March 10, 201610 yr Wow nice... do you have panels on the other side of the roof to catch morning sun? Enjoy!!
March 10, 201610 yr Author Yup. There will be 40 panels in total for a planned 10 kW Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
March 10, 201610 yr My darn... lovely... make sure the morning, midday and evening facing panels are on different MPPT controllers ... sure you have that sorted though.
March 10, 201610 yr I agree. Very very nice. What makes it beautiful is that BLUE thing with a orange stripe somewhere in the pics. A Q nogal - lekker man! And what a clever idea due to restrictive space and roof angle. One MPPT picks up the early morning till midday-ish, 2nd MPPT afternoon till sun sets. Clever, very very clever.
March 10, 201610 yr I agree. Very very nice. What makes it beautiful is that BLUE thing with a orange stripe somewhere in the pics. A Q nogal - lekker man! [emoji3] And what a clever idea due to restrictive space and roof angle. One MPPT picks up the early morning till midday-ish, 2nd MPPT afternoon till sun sets. Clever, very very clever. Ja ja toe nou..... Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk
March 10, 201610 yr Author Was surprised to find out that in this grid tied system: 1) Batteries are charged by Eskom and not solar. I will need another controller and more panels to charge by solar and 2) When Eskom is off AND sun is shining you don't run off sun but off batteries. Once this install is done I will have to figure out how to tap into this cool H/W with a laptop. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
March 10, 201610 yr Bushman, to tap into it to read the devices, Victron has all the goodies for that. But the Raspbery Pi thread on the forum, is because Plonskter and I think we can do it cheaper, sorry, know we can do it cheaper, to read Victron and other devices to store the data. Plonkster is probably your best bet on that one, for both of you have the upper versions of the inverters. What do you mean by your post above!? If you have panels, you have one or two Victron MPPT charge controllers, connected to the batteries? And you have a BMV 702 monitor also, on the batteries?
March 10, 201610 yr Author TTT - Oversight and ignorance has resulted in no Charge Controller for the Victron so for now it will have to be fed from Muni. I do have 40 pv panels to give me estimated 10kW so once live I will see what demand and consumption figures look like and then swing one of the pv banks via charge controller to Victron. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
March 10, 201610 yr Author Yes for a BMV 700 monitor on the batteries Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
March 10, 201610 yr 41 minutes ago, bushman10 said: TTT - Oversight and ignorance has resulted in no Charge Controller for the Victron so for now it will have to be fed from Muni. I do have 40 pv panels to give me estimated 10kW so once live I will see what demand and consumption figures look like and then swing one of the pv banks via charge controller to Victron. Pray tell, for my own sanity, that it is was your oversight, which is 100% understandable and fixable (!), and NOT the supplier of the panels and the Victron Quattro? For I can see the panel supplier supplying the panels on your request. The Victron supplier doing same, but I cannot for the life of me see any installer selling you all that, with no charge controllers.
March 10, 201610 yr neat and impressive hardware ... although more than a little puzzled by only some batteries being charged from PV. I am not familiar with this inverter but from what I have read it does not appear to be capable to feed back to grid ... did I read wrong or am I missing something?
March 10, 201610 yr Victron Quattro cannot feed back. They inverter / chargers only. Can supply the load connected to them from batteries and / or generator and / or grid. They are quite big in the shipping industry, having been around for many years. Good solid reliable equipment. https://www.victronenergy.com/inverters-chargers/quattro
March 10, 201610 yr 4 minutes ago, The Terrible Triplett said: Victron Quattro cannot feed back Dude... you have missed the entire HUB-1 and HUB-4 development (where these inverters can feed back). They can also feed back when in hub-2 config, though strictly speaking it's the GTI on the other end that's feeding back through them :-) The Victron inverters are true hybrids... if you have all the required equipment. The problem is that the majority of them (the pre-2015 models) don't have the required anti-islanding.
March 10, 201610 yr 4 minutes ago, plonkster said: don't have the required anti-islanding Well, even that isn't 100% accurate. They do have anti-islanding, but not up to our standards. They are sufficiently equipped for feedback in the UK.
March 10, 201610 yr You are RIGHT Plonkster, but to avoid confusion, right or wrong: The Quattro in the pic above cannot feed back, it is a inverter charger only? So unless, as you rightfully pointed out, you add a few parts to your system, only then can your system feed back. Did not want to confuse these other boys here who only know all in one devices. Slooooowly we educate them ... one piece of equipment at a time. I think Victrons approach to buy what you need is much 'cleaner', simpler and easier to fix if something does break.
March 10, 201610 yr Or miss when you think you are spending good money and then find you are few "expensive" blue bits missing... Sorry couldn't resist. 1x Axpert and a few batteries and panels... your off... (ne Chris)
March 10, 201610 yr Hi Bushman, are your grid tie inverters installed before or after your Victron inverter? The ideal spot for them would be after the Victron as then your full PV would be available for your load during load shedding. In my opinion you have the best system setup that you can get for the following reasons: 1) You can leave your batteries on float and only discharge during load shedding thus extending battery life. 2) Every single watt your panels produce will be utilized either by you or the grid.
March 10, 201610 yr No no no no ... if what you are saying Carl is the case, sacrilege!!! How can anyone use a Victron as a UPS! Get a cheap AXPERT ... or 10! I demand that the Victron be set free NOW. Give me the address, I will come and fetch it right now. Who will sign my Avaaz petition to this effect? Seriously though, that is a really REALLY expensive device to use as a UPS. CyberPower crafts pure sine wave UPS's to power large portions of a house.
March 10, 201610 yr What would happen if morning and afternoon panels were on the same mppt? Is running more then one mppt safe? Would the mppt have to be the same specs?
March 10, 201610 yr If you have more than one MPPT on a battery bank, ideally the have to be the same make and model, all of them on the exact same setting. Some MPPT's makes you can connect them together, that way they stay in sync, others like Morningstar can work together if the above is done.
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