Evening all, 

End user here, seeking some clarity on my recent installation. 5KVA Sunsynk Inverter, 1 Greenrich 5000 battery, 6x 555W panels. System is split into essential and non essential loads, with geyser and stove being on the non essential side. As i understand, the inverter can direct excess PV power to non essential loads when Eskom is on and the essential loads arent drawing all the available PV power. Im a fairly light user, during the morning the washing is done, and the kettle gets boiled for coffee, for the better part of the afternoon, the PV powers the house hold, which is around 200-400w. Like today, PV system has generated up to 2800w while busy with loads, and for the rest of the afternoon its basically powering nothing apart from the essential loads. My installer mentioned the CT clamp is below the inverter, and from what i have read, it needs to be closer to the DB, where the feed into the house is coming from the grid. As per the diagram in the manual. 

In my mind, and correct me if im wrong, if my house is using 400W, and my PV can generate 2800w during that point in time, if i were to switch on my geyser, the inverter should direct that potential PV to the geyser. However when i did that today, nothing changed, house was still pulling 400ish watts. Nothing changed on the grid, pv or battery display. 

CT reading below is zero, not matter what settings in the system mode, currently have Zero Export and Priority Load ticked. With trickle feed set to 20w with inverter power limiter set to 0. 

Flow diagram - nothing changes in terms of pushing back to the non essential load, can change settings till i'm blue in my face... Basically want to know if my logic of how the power should be used is correct, or completely off. Like i mentioned, i believe the CT clamp is in the wrong postioin, installer telling me its right and i shouldnt believe whats on the SS Facebook group or what i have read here on the PF. Before i go move the geyser to essential, with a timer to manage my load, which i dont want to do if it can be doing with it on non essential. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

CT should be between municipal meter and the main dB as grid power enters the building. So moving it and installing correctly should fix it. 

Edited February 21, 20233 yr by abd7

56 minutes ago, Wareagle said:

Evening all, 

End user here, seeking some clarity on my recent installation. 5KVA Sunsynk Inverter, 1 Greenrich 5000 battery, 6x 555W panels. System is split into essential and non essential loads, with geyser and stove being on the non essential side. As i understand, the inverter can direct excess PV power to non essential loads when Eskom is on and the essential loads arent drawing all the available PV power. Im a fairly light user, during the morning the washing is done, and the kettle gets boiled for coffee, for the better part of the afternoon, the PV powers the house hold, which is around 200-400w. Like today, PV system has generated up to 2800w while busy with loads, and for the rest of the afternoon its basically powering nothing apart from the essential loads. My installer mentioned the CT clamp is below the inverter, and from what i have read, it needs to be closer to the DB, where the feed into the house is coming from the grid. As per the diagram in the manual. 

In my mind, and correct me if im wrong, if my house is using 400W, and my PV can generate 2800w during that point in time, if i were to switch on my geyser, the inverter should direct that potential PV to the geyser. However when i did that today, nothing changed, house was still pulling 400ish watts. Nothing changed on the grid, pv or battery display. 

CT reading below is zero, not matter what settings in the system mode, currently have Zero Export and Priority Load ticked. With trickle feed set to 20w with inverter power limiter set to 0. 

Flow diagram - nothing changes in terms of pushing back to the non essential load, can change settings till i'm blue in my face... Basically want to know if my logic of how the power should be used is correct, or completely off. Like i mentioned, i believe the CT clamp is in the wrong postioin, installer telling me its right and i shouldnt believe whats on the SS Facebook group or what i have read here on the PF. Before i go move the geyser to essential, with a timer to manage my load, which i dont want to do if it can be doing with it on non essential. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

The CT must be placed around the main live wire before the main breaker on the main DB. 

Be sure in the work mode settings that you do not tick 'limit to load' and then ensure the CT coil is positioned as per the manual.

Another installed with no experience of the grid tied portion. Most if not all of these inverters need the CT as indicated between the munic and main incomer of the DB. 

Thanks for the replies. Is my logic correct that the system should read the load when the geyser is switched on, and if enough PV and Eskom available it will push back to non essential loads? In this case, only the geyser? This wasnt a fly by night installer who installed the system. For the better part it works, we didnt have power for 2 days, and it got me through. So for that part, it works, its just this whole push back to non essential and CT clamp that is annoying me, since i know im not getting the most out of the PV system in the afternoon when the load on the house is low. 

21 minutes ago, Wareagle said:

Thanks for the replies. Is my logic correct that the system should read the load when the geyser is switched on, and if enough PV and Eskom available it will push back to non essential loads? In this case, only the geyser? This wasnt a fly by night installer who installed the system. For the better part it works, we didnt have power for 2 days, and it got me through. So for that part, it works, its just this whole push back to non essential and CT clamp that is annoying me, since i know im not getting the most out of the PV system in the afternoon when the load on the house is low. 

