May 13, 20206 yr Afternoon, I am new to the world of renewable energy. I have recently installed a 5 KVA inverter, one Pylontech US 2000 Plus Lithium-Ion Phosphate battery and four 330 Watt solar panels as a start off. The system works fairly well. The problem I got is that in the morning it change from utility to Solar to charge the battery and the loads (correct). When battery is fully charge , disconnect panels (correct). Problem: Connect to charge battery again, connect to utility/ Escom and not to the panels with full sunlight. Why? Current setting programs. 01: - SbU. 02: - 20A. 03: - APL. 04: - SdS. 05: - USE. 06: - Lrd. 07: - trd. 09: - 50Hz. 11: - 20A. 12: - 46V. 13: - 56V. 16: - SNU. 18: - bon. 19: - ESP. 20: - Lon. 22: - AOF. 23: - byE. 25: - FEN. 26: - 56.4V. 27: - 56V. 29: - 47V. 31. - SbE. Help will be highly appreciated. Regards, Dirkie
May 14, 20206 yr 8 hours ago, Dirkie Crous said: Problem: Connect to charge battery again, connect to utility/ Escom and not to the panels with full sunlight. Why? My guess is because your battery has disconnected due to over-voltage; see below. Quote Current setting programs. 01: - SbU. 02: - 20A. 03: - APL. 04: - SdS. 05: - USE. 06: - Lrd. 07: - trd. 09: - 50Hz. 11: - 20A. 12: - 46V. Setting 12 is usually put at 48 V. Quote 13: - 56V. Usually 51 V. Quote 16: - SNU. This will cause the battery to charge with utility as well as solar. You may want to set it to OSO, and only change it (manually or via some monitoring program) to SNU when you need utility charging. Quote 18: - bon. I really prefer the beep off. Quote 19: - ESP. I really prefer KEP to keep the display at the one I selected. Quote 26: - 56.4V. 27: - 56V. These are your big problem. The absolute maximum voltage for the Pylontechs is 54.0 V (that's 3.6 V per cell), and you're charging way past that. The BMS will be disconnecting the battery. I assume you must have an Axpert model that can run without batteries. The latest figures that people are using have been 52.5 V or even 52.2 V for setting 26 (Bulk/absorb/CV setting), and 51.8 V for setting 27 (float voltage setting). Quote 29: - 47V. People are using 46.0 V or 46.5 V. At 46.5 V, the effective value for setting 12 will be 48.5 V, which might be a bit high. It's an undocumented surprise; see FAQ question 2. Edited May 14, 20206 yr by Coulomb Oops, had bulk/absorb/CV setting wrong. Now recommending Plonkster's values.
June 10, 20206 yr Author Afternoon, Need to add four (4) 330W panels to my current system. Do i need to change any settings on the inverter? Please advise. Many thanks. Dirkie
June 10, 20206 yr 5 minutes ago, Dirkie Crous said: Afternoon, Need to add four (4) 330W panels to my current system. Do i need to change any settings on the inverter? No, usually there are no settings changes needed merely adding panels. You may not get much benefit from them until you add at least one more battery module. Then you can increase setting 02 (maximum charge current) to at least 50A (depending on the size of the new battery module). If you have most of your loads during the day, you may not need the new battery module just yet.
June 10, 20206 yr Author Afternoon, Need to add four (4) 330W panels to my current system. Do i need to change any settings on the inverter? Please advise. Many thanks. Dirkie Thanks. The 4 panels need to be connected in parallel to the current 4 panel 48 volt system!! Please advise. Regards
June 10, 20206 yr Author Thanks. The 4 panels need to be connected in parallel to the current 4 panel 48 volt system. Please advise. Regards
June 11, 20206 yr 10 hours ago, Dirkie Crous said: The 4 panels need to be connected in parallel to the current 4 panel 48 volt system. How the panels need to be connected depends on the inverter model. If you have a 145V max model, your existing panels should be connected 2S2P (two paralleled strings of 2 panels in series). You should add the next 4 panels similarly, ending up with 4 paralleled strings of 2S, i.e. 2S4P. If you have a 450V or 500V max model, then 4 panels is too few, so you should add the next 4 in series (making 8S total). I'm assuming that your 330W panels are 72 cell. If they are 60 cell, then they should be wired 3S (for a 145V max model).
June 16, 20206 yr Author Morning, If i add four 340W panels instead of the 330W panels, will the connections be the same as for the 330W panels? Please advise. Regards
June 16, 20206 yr 4 hours ago, Dirkie Crous said: If i add four 340W panels instead of the 330W panels, will the connections be the same as for the 330W panels? Assuming that they are both 72-cell panels, yes. But you have to check the datasheets; around 330 W seems to be where they change.
