June 30, 20215 yr Like many, I've prowled and read and learnt on this forum. I believe its time for my first post after all that time. Its time for me to start investing money now. I know that someone here surely has done this type of comparison before, and I'm actually quiet surprised it is not brought up more often here. Like many wanted to start going solar, what inverter allows for the best investment upfront? buy and axpert, then a growatt, or a off grid, then a grid tied, or just buy a sunsynk hybrid? how does it blend? or does it switch to utility when it cant provide enough PV? Does grid tied mean blend actively or switch completely to Utlilty? how much does a typical installation cost if I buy everything? including the CoC? What about passthrough? the general accepted average household consumption is said to be 30kwh/day. How does that effect the passthrough quantities? why is there a discussion even about hybrid and true hybrid? what then, should be the upgrade path from someone starting this path, from day 1? Can batteries be added later? Sure everyone says lithium, but is there no case for the other techs? and what are those cases? and ultimately, what are some of the cost/payback calcs that you guys have been playing with? what other critical considerations did i miss in the below table? Model solar battery utility how does it blend, or does it just switch? Grid tied? passthrough is it true hybrid? cost growatt kodak axpert sunsynk Thanking the members of this excellent forum in advance for their answers here! Pyro.
June 30, 20215 yr 16 minutes ago, Pyro said: Like many, I've prowled and read and learnt on this forum. I believe its time for my first post after all that time. Its time for me to start investing money now. I know that someone here surely has done this type of comparison before, and I'm actually quiet surprised it is not brought up more often here. Like many wanted to start going solar, what inverter allows for the best investment upfront? buy and axpert, then a growatt, or a off grid, then a grid tied, or just buy a sunsynk hybrid? how does it blend? or does it switch to utility when it cant provide enough PV? Does grid tied mean blend actively or switch completely to Utlilty? how much does a typical installation cost if I buy everything? including the CoC? What about passthrough? the general accepted average household consumption is said to be 30kwh/day. How does that effect the passthrough quantities? why is there a discussion even about hybrid and true hybrid? what then, should be the upgrade path from someone starting this path, from day 1? Can batteries be added later? Sure everyone says lithium, but is there no case for the other techs? and what are those cases? and ultimately, what are some of the cost/payback calcs that you guys have been playing with? what other critical considerations did i miss in the below table? Model solar battery utility how does it blend, or does it just switch? Grid tied? passthrough is it true hybrid? cost growatt kodak axpert sunsynk Thanking the members of this excellent forum in advance for their answers here! Pyro. Lots to unpack but I can give you my progression. I always knew that I wanted to be as indpendent of the grid as possible but that going fully off-grid was never going to happen, at least anytime soon. I also know that I was not prepared to spend any money in having to rip out equipment as I move along the upgrade path so it was always going to be hybrid inverter that can parralel when I need to upgrade. It just so happened that the Sunsynk 8kW was just starting to hit the SA market and it ticked all the boxes for me so it was an easy choice when comparing price vs functionality at the time. The only other setup that would have worked for would have been a Victron system but the price was just too high for me. To your questions. 1. Sunsynk for reasons mentioned above. 2. Blending is seamlessly from pv, batteries, generator, wind turbine or grid. I dont have a wind turbine or generator though. 