Hi guys,

So we quite literally just moved over to solar an hour ago! Exiting times. 😁

I am fairly new to Solar so apologies in advance for stupid questions. 

My main goal is to safe as much on electricity as possible. Our electricity bill has skyrocketed in the last month or two. 

I noticed on the Sunsynk app that the inverter is still drawing quite alot from the grid and only 48w from the battery. 

 

Should it not be the other way around? 

Regards,

Oelof

Congratulations. This is a very flexible inverter that can be set up to either run from grid or from battery at any time. Suggestion is to search a bit on the forum, check out the manual to get oriented, watch a Youtube video or two on the Time of Use function, maybe check this thread here - 

or otherwise if you're stuck, maybe give a full overview of your system, loads and desired behaviour, and maybe someone  can suggest options.

32 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Hi guys,

So we quite literally just moved over to solar an hour ago! Exiting times. 😁

I am fairly new to Solar so apologies in advance for stupid questions. 

My main goal is to safe as much on electricity as possible. Our electricity bill has skyrocketed in the last month or two. 

I noticed on the Sunsynk app that the inverter is still drawing quite alot from the grid and only 48w from the battery. 

 

Should it not be the other way around? 

Regards,

Oelof

Congratulations!

38 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Hi guys,

So we quite literally just moved over to solar an hour ago! Exiting times. 😁

I am fairly new to Solar so apologies in advance for stupid questions. 

My main goal is to safe as much on electricity as possible. Our electricity bill has skyrocketed in the last month or two. 

I noticed on the Sunsynk app that the inverter is still drawing quite alot from the grid and only 48w from the battery. 

 

Should it not be the other way around? 

Regards,

Oelof

Congrats on your new solar install

46 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Hi guys,

So we quite literally just moved over to solar an hour ago! Exiting times. 😁

Congrats 🥳

You did not say if you have had pv panels installed as looking at your pic pv is 0w so we can assume no pv or it's night time . 

The only way you going to safe is install pv as an inverter with no pv is just an load shedding solution .

 

Hi Gmac. That was night time. I have 10 555w jinkos installed. The question is why at night does the inverter us Eskom instead of battery power? 

17 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Hi Gmac. That was night time. I have 10 555w jinkos installed. The question is why at night does the inverter us Eskom instead of battery power? 

You have to enable work mode and configure to what levels the battery is allowed to be used for the specific time of day.

Congratulation @Oelof, welcome to the club.

OK, your screen shot shows time 18:51 and SOC (State Of Charge) at just 48%. The question I have is why is it using the battery at all? That's not for you, that's for whoever did the installation. 

What battery is it BTW?

When my system was installed, it was set to charge the batteries to 100% first, irrespective of anything. I was told this was necessary. So maybe the guy who did your install set things up that way. 

But it is almost certainly settings on your inverter. These can be changed, and part of switching over to solar is observing what the system does and tweaking the settings.

Edited July 23, 20233 yr by Bobster.

23 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Hi Gmac. That was night time. I have 10 555w jinkos installed. The question is why at night does the inverter us Eskom instead of battery power?

 

Okay nice 👏👏👏👏

Best is take pic of the work mode screen so we can see how the inverter is setup as it can be programed to use battery down to a set percentage in the evening before it then uses utility .

But don't think it should drain the battery down to 48% as that's not leaving much for load shedding or power failure.

 In SA today depending  on battery capacity  and average  load it's safe for some not less than 80% but best is maintaining  100% . So the only saving will be from solar through the day .

If or when load shedding is something of the passed then we can start benefiting from stored power but till that happens best is to maintain 100% soc for now 

16 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

Congratulation @Oelof, welcome to the club.

OK, your screen shot shows time 18:51 and SOC (State Of Charge) at just 48%. The question I have is why is it using the battery at all? That's not for you, that's for whoever did the installation. 

What battery is it BTW?

