I finally think I know what I want. 
 

1.  8x 545W JA panels (Installed)

2. 5.1 kWh revov r100 or b100 (which ever is available)

3. 5kva sunsynk inverter

 

Now my question is can I export to non essentials without changing prepaid meter. I don’t want to export to grid but want to export excess solar to non-essential side. 

The reason for that is I want my pool/aircons/oven and geyser on the non-essential side but still use PV during the day to run it so I can save money. 

Thanks

On 2022/06/16 at 2:03 PM, BigC said:

IMHO this is a game changing feature. It means that you can power your geyser with excess PV energy, without placing it on the essential-load side of the inverter. Hence it will never draw power from your battery, or load the output of the inverter, and will draw the balance of energy required to heat the water from the grid.

I'm intrigued by this. Is this a programmable feature on the Sunsynk? My Goodwe can and does use excess PV to power the non-backed up circuits, but I can't control it. If the grid is up then it sends PV to every circuit on the property, if the grid is down then it sends PV only to the backed up circuits. It's a simple binary thing, no way of determining if there is excess PV (which I assume means SOC = 100%).

11 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

I'm intrigued by this. Is this a programmable feature on the Sunsynk? My Goodwe can and does use excess PV to power the non-backed up circuits, but I can't control it. If the grid is up then it sends PV to every circuit on the property, if the grid is down then it sends PV only to the backed up circuits. It's a simple binary thing, no way of determining if there is excess PV (which I assume means SOC = 100%).

I think it is the same as the goodwe, with the difference that you can limit it to load - the same as removing the CT. I don't think you can limit it to not use battery without also disabling it from using solar.

58 minutes ago, Eldred said:

Now my question is can I export to non essentials without changing prepaid meter. I don’t want to export to grid but want to export excess solar to non-essential side. 

Yes, your Sunsynk needs to have the CT installed just after the prepaid meter and then excess PV power can be sent to the non-essential side, which otherwise would only use the grid, not, though, obviously when the grid is down, the inverter cannot send power to this side/the non-essential side. The CT and settings on the inverter will disallow the power ending up on the municipal side of the prepaid meter...

 

Thank you for the response. 
 

Is it safe to have these systems in the house? My DB board is close to 30m from my garage.

35 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

Yes, your Sunsynk needs to have the CT installed just after the prepaid meter and then excess PV power can be sent to the non-essential side, which otherwise would only use the grid, not, though, obviously when the grid is down, the inverter cannot send power to this side/the non-essential side. The CT and settings on the inverter will disallow the power ending up on the municipal side of the prepaid meter...

Well so far this is sounding just like the Goodwe. My system does that automatically, but sometimes it's a minor curse. Overcast days, batteries not yet charged, load shedding due in an hour... Meanwhile the inverter is chucking PV at the pool pump.

Where I can control things is to switch stuff on in the afternoon after about 2pm, by which time the battery usually is charged, and let them have a free ride on PV. 

So with my system it needs timers or manual intervention.

Edited July 12, 20223 yr by Bobster.

1 hour ago, Bobster. said:

I'm intrigued by this. Is this a programmable feature on the Sunsynk? My Goodwe can and does use excess PV to power the non-backed up circuits, but I can't control it. If the grid is up then it sends PV to every circuit on the property, if the grid is down then it sends PV only to the backed up circuits. It's a simple binary thing, no way of determining if there is excess PV (which I assume means SOC = 100%).

Also intrigued.  Original quote mentioned you don't use battery power but with Goodwe and most hybrids you do use batter and solar for a large upstream load.

My geyser uses battery power during the day and when the water is hot the solar recharge the battery again.  Wish I could set it not to use battery power on non essential loads after say 3pm.

From the posts I thought the Sunsynk had a non essential side, essential connection and a third or extra connection.

1 hour ago, Eldred said:

I finally think I know what I want. 
 

1.  8x 545W JA panels (Installed)

2. 5.1 kWh revov r100 or b100 (which ever is available)

3. 5kva sunsynk inverter

 

Now my question is can I export to non essentials without changing prepaid meter. I don’t want to export to grid but want to export excess solar to non-essential side. 

The reason for that is I want my pool/aircons/oven and geyser on the non-essential side but still use PV during the day to run it so I can save money. 

Thanks

Yes you can, but only up to 5kW. The rest will come from the grid.

In your original post you mentioned 30kWh per day.  Those panels above is probably gonna give 20kWh per day in Gauteng.
30kWh then you are probably using 10-15kWh at night and a 5kWh battery is not going to last long.
You can set it to keep say 30% for loadshedding and use grid power the remainder of the night.

If I had to do this again I would probably get 2 x 5kW off grid inverters for a similar price to the 5kW hybrid and just put the whole house on solar system.
Would save a fair bit on rewiring the DB and spend that on additional solar panels.  Just need to keep the total load below 10kW with some load relays and timers.
Also need to balance the system with enough solar power and battery power otherwise it would switch to grid.

55 minutes ago, Eldred said:

Is it safe to have these systems in the house? My DB board is close to 30m from my garage.