3. Cost is entirely up to what you want out of your system. 4. Pass through relates to instant power consumption and not total power consumption. So a typical household would normal see a max of 6kw to 8kw of max instant power being used. Remember that your breaker on your municpal feed is 63A so the max you can pull from the grid would be about 13.8kW. The sunsynk 8kW has a passthrough of 90A(under investigation due and possibly only 50A) This means that if your connected load are 10kW, the 8kw sunsynk will take 8 kw from pv and batteries if available and take the balance of 2kW from the grid. 5. Lots of mixing of terms when it comes to describing inverters. To me a true hybrid can blend power from multiple sources and does not switch everything over to the grid if pv or batteries can only provide some of power requirements. 6. If you know what your end goal is then it should be easier to try and plan it n stages. 7. Batteries can be added later. Lithium is the best option as you can stagger the adding of additional batteries. I don't think its recommended to mix old with new when it comes to AGM and other lead acid batteries. The cost of lithium is higher initially but the per kwh price over the lifespan of the lithium battery tends to be on par if not cheaper than lead acid batteries. 8. I should recover my costs in less than 7 years and this is without factoring in annual electricity price increases. 9. From my setup Inverter - Sunsynk 8kW Solar - 34 x 305w canadian solar panels. Total of 10.37kW Battery - 4 x 3.5kw Pylontech lithium batteries. Total of 14kWh Utility - City of Cape Town Full hybrid so seamlessly blends 50A but manual indicates 90A True Hybrid R230k (R200k initial cost in July 2020 + additional battery and solar panels in April 2021 of R30k)
June 30, 20215 yr Author amazing reply there buddy! sometimes, some of us may even just stop by getting some PV in for daytime loads. which wil be the best/cheapest route down that road? the sunsynk is excellent, but i'm pretty sure I may be able to get away with a lesser inverter for daytime PV only?
June 30, 20215 yr I would recommend a Sunsynk 5kw, one US3000C and as much PV as you can afford (up to 6,5kw), If you are on a tight budget...The axpert type inverters are not nearly as nice from my experience. Add more batteries as you get more funds.
June 30, 20215 yr 7 minutes ago, Nexuss said: I would recommend a Sunsynk 5kw, one US3000C and as much PV as you can afford (up to 6,5kw), If you are on a tight budget...The axpert type inverters are not nearly as nice from my experience. Add more batteries as you get more funds. Agreed I did the following calculation to look at what I would pay CoCT in electricity vs self provision from solar. CoCT usage 1 200kwh power month at an average price of R2.50/kwh = R3 000 per month. Over 10 years I would be paying CoCT R360 000 excluding the current 13% increase and any future increases. Solar setup cost is R230k. Over 10 years and using 1 200kwh per month, this comes out to R1.60/kWh. I've effectively just prepaid my electricity for the next 10 years at R1.60/kWh. I am however expecting it to last 15 years before any major replacements needs to be done. Payback was not the primary reason but because I had the available cash, I decided to look at it as a secondary motivator. The more pv you can get, the more you save.
June 30, 20215 yr Author 1 hour ago, Nexuss said: I would recommend a Sunsynk 5kw, one US3000C and as much PV as you can afford (up to 6,5kw), If you are on a tight budget...The axpert type inverters are not nearly as nice from my experience. Add more batteries as you get more funds. so battery first, before panels? thats interesting. I dont have a need for backup power immediately ( i got a mecer trolley thingie for loadshedding) and it works ok for now. whats the pro's and cons of battery first then panels? I was thinking panels then battery...