July 17, 20206 yr Author Afternoon, Current installation: 5KVA 48V inverter. 2 x 2.4KWH Pylontech batteries connected to 4 x 330W panels and 4 x 340W panels. Works very well. Want to get the maximum of the solar power available. After sunset it stays on battery power for while and switch to utility. The SOC lights shows four still on (66%). According to Pylontech the batteries can be discharge to 20%. Which inverter settings need to be change to achieve this? Regards, Dirkie Crous
July 17, 20206 yr 1 hour ago, Dirkie Crous said: Which inverter settings need to be change to achieve this? Assuming you are not using ICC for monitoring, setting 12 (back to utility battery voltage setting). Try lowering that setting 1 V at a time. Be aware that if the battery reaches 2.0 V above setting 29 (low DC cutoff voltage), then that's the effective voltage for back to utility. You can look at this as a nuisance, or you can use it to fine tune the back to utility switchover, since it can be set to a precision of 0.1 V.
September 8, 20205 yr Author Got a split system. All lights, plugs geyser and pool pump on solar. Stove and oven on Escom (grid). Still consuming 9-10 units a day without using the stove and oven. Where is the power lost going? Please assist. Regards, Dirkie Crous
September 8, 20205 yr 12 minutes ago, Dirkie Crous said: Still consuming 9-10 units a day without using the stove and oven. Where is the power lost going? On 2020/07/17 at 2:38 PM, Dirkie Crous said: After sunset it stays on battery power for while and switch to utility.
September 8, 20205 yr On 2020/07/17 at 2:38 PM, Dirkie Crous said: 2 x 2.4KWH Pylontech batteries 2 hours ago, Dirkie Crous said: Got a split system. All lights, plugs geyser and pool pump on solar. Stove and oven on Escom (grid). Still consuming 9-10 units a day without using the stove and oven. Where is the power lost going? I seriously doubt your batteries would survive a night. You only have 4.4kW of usable storage. So at some stage, pending your settings, Grid would start charging your battery + take over the load duties. At best you can set the maximum Utility charge to 2A (Setting 11) and hopefully the batteries wont be fully charged by sunrise. Also remember that on battery mode you should not be using more than 50A or 3600W Edited September 8, 20205 yr by Plaashaas
September 8, 20205 yr 2 hours ago, Dirkie Crous said: No, it does not go to utility during the night. What monitoring software are you using? I suspect that it goes to Line mode, charges the battery and is back on battery mode when you wake up and thus you assumption that it does not go to utility.
September 9, 20205 yr Author No software. Originally with one battery the inverter change to line mode. With a second battery when the inverter change to solar there is still four SOC lights on (66.6% charge). The power use to charge the inverter, controller, circuit breakers, switches etc is it done through solar or utility? Is it a wiring problem? Please assist. Regards,
September 9, 20205 yr 17 minutes ago, Dirkie Crous said: The power use to charge the inverter, controller, circuit breakers, switches etc is it done through solar or utility? None of this is charged? What do you mean? What is your settings, SBU,SUB, USB? Edited September 9, 20205 yr by Plaashaas
September 9, 20205 yr Author Nothing wrong with the settings. Refer back to my correspondence with Coulomb. The problem is that i am losing power on an hourly basis. About 300 - 400 Watt. Regards
September 9, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, Dirkie Crous said: is it done through solar or utility? You asked the question. 53 minutes ago, Dirkie Crous said: Nothing wrong with the settings. This would be directly related to you settings.
September 9, 20205 yr Author Current settings: 01; SBU. 02; 50A. 03; UPS. 04; SDS. 05; USE. 06; LRD. 07; TRD. 09; 50Hz. 11; 20A. 12; 47V. 13; 50V. 16; OSO. 18; BOF. 19; ESP. 20; LON. 22; AOF. 23; BYE. 25; FEN. 26; 53.2V. 27; 51.2V. 29; 45V. 31; SBE. Regards
September 9, 20205 yr 3 hours ago, Dirkie Crous said: Nothing wrong with the settings. Refer back to my correspondence with Coulomb. The problem is that i am losing power on an hourly basis. About 300 - 400 Watt. Regards Do a bit of Googling on vampire loads, and start switching things off to see where the power is going. Then you can consider automating things to switch off your standby appliances at night
September 9, 20205 yr On 2020/09/08 at 12:24 PM, Dirkie Crous said: All lights, plugs geyser and pool pump on solar. When is your geyser going on? What size element?
September 9, 20205 yr Author Got solar geyser. Geyserwise put element on manually when necessary. This problem was noticed before geyser was connected to solar power system
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