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Migration from Diesel to Sun Power


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Hey Everyone,

I have been silently following this forum for some time, even though I had a genie. We wanted to get solar around 2 years ago, but the upfront cost was just too much. so we got a 18Kv diesel genie which worked 100%. The problem was that people complained about the noise and soon after they changed the time frame to use a genie. We decided to do what we wanted 2 years ago. Go solar!

I have done a lot of research and learned a helluva lot during this period. Everything was designed and installed by myself with knowledge also gained from this forum.

The components I used for this below;

  • Goodwe ES5048
  • 3x Pylontech 3.5 batteries
  • 12x JA Solar PERC 410w panels
  • Various AC and DC breakers
  • Various trunking, crimpers, lugs, plugs, ferrules etc.
  • AC wring all 10mm used
  • DC wiring 35mm on Batt, 6mm on solar (had 25mm on, and started to get hot when added the 3rd batttery)

These were bought from various suppliers. 

First was to create a base layout of the system.

Amberfield Solar Rev06.pdf

Then the DB layout of how the non essential and essential loads would be wired into the main DB.

DB Layout.pdf

The hardest part was to get the battery cabinets that high without any help mounted correctly. 

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The system works absolutely amazing. Nice to do anything during the day knowing eskom's straw is blocked now. 

 

Edited by Jakesza
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Beautiful setup - just a word of warning those Goodwe ES inverters should not be run on a generator. One use to have to read the manual carefully but I see it has changed and explicitly states no generators. This  information was previously hidden in the troubleshooting section

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14 hours ago, Chris Hobson said:

Just one question how did you extend the battery cables between the two battery cabinets? I am possibly getting one more Pylontech and my current cabinet is full. 

Hi Chris, I bought a new set of long cables, then cut the small link set that comes with the battery and used a very large crimper to crimp the cables. I ran the cables between the racks first and cut them to the right length, also moved the negative that runs to the inverter to the 2nd rack to maintain equal charge/discharge.  

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