Yes, mine is the fan variant of the 5kW, thus is quite noisy, when the heatsink hits 50-odd°C and mine is in the garage, since my solar panels are ground mounted, this was was the reason for the location of the inverter. Also keep in mind the battery needs to be in close proximity to the inverter, those cables will be more important, since at 50V-ish the current here is quite high and thus cable lengths need to be kept short...

Apparently the current 5kW model is fan-less, thus should be a lot quieter than mine...

55 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

Well so far this is sounding just like the Goodwe. My system does that automatically, but sometimes it's a minor curse. Overcast days, batteries not yet charged, load shedding due in an hour... Meanwhile the inverter is chucking PV at the pool pump.

on the Sunsynk, you'd decide whether you'd want to drain the battery to the non-essential side or not, but I'm not 100% clued up, since I have the house on the essential side (no electric hot water cylinder) and we schedule our bigger consumers so we rarely hit 4kW concurrent consumption. Use probably around 12 to 15kWh per day... I have become a total energy Nazi and was surprised to see 20W consumption on a 27" monitor in sleep mode, I need to double check this, but that sort of thing is unacceptable...

I don’t mind being limited by the 5kw on the non essential side and then pull rest from grid. My plan is not to be off grid. I want to save a few bucks a month and then have a solution for the loadshedding. I want to add a second battery in a years time. That will help to get me further into the night. The geyser will be on smart switch so I can run it during the day and top up from florid if needed. Battery will be for essential loads only. 

3 hours ago, Eldred said:

I finally think I know what I want. 
 

1.  8x 545W JA panels (Installed)

2. 5.1 kWh revov r100 or b100 (which ever is available)

3. 5kva sunsynk inverter

 

Good choice, I have sunsynk 5kw, 1x 5.5 hubble and 12 x JA 540.

you could always install another sunsynk 5kw inverter to take your total load to 10kw if needed in the future.

1 hour ago, Eldred said:

I don’t mind being limited by the 5kw on the non essential side and then pull rest from grid. My plan is not to be off grid. I want to save a few bucks a month and then have a solution for the loadshedding. I want to add a second battery in a years time. That will help to get me further into the night. The geyser will be on smart switch so I can run it during the day and top up from florid if needed. Battery will be for essential loads only. 

It is about striking a balance.  If your solar panels can produce say 4kW and the battery can deliver say 2.5kW you have a total of 6.5kW available but can only use 5kW.  Not a problem imho, your savings might be slightly less and your battery might last a bit longer with less load or cycling on it.

6 minutes ago, Pietpower said:

It is about striking a balance.  If your solar panels can produce say 4kW and the battery can deliver say 2.5kW you have a total of 6.5kW available but can only use 5kW.  Not a problem imho, your savings might be slightly less and your battery might last a bit longer with less load or cycling on it.

I do understand that and I would have liked a 8kva sunsynk. But they are a bit pricey. One of the issues I have with going the axpert route is battery communication and also not have so much control on saving your battery at a certain SOC for later use ie Loadshedding. 

27 minutes ago, Eldred said:

I do understand that and I would have liked a 8kva sunsynk. But they are a bit pricey. One of the issues I have with going the axpert route is battery communication and also not have so much control on saving your battery at a certain SOC for later use ie Loadshedding. 

From replies and setting you just need the CT between the inverter and the main supply coming from the prepaid. If the setting are right it will provide power to the non essential side. Look at the page where you LIMIT TO LOAD  and set a 20W to always draw from grid to prevent tripping the prepaid. What you want is how the SUNSYK work. Battery will be charged when load on non-essential side is lower than what you get from PV.

34 minutes ago, Eldred said:

I do understand that and I would have liked a 8kva sunsynk. But they are a bit pricey. One of the issues I have with going the axpert route is battery communication and also not have so much control on saving your battery at a certain SOC for later use ie Loadshedding. 

Yes the Mecer/Axpert monitor systems I have seen always looked like an after the fact add on and not proper.

2 hours ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

I have become a total energy Nazi and was surprised to see 20W consumption on a 27" monitor in sleep mode, I need to double check this, but that sort of thing is unacceptable...

I am not alone ❤️

HI @Eldred, just reading through your post and your requirements are very similar to mine. interested to get an update from your side if you finally decided and decided on your solution? i just pulled the trigger on a 5kw sunsynk with a single 5kwh bat and 12 x 400w panels. hoping it will satisfy my basic requirements which like you, is to reduce bill and back up for loadshedding. 

4 hours ago, ZCS said:

HI @Eldred, just reading through your post and your requirements are very similar to mine. interested to get an update from your side if you finally decided and decided on your solution? i just pulled the trigger on a 5kw sunsynk with a single 5kwh bat and 12 x 400w panels. hoping it will satisfy my basic requirements which like you, is to reduce bill and back up for loadshedding. 

Hi. 
I decided on the 5kw sunsynk, 5kwh revov and 8x 545W JA panels. 
Panels are installed but waiting on inverter. It was on back order. 

17 hours ago, Eldred said:

Hi. 
I decided on the 5kw sunsynk, 5kwh revov and 8x 545W JA panels. 
Panels are installed but waiting on inverter. It was on back order. 

thanks for the feedback and goodluck with the rest of the install. let us know once installed and how its working. interested to hear while awaiting my own installation. good luck.