5Kw Sunsunk Hybrid - Geyser connection

[Matthew Kapnoudhis]

Hi all, Im sure the topic has been covered at some stage so please dont shoot me if its a repeat post. 

Setup: 

• - 5kW Hybrdi Sunsynk Inverter 
• - 5kW REVOV B100 First Life Lithium Battery
• - 4 x 550watt Candian Solar in one single array on one MPPT 
• Geyser wired to non-essentail 
• CT Coil is located right above the Main incomming Circuit Breaker so it measures all the power coming to my home. 

Background: 

- I know there are different ways of harnessing the daily sun power to heat up the geyser. I would like to tap into this. The idea is to charge up the battery in the morning untill noon and then have the excess solar energy be put toward heating up the geyser and then turning the geyser off in the afternoon with the timer or remote app. 
- From what I gather then Sunksynk can dump excess solar energy into the non-essentials once the battery is charged. As far as I understand this is done by ticking the "Solar feed to non-essentails"  -> As shown in the video below 

BUT and here is the big BUT, I know one can also connect the geyser to the AUX line and se tthe inverter to dump excess solar enerrgy there during the day after the battery is charged and the house is not using all the solar energy. 

Now here comes my QUESTION: 

#1 What is the best way to set up the geyser? Should I rather have the geyser on the AUX line OR as part of non-essentials and tick the "export solar" button in the work mode 2 screen? 
#2 If I do put it on the AUX connection and What if its a rainy/cloudy day and there is no excess energy to go to the AUX so the geyser wont heat up? Can I then take GRID power directly to the AUX line on the Sunsynk and how do I do this? 

# 3 How does the sunsynk put power on non-Essentials without passing it back throught the main breaker? is this what the trickle power is for? then basically its like taking water from two pipes (Grid power and Solar power) into the same stream (i.e geyser heating) 

I would love to hear the toughts of others 
 

 

[Scorp007]

1 hour ago, Matthew Kapnoudhis said:

Hi all, Im sure the topic has been covered at some stage so please dont shoot me if its a repeat post. 

Setup: 

• - 5kW Hybrdi Sunsynk Inverter 
• - 5kW REVOV B100 First Life Lithium Battery
• - 4 x 550watt Candian Solar in one single array on one MPPT 
• Geyser wired to non-essentail 
• CT Coil is located right above the Main incomming Circuit Breaker so it measures all the power coming to my home. 

Background: 

- I know there are different ways of harnessing the daily sun power to heat up the geyser. I would like to tap into this. The idea is to charge up the battery in the morning untill noon and then have the excess solar energy be put toward heating up the geyser and then turning the geyser off in the afternoon with the timer or remote app. 
- From what I gather then Sunksynk can dump excess solar energy into the non-essentials once the battery is charged. As far as I understand this is done by ticking the "Solar feed to non-essentails"  -> As shown in the video below 

BUT and here is the big BUT, I know one can also connect the geyser to the AUX line and se tthe inverter to dump excess solar enerrgy there during the day after the battery is charged and the house is not using all the solar energy. 

Now here comes my QUESTION: 

#1 What is the best way to set up the geyser? Should I rather have the geyser on the AUX line OR as part of non-essentials and tick the "export solar" button in the work mode 2 screen? 
#2 If I do put it on the AUX connection and What if its a rainy/cloudy day and there is no excess energy to go to the AUX so the geyser wont heat up? Can I then take GRID power directly to the AUX line on the Sunsynk and how do I do this? 

# 3 How does the sunsynk put power on non-Essentials without passing it back throught the main breaker? is this what the trickle power is for? then basically its like taking water from two pipes (Grid power and Solar power) into the same stream (i.e geyser heating) 

I would love to hear the toughts of others 
 

 

Just a general answer. You have about 11kwh per day if no PV is wasted. This you need say charge 4kwh towards batteries. The rest is for running loads during the day and for the geyser. 

A 150L geyser at 25° after a bath needs 7kwh to get to 60°. Depending on area the incoming water can be lower than 25.

1. I would leave it on non essential so that you can use grid to keep it heated up and not use the Aux now as you will be low on unused PV. 

3.  The CT will prevent feeding back but export power to non essential. 

Depending if you have spare unused PV you can explore using the Aux port at a later stage. 

Get to know your system 1st and then do fine tuning that suits your load profile. 

My 2c.

[Matthew Kapnoudhis]

@Scorp007 thank you for the 2c. 

I fully agree that 2.2kwP is not going to cut it to heat up the geyser completely. The idea is to add more panels soon but thats for another topic. 