June 30, 20215 yr It is panels first. The minimum is one battery to start with to be able to store and supplement to loads above your pv production at the time.(also dont think you can run the inverter without a battery) This is probably confusing until you see exactly how the inverter works. For instance , its 2pm in the afternoon and your PV array is producing 2kw and your battery has been charged up , you now switch on the toaster and microwave , you draw say 5kw , 2kw will come from the PV and 1,8kw will come from the battery , so you wont use any grid . This scales up as you get more batteries. 1,8kw per US3000c battery(37amp @ rated 0,5C) Edited June 30, 20215 yr by Nexuss
June 30, 20215 yr 47 minutes ago, Nexuss said: It is panels first. The minimum is one battery to start with to be able to store and supplement to loads above your pv production at the time.(also dont think you can run the inverter without a battery) This is probably confusing until you see exactly how the inverter works. For instance , its 2pm in the afternoon and your PV array is producing 2kw and your battery has been charged up , you now switch on the toaster and microwave , you draw say 5kw , 2kw will come from the PV and 1,8kw will come from the battery , so you wont use any grid . This scales up as you get more batteries. 1,8kw per US3000c battery(37amp @ rated 0,5C) Correction on that. The inverter can run without a battery if the grid is available or even with a generator on the grid input. Only if there is a power outage and no other direct AC power, then it will not run. With battery and grid available, its a hybrid inverter No battery but grid, it defaults to a grid tied inverter No battery or grid but a generator, then it becomes an off grid inverter All this from one inverter. Edited June 30, 20215 yr by Achmat
June 30, 20215 yr 2 hours ago, Achmat said: Agreed I did the following calculation to look at what I would pay CoCT in electricity vs self provision from solar. CoCT usage 1 200kwh power month at an average price of R2.50/kwh = R3 000 per month. Over 10 years I would be paying CoCT R360 000 excluding the current 13% increase and any future increases. Solar setup cost is R230k. Over 10 years and using 1 200kwh per month, this comes out to R1.60/kWh. I've effectively just prepaid my electricity for the next 10 years at R1.60/kWh. I am however expecting it to last 15 years before any major replacements needs to be done. Payback was not the primary reason but because I had the available cash, I decided to look at it as a secondary motivator. The more pv you can get, the more you save. As much as I like and agree with what you wrote, I think we just need to be honest and admit that for certain parts of the year you will not be able to generate sufficient PV and will still need to draw from the grid - and hence not achieve the targeted savings. With the weather that we have been having in the Cape for the last 2 days, my 9kW of panels generated 5.9kWh yesterday and 2.8kWh the day before... So definitely agree with pre-paying your electricity, just I would be a bit more conservative on the rate calculation 😉
June 30, 20215 yr @Pyro There are many ways to skin a cat I don't even know why one would want to skin a cat. When it comes to solar it depends on your goal. I bought my growatt es model because it's cheaper than true hybrids. It can blen solar and grid if you start with fewer panels than can power your load. A few other axpert models can do this. There are more expensive growatt models that can do what the sunsynk does but they are much more expensive which is why deye/sunsynk is so popular. It is the sweet spot for an inverter that does everything. If everything if not what you are looking for. Maybe you want to be offgrid/100% self sufficient then saving money on the inverter to spend it on a gas geyser and gas stove would still be a valid choice not that anyone is judging. So it depends on what you want to achieve. If going offgrid then any offgrid inverter with a good warranty will be fine.
June 30, 20215 yr I started with the Sunsynk 5kw and 10*335W Canadian Solar panels. When I started looking at the Sunsynk I was under the impression that it can work without batteries for loadshedding during the day. After a bit of research, I realized that I it works as a grid tie when it doesn't have a battery. I initially wanted the Hubble battery because I was looking for a 1C battery that can "talk" to the inverter. Unfortunately they were out of stock everywhere and loadshedding had started. I considered the pylontech up5000 but I had to buy brackets and cables, so I ditched that idea and bought a LBSA 5.1kwh battery which I could mount to the wall without any additional hardware. I'm very happy with my setup so far. I produce an average of 15kwh each day and based on my calculations, I will need 6 years for the system to pay itself off, if I don't add other things.
