Can someone please tell me exactly what Inverter power limiter means on a sunsynk 5kw? Is that the kw limit for essentials and non essensials combined? So I could set it to 6kw on a 5 kw inverter if I have the correct wire and breaker to supply the inverter and load?

That is how understand the manual

please help

I tested this my side during on-grid and didn't see it take effect. (Solar + Batteries inverting 0.5kW to essentials and 3.5kW to non-essentials). I dropped the figure to 2kW expecting it to curtail the output to a total of 2kW, but nothing had changed after 10 minutes; so I changed it back.

Interestingly it maxes out at 5.5kW for my 5kW unit; so it won't go quite as high as the 6kW you mention. But I'm not sure if I'd recommend pushing it above 5kW; unless others can chime in with real-world experience doing so!

 

The manual states regarding this field, that:

Quote

This controls the maximum overall power, both to the ‘Load’ and ‘Grid’ ports combined. It is set to Low if
an ‘over-current’ fault occurs.

 

I thought that this might be off-grid only, but the inclusion of 'Grid' port in the manual description implies it should cover on-grid as well.

 

Regarding your question, the non-essentials won't pass through the inverter so the wiring there won't change. However the wiring on essentials must of course comfortably/electrical-compliantly support the 5kW output; which can actually go up to around 8kW in bypass mode when there’s grid power. For non-essentials, the inverter will output back to the grid using your existing wiring which presumably is already sufficient.

Likewise the limit for non-essentials doesn't matter here because if the demand on non-essentials is beyond what the inverter is rated to supply, it'll simply allow the non-essentials to draw the balance from grid. So for example when my non-essentials hit 6kW, the inverter will draw, say, 4kW from the solar, 1kW from the battery (for a total inverted supply of 5kW) and then the rest (1kW) comes from the grid.

And you're correct; that 5kW maximum is the maximum that the inverter can supply to both essentials and non-essentials simultaneously; but as long as your essentials don't exceed 5kW (which could trip the inverter - or your battery if it's not rated for the full 5kW), then the non-essentials will simply draw the balance from the grid. So the 'hard' limit is on the essentials, whereas the non-essentials can always fall-back onto the grid.

Finally, the on-grid maximum for the essentials output is actually significantly higher than 5kW (around 8kW), but it's not a great idea to go beyond this on essentials since if the power suddenly fails and you're above 5kW, the inverter will trip.

 

Edited August 2, 20232 yr by JayMardern