When my system was installed, it was set to charge the batteries to 100% first, irrespective of anything. I was told this was necessary. So maybe the guy who did your install set things up that way. 

But it is almost certainly settings on your inverter. These can be changed, and part of switching over to solar is observing what the system does and tweaking the settings.

Hi Bobster.

 

Thank you very much. This was right after the installation, batteries ship at about 50% full. It charged to 100% last night. 

 

How do I set the inverter to used my battery and not The grid?

4 minutes ago, GMAC said:

Okay nice 👏👏👏👏

Best is take pic of the work mode screen so we can see how the inverter is setup as it can be programed to use battery down to a set percentage in the evening before it then uses utility .

But don't think it should drain the battery down to 48% as that's not leaving much for load shedding or power failure.

 In SA today depending  on battery capacity  and average  load it's safe for some not less than 80% but best is maintaining  100% . So the only saving will be from solar through the day .

If or when load shedding is something of the passed then we can start benefiting from stored power but till that happens best is to maintain 100% soc for now 

Hi Gmac, 

I hear what your saying but I would like my system to use battery in the evening as well. The main goal is to save on Eskom the maximum possible. 

16 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Hi Gmac, 

I hear what your saying but I would like my system to use battery in the evening as well. The main goal is to save on Eskom the maximum possible. 

Congrats on a super inverter. Now the learning starts. Like it was indicated just read up a bit on the forum. 

I just returned from helping someone to charge and start their car which had a battery down to 5.8V. After charging for 45min all was well again. 

Saw the Luxpower in the garage and it was also set up as a UPS. Drawing 1.1kW from the grid. Battery fully charged and panels producing nothing. I order to show what could be save I switched of the grid. Even boiled the kettle and PV produced up to 2.1kW and seconds after kettle boiled the battery was back at 100%.It did drop to 98% while boiling. The house was using 500W and that all from PV. Asked the person to do some reading on how to use PV 1st then battery etc and get the battery to 100% before sunset. This is where one can save. Did also mention to cycle the battery during the night. 

So again. Just take a bit of time on a sunny day and introduce the timer with discharge settings loaded. Please take pics before you change any setting to be able to revert back just in case..... 

3 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

Congrats on a super inverter. Now the learning starts. Like it was indicated just read up a bit on the forum. 

I just returned from helping someone to charge and start their car which had a battery down to 5.8V. After charging for 45min all was well again. 

Saw the Luxpower in the garage and it was also set up as a UPS. Drawing 1.1kW from the grid. Battery fully charged and panels producing nothing. I order to show what could be save I switched of the grid. Even boiled the kettle and PV produced up to 2.1kW and seconds after kettle boiled the battery was back at 100%.It did drop to 98% while boiling. The house was using 500W and that all from PV. Asked the person to do some reading on how to use PV 1st then battery etc and get the battery to 100% before sunset. This is where one can save. Did also mention to cycle the battery during the night. 

So again. Just take a bit of time on a sunny day and introduce the timer with discharge settings loaded. Please take pics before you change any setting to be able to revert back just in case..... 

Thanks Scorp.

Here are the current settings. 

5 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Thanks Scorp.

Here are the current settings. 

Right now this inverter is operating as a UPS, just standing ready for loadshedding.

Once you've ticked the box next to "Use Timer" you can then start to set the time of day to run on the battery, and specify down to what percentage SOC/state-of-charge it should go, when to charge from grid, or from a generator, or when just to charge from solar, etc.

Thanks Greenfields. I would like the inverter to start using eskom power around sunset once the panels loose enough power not to carry the load. I will check tonight when that time is approximately. 

What do I set on the inverter to make it use battery in the evening? 

3 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Thanks Greenfields. I would like the inverter to start using eskom power around sunset once the panels loose enough power not to carry the load. I will check tonight when that time is approximately. 

What do I set on the inverter to make it use battery in the evening? 

See the thread I linked to above for some idea.