June 30, 20215 yr 20 minutes ago, wolfandy said: As much as I like and agree with what you wrote, I think we just need to be honest and admit that for certain parts of the year you will not be able to generate sufficient PV and will still need to draw from the grid - and hence not achieve the targeted savings. With the weather that we have been having in the Cape for the last 2 days, my 9kW of panels generated 5.9kWh yesterday and 2.8kWh the day before... So definitely agree with pre-paying your electricity, just I would be a bit more conservative on the rate calculation 😉 I can agree on that. I will however be looking back at actual pv generation to calculate actual savings vs my estimate. The system was commissioned on 1 August 2020 and as of today, 334 running days, my total pv generation is 12.36MWh which comes to 1 123kWh on average per month (11 months) which is not that far off from my 1 200kWh figure. Edited June 30, 20215 yr by Achmat
June 30, 20215 yr Author absolutely loving the feedback on this thread! Sharing is caring guys, keep it coming.. I think the sunsynk+pv+battery is the ultimate starter pack. but i'm not overlooking what buyeye is saying here. its actually quiet intriguing. i mean how many people have the moola to get rolling out the gates with the ultimate starter pack above?I mean lets put figures to it. kit only: Ultimate starter pack = R60k ( 20+20+20) = xkwh per day? Can someone confirm? for 20k should be getting 10x350w panels=3,5kwhx5 solar hours/day = 17.5kwh? Sure there is battery backup there as well, but assume for now its not there. so in actual fact R40k. buyeye, how much did your growatt es solar grid tied setup cost?12k+20k panels for same 17.5kwh per day. 32k sounds like a more palatable starter pack then, right... right?
June 30, 20215 yr I can't comment on the upgrade path with the Growatt, but just the 5kw sunsynk and a 4kw pv array allows for many possible future upgrades. 1. Multi inverter so you can add more units if you want to increase what you power. 2 Aux connection. This is a configurable input/output than can be used an additional output if needed or you can connect another micro inverter with more solar panels if you don't want to go the parallel route. You could even use this for a wind turbine or for generator. These are only my main upgrade considerations with the sunsynk without having to replace anything and only adding on.
June 30, 20215 yr From what i have seen from the Growatt inverters on Will Prowse's channel i have not been impressed. Considering The 5kw synsynks price/abilities its a no brainer for me personally. I would spend the extra cash on the Sunsynk all day ,even if i had to rob someone . Just kidding hehe.
June 30, 20215 yr 2 hours ago, Pyro said: absolutely loving the feedback on this thread! Sharing is caring guys, keep it coming.. I think the sunsynk+pv+battery is the ultimate starter pack. but i'm not overlooking what buyeye is saying here. its actually quiet intriguing. i mean how many people have the moola to get rolling out the gates with the ultimate starter pack above?I mean lets put figures to it. kit only: Ultimate starter pack = R60k ( 20+20+20) = xkwh per day? Can someone confirm? for 20k should be getting 10x350w panels=3,5kwhx5 solar hours/day = 17.5kwh? Sure there is battery backup there as well, but assume for now its not there. so in actual fact R40k. buyeye, how much did your growatt es solar grid tied setup cost?12k+20k panels for same 17.5kwh per day. 32k sounds like a more palatable starter pack then, right... right? The only difference will be the R7k or R9k saving depending on whether you get the deye or sunsynk. The growatts are cheap as chips on black friday I got mine at normal price last year R13k.
June 30, 20215 yr 21 minutes ago, Buyeye said: The only difference will be the R7k or R9k saving depending on whether you get the deye or sunsynk. The growatts are cheap as chips on black friday I got mine at normal price last year R13k. There are good reasons the price is /can be so low. The efficiency is lower than a hybrid, the idle consumption is higher , the user interface is not as advanced,not as many functions ect. All reasons i went with the Sunsynk.
