December 13, 20241 yr 2 years ago we installed a 5330Wpeak solar array using 9 JAM54s30 panels on a South facing aspect, and 4 JAM54s30 panels on a South West. A SUNSYNK-5K-SG03LP1 completes the picture, using an MPPT per roof aspect and a 11kWh home build battery system using second life cells. This has performed fantastically and I have 0 compliants! In the last couple of weeks I have taken the panels down whilst a substantial bit of extension work is completed, and we are now getting to the stages of getting a new tiled roof put back on and looking at solar options. Obviously I still have the panels and inverter and will where possible reuse everything I can whilst also upgrading. Because of the extension work I have scaffolding access to all roofs on the property. At this point I think it best to show some images to give some context. The current array looks like this: https://imgur.com/JW2eKz4 (Note: I'm not thrilled about only have the 4 panels on the West array, but the MPPT hasn't had problems starting up on this slightly low voltage, so all good. I wouldn't go for less though.) The new house plan ends up looking more like this, squaring off the hipped roof in to a gable, adding an additional small gable roof (south facing) and adding a small ground floor pitched roof also. We have decided against the velux windows, so we have a little more room to play with vs what is shown. https://imgur.com/EHCtsCi This allows us to do something a little more like this setup. By purchasing a single extra JAM54s30 panel (nice to keep all specs the same) I can get to 15 panels on the main roof space (shown in blue). On the smaller roof space, I can fit 2, perhaps 3 panels at a push if using a panel the same size as my existing panels, the problem with that being that it won't be enough panels to justify it's own MPPT string due to the startup voltage. The roof is slightly 'inset' vs the existing, so will receive a little shading in the morning as the sun comes around. I can then also fit ~5 panels on to the ground floor roof. https://imgur.com/jgYkgea My main question really is how people would split this between MPPTs and inverters. As I understand, it is recommended that parallel sunsynk inverters (would operate under G100) should be the same make/model/size. Should I be looking at swapping out the 5kW for 2*3kW units or finding an additional 5kW unit? Originally I had considered also putting solar panels on my North facing roof, but seeing the possible number of panels we may get on just the South side, this may not be quite as worth it. The house will be running an ASHP so I wanted to make use of the winter base load a North facing array would slightly help with, but, I think now I'm probably better off adding additonal battery storage such that I can utilise cheap off peak tariffs more effectively instead. Thanks everyone! Ian (sorry I struggled to insert images, hopefuly links are OK for now!)
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