Basically set the desired SOC to 100% or some higher value during the day when you want the battery to keep charging up, and drop the SOC down during the evening so the battery will keep depleting until it reaches your pre-set value. Maybe down to 20% or some variation on the theme, depending on your personal preferences, personal usage, and the amount of solar and battery storage you have on-hand. Maybe keep something in reserve for whenever loadshedding hits.

@Oelof congrats. I found the night usage would be a trial and error. You need to work out how much power you need in the morning and then work back.

In my case, I need a full battery at 8:00 am as we have a business on the property. So I set mine only to draw 20% at night. Really makes no difference when I allow the draw (that is the first mindset I had to change).

The installer recommended 60% draw but we bought the system to protect us against load-shedding first, saving money second. His setting was only an extra 2W saving R6 a day, or R200 a month - not worth it if the business could not operate. You can shift some usage to the day to really save money. We started using the tumble dryer again instead of the iron during the day to save on electricity and time  

 

Edited July 23, 20233 yr by cbrunsdon

37 minutes ago, GreenFields said:

See the thread I linked to above for some idea.

Basically set the desired SOC to 100% or some higher value during the day when you want the battery to keep charging up, and drop the SOC down during the evening so the battery will keep depleting until it reaches your pre-set value. Maybe down to 20% or some variation on the theme, depending on your personal preferences, personal usage, and the amount of solar and battery storage you have on-hand. Maybe keep something in reserve for whenever loadshedding hits.

Thank you Greenfields. Ive changed the persentages to 70% between 17h00 and 21h00 60% between 21h00 and 01h00 and 50% between 01h00 and 05h00. Not sure if that will sort the problem out.  

I think it is a good start.  Real world usage will show if the percentages you applied, are going to suit your lifestyle. Just remember to consider the Grid Charge options as well, especially on cloudy days and when you really going to  need the Battery backup when the grid is down. 

56 minutes ago, Oelof said:

Thank you Greenfields. Ive changed the persentages to 70% between 17h00 and 21h00 60% between 21h00 and 01h00 and 50% between 01h00 and 05h00. Not sure if that will sort the problem out.  

This is a good start. During day time one has a lot of time to get the battery full. Try using PV for saving via own use. One can even use grid during evening cooking by ticking use grid 18h00 to 21h00 and then just discharging the battery to whatever % you want to retain to cater for LS before 08h00 when PV can charge again. 

Also try to get the geyser hot 11h00 to 13h00 during peak PV production. 

Like Greenfield said in work mode tick the box and set the times and percentages but it will take a few days to find the sweat spot .

We found using 20% of storage power works well leaving 80% soc for load shedding in the evening even in stage 6 load shedding works great for us this using 20% battery going into the evening  save a small amount but like I said before,  for now with load shedding we not going to benefit as much à we would have if there was no loading shedding .

4 hours ago, Oelof said:

How do I set the inverter to used my battery and not The grid?

I don't have a Sunsynk and can't help you, I'm afraid. You're getting good help here, but you will have to see how the system reacts and how comfortable you feel. 

You want to try and have some battery in hand at the end of the night. Looking ahead, I see, where I live, 8:00 loadshedding AND overcast weather. Kind of worst possible scenario, but I will have battery in hand. 

2 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

This is a good start. During day time one has a lot of time to get the battery full. Try using PV for saving via own use. One can even use grid during evening cooking by ticking use grid 18h00 to 21h00 and then just discharging the battery to whatever % you want to retain to cater for LS before 08h00 when PV can charge again. 

Also try to get the geyser hot 11h00 to 13h00 during peak PV production. 

Thanks Scorp.

 The battery seems to be doing its thing.

We have decided not to add the geyser on the inverter because our plan is to get a Geyserwise solar system running separately from the main solar system. We have also put a routine in place to run the washing machine, dishwasher and poolpump separately when its around mid day. The pv's handled all of those appliances today no problem. I think we are on the right path now.

Thanks for all the help. 🙏

Thanks everyone for all the great advice!