I have finally finished installing my Victron system , started by rewiring my old DB , wired from DB to Multiplus with 4mm .Then installed Solar MD 7.4kwh lithium and commissioned with the help of Kalo Yan from solar MD. With all that running smoothly I moved onto the 350w Art solar panels . I decided to go with 10 panels connected in 5 strings fed into fuses then Noarc 63A. I lazer cut my own roof mount brackets from 4.5mm stainless steel and used unistrut for the beams as I wanted a flush look if possible. I plan on running an ESS setup.

 

Well done sir. Very neat install, I like this a lot. 

Very well done, very neat! I think Solar MD uses your installation on Solar MD & Victron training sessions. I've seen this before!

6 hours ago, Shawn_Mueller said:

Very well done, very neat! I think Solar MD uses your installation on Solar MD & Victron training sessions. I've seen this before!

Thanks , yes they did use it . I was proud to see them use it 👍.

Respect for this install! Wow.

What made you go with the SolarMD battery over Pylontech? I'm genuinely interested as I'm about to pull the trigger on my battery purchase. Thanks.

VERY Nicely done, and ye, kudu's for being used by Solar MD as a reference.

 

G

8 hours ago, deapsquatter said:

What made you go with the SolarMD battery over Pylontech? I'm genuinely interested as I'm about to pull the trigger on my battery purchase. Thanks.

I was keen to support a local company that has a great product , the online battery interface with output control was also a factor . I have no base to judge as I have never even seen a pylontech. However I can comment on the great service from solar MD and how happy I am with the build quality . 

9 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Respect for this install! Wow.

Thanks for that , all the inspiration and knowledge came from this group ! So Thank you for everything shared !

Hi @plonkster what have you found to be the best ESS setup ? I know this is a how long is a piece of string type of question however you have an idea of what I have installed and I would greatly appreciate your opinion on this 

1 hour ago, Mstott said:

the best ESS setup ?

Oh dear, I'm the wrong guy to ask. Because I am always tinkering with the thing. But okay, the best setup for me is 65% MinSOC, Optimised mode (with batterylife). And I have a cron job (my own thing) that stops discharge between 6PM and midnight. My day/night loads are such that this works well for me, I get all my PV used in some way and the batteries are usually full or almost full every evening.

3 minutes ago, plonkster said:

 And I have a cron job (my own thing) that stops discharge between 6PM and midnight.

Could you please elaborate on the purpose of this? Is that so heavy evening loads don't kill the battery and then you use the battery again after midnight for night lights etc?

Hi @plonkster I have basically had it set like that . I was just worried as my pv generation seems very spikey . Tomorrow is a perfectly clear day so will monitor again . 

Hi @Mstott

I see similar PV yield graphs when my house loads are not consistent enough to keep the panels producing at full throttle. 

AND I also saw that when I still had the "Limit inverter power" setting on.  Good to protect the batteries, less good to maximize your yield. 

Ofcourse, you might also see this on semi-cloudy days! 

 

Hope that helps. 

Thanks @demaniak , I would like to see what can be changed to keep PV producing at full tilt 

3 hours ago, deapsquatter said:

Could you please elaborate on the purpose of this? Is that so heavy evening loads don't kill the battery and then you use the battery again after midnight for night lights etc?

My evening loads is enough to empty the batteries. And it has happened on occasion that we had a power failure later in the evening. I simply want to avoid sitting with empty batteries at 11PM. Once we go to bed, the load comes down and there is enough to ride through until the sun is up again. So of course this isn't the kindest thing to do to your supplier, using no power between midnight and 6AM when they have lots... and using lots of power during peak time. But financially there is no benefit for me to do this differently.

10 minutes ago, plonkster said:

My evening loads is enough to empty the batteries. And it has happened on occasion that we had a power failure later in the evening. I simply want to avoid sitting with empty batteries at 11PM. Once we go to bed, the load comes down and there is enough to ride through until the sun is up again. So of course this isn't the kindest thing to do to your supplier, using no power between midnight and 6AM when they have lots... and using lots of power during peak time. But financially there is no benefit for me to do this differently.

Makes sense - I'll probably try do the same.

Hi @deapsquatter - as plonkster pointed out to me in another post, assuming you have a Venus device,you can achieve useful behavior with the "Scheduled charging" options.

Two notable, intended, attributes of a charge schedule is:

• while the schedule is in effect,  the battery is not discharged
• you can set the SOC where mains charging should stop (and if that setting is below the current SOC - mains charging is halted)

I have been experimenting with schedules, generally works well.

@Mstott - bottom line is, if you want full yield from your panels, you need load for them to push into.

Some load options:

• house consumers (lots of variables in that soup, things are switching on/off all the time in a normal house hold). Heating water seems to be a popular option to dump excess PV?
• battery. This is where I now see where "panel and battery sizing" becomes important.  Also...expensive.
• grid feed-in (NOT an option for me , sitting in Pretoria).

I am also having some challenges with keeping production/consumption/storage in balance currently - I guess that's half the fun of generating your own power!

Makes you think on how that works at scale (i.e.... Eskom..)

 

6 minutes ago, demaniak said:

Two notable, intended, attributes of a charge schedule is:

• while the schedule is in effect,  the battery is not discharged
• you can set the SOC where mains charging should stop (and if that setting is below the current SOC - mains charging is halted)

 

 

Very useful information - thank you!

29 minutes ago, demaniak said:

Makes you think on how that works at scale (i.e.... Eskom..)

Give that man a Bells! 🙂

To switch on geysers at times: Geyserwise - see when there is spare solar daytime, then switch the geysers on then.
Poolpumps already on timers.
For everything else I use off-the-shelf-stock-standard AC plug timers.

So I have contractors on each of my non essential high wattage loads, I then use a sonoff 4c (with Tasmoto deployed) channel to switch the contactors. (sonoff's also have a schedule system so basic on and off at time X and Y is easy.)

Now drive the sonoff's via mqtt and build some logic that looks at battery charge level, PV production etc and this can be automated.

G

7 hours ago, demaniak said:

have been experimenting with schedules, generally works well

Great I will do the same tonight , I will also discharge battery a little more so I have more work for my PV , I have all my heavy load automated pool & geyser .

How did that work for you @Mstott?