Hi Guys, some basic design question which must be a common issue for a lot of people.

I have a Axpert King 5KW and 14x330w (7p x2s) Canadian solar. So I'm a little overbudget on the max PV input of 4000w. I pointed 10 panels north. later realised I need PV earlier in the morning and later in the day, so added 2panels to the  east and 2 west, which helped flatten my yield curve and was definitely worthwhile to do.

I'd like to add more panels as I only reach my production limit midday, but the inverted I have has a 4KW PV max input. So the yield would fluctuate during the day from 300w to 3500w depending on clouds etc. So more panels I suppose will always be  better to increase my minimum yield  at any time.

My question to the experts is, is there any way to put more panels east and west to improve my minimum yield without popping my inverter at the occasional maximum yield. Obviously I can just get a bigger inverter but I was wondering if there is any other hardware one could consider to add. I know I can parallel 2xinverters but the high self consumption of 120w-200w on Eskom on my current one makes me very reluctant to do that as that's just to much power to waste during the night. 

Essentially I want all power up to 4KW to go to the inverter PV input and the occasional excess power goes either to the grid or to my geysers maybe, which is connected  pre-inverter.

Surely there must be hardware around that can do this.

Thx 🙂

 

I meant to say …….and the occasional excess power gets discarded as I imagine it cant be used at 220v without another inverter.

 

3 hours ago, LouisM said:

is there any way to put more panels east and west to improve my minimum yield without popping my inverter at the occasional maximum yield.

I would not add another string; you are already a little over the 4500 W I've been recommending as the limit for nominal 4000 W Axperts. Unfortunately, the King is one of the models that Voltronic Power don't give a realistic maximum PV power rating for.

Just add an external MPPT Solar Charge Controller. It would connect to your new panels and to the battery. You can get them quite reasonably priced online. Just put the settings for the external MPPT a little (perhaps 0.1 to 0.2 V) lower than the settings for the Axpert. I have a system like this, and it works fairly well.

3 hours ago, LouisM said:

I want all power up to 4KW to go to the inverter PV input and the occasional excess power goes either to the grid or to my geysers maybe, which is connected  pre-inverter.

Even the Axpert King won't push power into the grid, so it won't help with loads connected to the AC-in side of the inverter.