Hi Guys

I am fairly new to solar and I have been doing a lot of reading. I came across this great Forum. Commendable work, great knowledge can be learned here.

I am interested in going the solar route. My daily consumption is approximately 50kWh per day, a large household with a lot of traffic.  

I was planning on leaving my 2 geysers and pool pump as non-essentials, with the rest as essentials and run on solar.

The idea is to have 46 290W panels thus approximately 13kW peak. (A friend is replacing his 290W panels with 350W, so getting this at a steal 😉).

My thinking was if I use all 46 panels, I can have much more energy early and late in the day.

I was thinking of going the Victron route.

Thus 2 x Victron SmartSolar MPPT 250/100. I have read that these have 3 string inputs. Therefore, for each input I would have 4 panels in series and 2 and parallel, giving each MPPT 24 panels. Also I will be below the voltage and current ratings.

I would then have 2 x Victron MultiPlus-II 48/3000/35 and for battery storage 6 x Pylon US2000B 2.4kWh to give me 14.4kWh.

I would appreciate any assistance with regards to the above.

Is it overkill? I would like to be more independent from Eskom than dependant.

I want it to be modular so at a later stage I do not have to change a lot.

No feed-in is allowed, so do I need the extra current sensor, or can the Multiplus II be programmed to allow for no feed-in.

Any other thoughts, advice would gladly be appreciated. @plonkster @The Terrible Triplett @phil.g00

Just as a quick overview. Total 200A capacity on the battery side, at 50V (to make the math easy), that's 10KW. But you have 13KW PV modules. If your intent is to oversize it a bit, which seems to be the case, that's fine.

But you say in the first paragraph 46 panels, but two times 24 adds up to 48 🙂

Two 3KVA Multis will allow you to grid-tie 4.8kw peak, which is quite a bit less than your battery and PV capacity. Nothing wrong with that, but it means that to use all of your PV you will have to make space in the batteries every night. You'll only be able to push somewhere between 30 and 40kwh directly from PV to consumers (if you work the inverters hard during daylight hours), but you have a good 55kwh or so (working at the 100A capacity from earlier) on a sunny day, and the difference makes up your entire battery capacity. So the only way to use all your PV is to run the inverters flat-out the whole day and run the batteries completely flat every night.

In other words... I think you need a larger multi or more of them, or in some other way get the proportions right. Unless you're planning on expanding later...

Is it overkill? Depends on your budget. It is certainly a larger setup than most people put in... 🙂

... can we tie into you...what would your power station name be

 

G

@hah Welcome and where are you based?

If in SA, then I would strongly recommend you look at your local legislation, or decided to go off-grid and avert it.

Re. the rest, what Plonkster said. Adding to his reply, buy it is stages. One inverter and one MPPT, "feel how it feels", then stay put or add on if needed.

And then my song about NEEDS vs WANTS and the cost factor between the too. 🙂 

After consulting my friend, whom is upgrading his panels, it seems I will be getting 36. That gives me approximately 10KW. I would still use 2 x Victron SmartSolar MPPT 250/100 enabling me to possible add more panels in the future.

On 2019/03/22 at 9:36 AM, plonkster said:

Two 3KVA Multis will allow you to grid-tie 4.8kw peak

I was considering changing to two 5KVA Multis, thus a peak of 8kw. 

With regards to the batteries, I am still undecided, should I stick with Pylontech or go with one Freedom Lite Home 20/14. 

Additionally, how are SMA products? Any experience with them?

On 2019/03/22 at 4:13 PM, The Terrible Triplett said:

Welcome and where are you based?

Thanks. Based in Northern Cape. 

On 2019/03/22 at 4:13 PM, The Terrible Triplett said:

If in SA, then I would strongly recommend you look at your local legislation, or decided to go off-grid and avert it.

  I am thinking for now of sticking to the grid to see how the system copes and then down the line I can go off-grid. 

Which shops would you guys advice I look at for purchasing equipment?

2 hours ago, hah said:

With regards to the batteries, I am still undecided, should I stick with Pylontech or go with one Freedom Lite Home 20/14. 

Both very good options. FreedomWon does mean you have local support, and they do make a good product.

2 hours ago, hah said:

Additionally, how are SMA products? Any experience with them?

SMA makes very good products, but it is quite expensive. Well, the lower-end PV inverters are quite affordable, but the nicer things (and esspecially the Sunny Island) costs a bit.

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

Both very good options. FreedomWon does mean you have local support, and they do make a good product.

SMA makes very good products, but it is quite expensive. Well, the lower-end PV inverters are quite affordable, but the nicer things (and esspecially the Sunny Island) costs a bit.

which you'll need for the batteries.

At  a lower price level, you won't go wrong with the Victron's.

Thank you gentlemen for the advice. I will look into the products in more details. 

Additionally, as TTT pointed out, let me consult my municipality with regards to legislation. Hope it does not take too long. Otherwise, off-grid it is. 

Thanks 

1 hour ago, hah said:

Additionally, as TTT pointed out, let me consult my municipality with regards to legislation. Hope it does not take too long. Otherwise, off-grid it is. 

I'm pretty sure that if you follow CoCT's, I now are going to call them guidelines as they are in flux, you should be on the right track.

The feeding back seems to be the overall issue, and that you are not going to do.