Hi everyone, 

Looking for some advice might be a a stupid question but not sure what route to go. 

I have a Lux SNA5000 and one Dyness 5kw battery. I have a had a quote for 4 X 470 watt solar panels and it comes to a similar price of another battery. 

During a two hour load shed I use about 10% battery and a four hour load shed around 20% 

During load shedding if it gets much worse I want to be able to keep the house going. 

Would it be better to do another battery or solar panels? 

 

Thanks in advance Daniel 

My advice, get the panels, after the 1st March and apply for the tax break. Then it will be cheaper than another battery. 
 

And you will save on your electricity bill. 

I would say panels. Currently you will never get return on your investment. If the grid is off, how would you charge your battery? 

Solar! It gives a return on investment. It is insurance against long duration outages. It adds to power available during the day.

Inverter + battery does protect against shedding, but it doesn't save you anything. You use the same electricity, just draw some from the grid in advance and store it in the battery. 

PV changes that. You start saving, and if you have a long outage, whilst there is sunlight you will get power and can charge your battery or maintain it at 100%.

I agree with @chunks: wait for the new tax year.

It'll cost you more than just the price of the panels. You'll need isolators, wiring, channeling, lightning arrestors. But come next tax year you'll get a refund which you can offset against these extras. You may even find you can get a 5th panel. 

18 hours ago, Bobster. said:

Inverter + battery does protect against shedding, but it doesn't save you anything. You use the same electricity, just draw some from the grid in advance and store it in the battery. 

PV changes that. You start saving, and if you have a long outage, whilst there is sunlight you will get power and can charge your battery or maintain it at 100%.

I agree with @chunks: wait for the new tax year.

It'll cost you more than just the price of the panels. You'll need isolators, wiring, channeling, lightning arrestors. But come next tax year you'll get a refund which you can offset against these extras. You may even find you can get a 5th panel. 

Thanks Bobster, I have decided to go with the panels! How does it work when there is power from grid does the house run off the battery or does the battery simply stay at 100% and when the power goes off run off PV and battery? Don't really want the battery cycling up and down all day. Thanks again 

3 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

How does it work when there is power from grid does the house run off the battery or does the battery simply stay at 100% and when the power goes off run off PV and battery?

Am not familiar with your inverter, but in most cases the house will run off PV as much as is available. And it depends on your settings. But usually, if your load is less than your PV production, it will completely use PV and use neither grid nor battery. If your load is higher than PV, then it will either use grid or battery to supply the difference (depending on settings). When we have loadshedding, the inverter can obviously only supplement from battery

3 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

Don't really want the battery cycling up and down all day

Why not? In my view, that's what the battery is there for. Supplement a short-time shortfall of PV from battery rather than grid and later recharge the battery again with PV once load drops below PV again

On 2023/02/23 at 5:21 PM, danieltherubin said:

I have a had a quote for 4 X 470 watt solar panels

If I read the specs correctly, the start-up voltage of the MPPT in your inverter is 120V. You want to make sure that you are well above this with your panels - otherwise you will hardly get any PV production. Not sure what the exact specs of your panels are, but 4 panels will probably put you somewhere around 160V. Your MPPT can take up to 385V, so it might be better to rather make it 5-6 panels if possible