less R10 000 model dependent, which incidentally is a little bit more than a 3.6 kw Solis. On the other hand, I am considering option 2 since in this instance the load will be spread amongst two inverters, hopefully bringing some redundancy to the party. No need for combiner box. Thank you in advance. Bear in mind the Solis 3.6kw is a grid tied only(no battery). It generates as much power as the PV input. It never supplies a load directly as what is generated is in parallel with the main incoming supply. You will thus not have dual redundancy. Quote
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