Yes that’s correct

Thanks for the feedback. Installer doesnt have time for this, so can anyone reccommend a certified installer to check out my system? 

So just out of curiosity, i went to have a peak at my system, no CT clamp installed... 🤬

22 hours ago, Wareagle said:

Thanks for the feedback. Installer doesnt have time for this, so can anyone reccommend a certified installer to check out my system? 

Checkout https://www.sunsynk.org/approvedinstallers and look at the master installers. 

 

1 minute ago, abd7 said:

Checkout https://www.sunsynk.org/approvedinstallers and look at the master installers. 

 

Thank you. 

If you in jhb you have @Steve87and @Leshen who would both be perfectly capable of fixing the issues 

Yeah im based in the Westrand. The installer is coming through tomorrow. If he doesnt fix it, ill contact them. Still holding onto the balance, so if i need to pay someone else to fix his @#$% up, so be it... 

Question would then be, where is the CT coil now? It would have come tucked in the box together with the inverter, a set that you paid for. Did the installer just walk away with your equipment, and how often does this little accidental oversight happen, and how many folks accept it like that, none the wiser?

That is a good question... Will find out tomorrow when i see the installer... 

CT clamp has been installed, once Eskom is back ill be able to test the system... Thanks for all the input on the matter. 

20 minutes ago, Wareagle said:

CT clamp has been installed, once Eskom is back ill be able to test the system... Thanks for all the input on the matter. 

Did you get the earth neutral bonding done aswell ? i see on your picture there is no wires connected to the ATS 240.

And theirs the spanner... 😵 Time to get someone else in here to inspect. All that was done was add the clamp. 

Edited February 24, 20233 yr by Wareagle

47 minutes ago, rob1 said:

Yep. Add clamp and set your inverter up as it should be to feed non essentials from excess load.

 

DO get the earth-neutral bond relay installed, but double check that the installer didn't do a permanent on-site bond as I've heard some do. Get a simple multimeter to test between earth and neutral when there's no Eskom to confirm whether you have floating earth (there will be an AC Voltage reading)... Alternatively one of those red transparent Ellies surge arrestors plugs will confirm with the earth pin LED on during an outage (it should not glow).

Solar export should not be ticked. That is for exporting to the grid afaik.

10 minutes ago, rob1 said:

Nope, AFAIK with that unchecked it won't feed the non-essentials. With the CT coil in, it won't feed the grid if there's no demand on your end. Zero Export means no export to the grid.

This is I would say correct unlike the previous reply. 

This together with limit to load controls if the battery can be discharged into non essentials. 

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by Scorp007

1 hour ago, Nexuss said:

Solar export should not be ticked. That is for exporting to the grid afaik.

@Nexuss is correct.

The screenshot looks like an older firmware. Newer ones have the wording better laid out, but in short, from the user manual

For the original user, in order to have the inverter supply the non-essential items whilst Eskom is on, Zero export needs to be ticked, and Limit to load needs to be unticked. Solar export should only be ticked if surplus solar power should be exported to the grid. 

Even the manual description for priority load box is confusing. When priority load is ticked the order of priority for distribution of solar power is: First supply essential load (and non-essential if allowed). If additional solar power is available, use it to charge the batteries. Example - Panels are generating 1000W, essential load needs 500W, remaining 500W is pushed to batteries.

If you untick priority load, all solar power is first used to charge batteries until they reach the level configured under the timer. During this time, if the grid is on, any required load (essential and non-essential) will still be taken from the grid. Only when batteries have been charged to the level required in your timer settings, will solar power be used to supplement load requirement.

 

Edited February 27, 20233 yr by Elroc
Removed confusing screenshot. Correctly stated unticked vs ticked. Expanded explanation on priority load tick box.

So i have Zero Export and Priority load ticked, and the system works as it should be. Pushes back the excess PV onto the Non Essential load. Going to have the neutral earth bond done, @Leshen has been a great help so far... 

Another question from myside, would the CT coil placement be the same for a 13KVA 3phase setup? Or, does this look correct? Sorry if im going off topic. 

4 minutes ago, Wareagle said:

Another question from myside, would the CT coil placement be the same for a 13KVA 3phase setup? Or, does this look correct? Sorry if im going off topic. 

No thats not correct ,the ct coils should not be inside the inverter ,it should be on the main incoming power cables where it enters the building ,unless you have no non essential items .

So everything on the 13KVA is under essential. No non essential loads setup.