Generally there is not much going on during the day at home and the idea is to heat up the geyser during the day so that I can substitube the grid with the solar inseat of using ONLY grid to heat the geyser at other times of the day. 
-> if it costs 7kWh to heat up I would like to add some solar to substitue rather than 7kW at night with no solar substitue. 

I think you did answer my question, indirectly. Basically I cannot use GRID power to substitute on AUX load. So leave the Geyser on Non-Essentials. 

I agree on getting to knwo system, thats why I made the post. To find out if AUX load can accept GRID power. 

Thanks for the 2c

 

Matt

[Scorp007]

3 minutes ago, Matthew Kapnoudhis said:

@Scorp007 thank you for the 2c. 

I fully agree that 2.2kwP is not going to cut it to heat up the geyser completely. The idea is to add more panels soon but thats for another topic. 

Generally there is not much going on during the day at home and the idea is to heat up the geyser during the day so that I can substitube the grid with the solar inseat of using ONLY grid to heat the geyser at other times of the day. 
-> if it costs 7kWh to heat up I would like to add some solar to substitue rather than 7kW at night with no solar substitue. 

I think you did answer my question, indirectly. Basically I cannot use GRID power to substitute on AUX load. So leave the Geyser on Non-Essentials. 

I agree on getting to knwo system, thats why I made the post. To find out if AUX load can accept GRID power. 

Thanks for the 2c

 

Matt

You can set the Aux to be always on but I guess one can connect the geyser on the Aux and if it did not heat enough you can just go to settings and switch it on for the shortfall to work. But it would mean changing the always on back to off to use PV the next day. 

I run my whole house on the non essential side with without battery grid tied. This way my day time load is all from PV unless there is cloud cover. 

My battery system I switch on when needed from another inverter. No problem if my supply is interrupted waiting for me to select the transfer switch. 

For sure not a system for 99% of people. 

[Matthew Kapnoudhis]

1 hour ago, Scorp007 said:

You can set the Aux to be always on but I guess one can connect the geyser on the Aux and if it did not heat enough you can just go to settings and switch it on for the shortfall to work. But it would mean changing the always on back to off to use PV the next day. 

I run my whole house on the non essential side with without battery grid tied. This way my day time load is all from PV unless there is cloud cover. 

My battery system I switch on when needed from another inverter. No problem if my supply is interrupted waiting for me to select the transfer switch. 

For sure not a system for 99% of people. 

I dont want to switch settings everyday. I want to connect and leave as if. If there is no solar then GRID can work its magic. 

 

[JayMardern]

25 minutes ago, Matthew Kapnoudhis said:

I dont want to switch settings everyday. I want to connect and leave as if. If there is no solar then GRID can work its magic. 

 

You can still wire it to Aux for the benefit of being able to heat water in the event of an outage (and just leave the 'Aux On when Grid is Up' setting ticked.)

Over and above this setting you specify a battery SoC range for Aux, and those Aux circuits will run so long as the battery is within this range - this also means that even if you lack the PV grunt to heat the geyser directly, you can still use your battery as a buffer in an outage. So for example if you set Aux to come on at 90% and turn off 70%, then when it hits 90% it'll switch on Aux, use your available PV + Battery to heat your water and when it drops down to 70% (because of insufficient PV), it'll switch off - and rinse repeat later in the day.

We had an extended outage a while back where, on a rainy day, we were able to heat one of our two geysers like this despite the peak PV that day being insufficient for the geyser. (Other sunny days were fine in our case).

 

As an aside, you also have to pay attention to peak power consumption: I don't see your geyser rating in your post but if it's an average 3kW element, that will contribute significantly to your 5kW grid-down load (since Aux contributes to your maximum essentials load when it's powered on).

 

Finally, you can also dovetail the Time of Use settings with Aux if you don't want to leave Aux on whenever there's grid: so say you're expecting to be at 60% by 1PM, you can set Aux to come on at 60% (which is when your geyser will turn on) but also set your batteries to charge from grid at that same time if you're below 60%, so that if there isn't enough sun, the grid will charge your batteries from that time onwards to 60%, and when they hit the appropriate level, Aux will power on - regardless of where that battery charge came from.
This means that on sunny days Aux can come on sooner (entirely from solar) but on rainy days you're covered as well.

 

However I agree with @Scorp007 that it makes sense to start off simple (leave the geyser on non-essentials) and make these calls once you're up-and-running and have had an opportunity to evaluate performance (and plan your upgrades ). We only started using Aux when paralleling our second 5kW.

Edited July 10 by JayMardern

[Matthew Kapnoudhis]

@Scorp007 or @JayMardern 

You guys sound like electrical boffins. Would you mind doing a call with me I have a question or two to ask if possible. 
my number is ZERO 8 two 5 27 93 92 

 

Matt