July 1, 20215 yr 23 hours ago, Pyro said: Like many, I've prowled and read and learnt on this forum. I believe its time for my first post after all that time. Its time for me to start investing money now. I know that someone here surely has done this type of comparison before, and I'm actually quiet surprised it is not brought up more often here. Like many wanted to start going solar, what inverter allows for the best investment upfront? buy and axpert, then a growatt, or a off grid, then a grid tied, or just buy a sunsynk hybrid? how does it blend? or does it switch to utility when it cant provide enough PV? Does grid tied mean blend actively or switch completely to Utlilty? how much does a typical installation cost if I buy everything? including the CoC? What about passthrough? the general accepted average household consumption is said to be 30kwh/day. How does that effect the passthrough quantities? why is there a discussion even about hybrid and true hybrid? what then, should be the upgrade path from someone starting this path, from day 1? Can batteries be added later? Sure everyone says lithium, but is there no case for the other techs? and what are those cases? and ultimately, what are some of the cost/payback calcs that you guys have been playing with? what other critical considerations did i miss in the below table? Model solar battery utility how does it blend, or does it just switch? Grid tied? passthrough is it true hybrid? cost growatt kodak axpert sunsynk Thanking the members of this excellent forum in advance for their answers here! Pyro. Am I right in saying that the Kodak is a rebadged axpert? I think this is a good study to undertake before you spent your dosh - assuming you understand all the terms and the implications. Having joined this forum shortly after my system was installed I have noticed that there is very little chat these days about Goodwe and Victron. It seems that Sunsynk fairly quickly gained a dominant position. Your question about cost of a typical installation is, IMO, unanswerable because there is no typical installation. If you are well advised or well informed you will analyse your needs and then everything flows from there. In my home we were using 400 to 420 kw/h a month before installation. That is not that much. If you have heated fish tanks that you want to back up or you're bitcoin mining then your needs are very different from mine. Also some folks just want to get through a load shed, some want to go all the way off grid. Because needs vary so much, there isn't (or shouldn't be) a typical installation. Edited July 1, 20215 yr by Bobster Spellling
July 1, 20215 yr Author its this that I am intrigued by: Axpert Max looks to be giving what he sunsynk it giving, give or take some bells and whistles.. nice to haves really right? but functionally meeting very similair requirements. but at the same cost of the synsynk then why not sunsynk right? anyone else getting similar value from other setups? lets hear it:
July 1, 20215 yr 2 hours ago, Pyro said: its this that I am intrigued by: Axpert Max looks to be giving what he sunsynk it giving, give or take some bells and whistles.. nice to haves really right? but functionally meeting very similair requirements. but at the same cost of the synsynk then why not sunsynk right? anyone else getting similar value from other setups? lets hear it: https://www.diygeek.co.za/product/axpert-7-2kva-7200kw-king-max/ Axpert max is half the price of the sunsynk 8kw.
July 6, 20215 yr On 2021/07/01 at 8:21 AM, 87 Dream said: Let me throw a spanner in the works here🔧 Axpert Max 8kW inverter. 2 X MPPT. Can run without batteries & use solar PV direct. Can generate up to 8Kw of power. 120A solar & AC charger built in. Can blend power from available sources. Has a input for a Generator. Can accept 8kW of Solar PV. Can be scaled by up to 6 X machines in Parallel to feed single or 3phase supply. No fancy user interface & CT Coil. Hooked up with Solar Assistant & Pi: Makes this analogue antique UI into a Modern Hybrid manageable from your phone. Includes settings changes & power source Changes. If you have a small battery & don't want to hurt it, you can limit the output amps in a setting, the rest will draw from the grid. Supports Lithium battery Comms to selected batteries through CAN/RS323/RJ485. Integrated with a TOMZN Smart WiFi MCB the geyser & Heavy hitters can all be placed on the same supply. Got an unsupported battery, no problems use a Victron Smart shunt/ BMV, connect to the Pi & use Solar Assistant to integrate Comms. For sure not an apple for apple 🍏 comparison but sure as well makes for an option & a very cost effective one at that. Total Cost R20K for this inverter. The best setup I have seen so far are 2 of these working in unison feeding 16kW to a 3 phase DB. The most I've recorded was 11kW demand & it blended what it could & drew nothing from the grid. Well, I guess 28 X 410W Trina's make light work of this on a sunny day. I really do not want to brand bash or anything, the Sunsynks & Growatts are great proven machines, but I would like to share the Axpert MAX with the setup above is a beast of a machine on a budget 🐯🏅 87 Hi 87 Dream, Can the Axpert Max 8Kw work operate without batteries and without AC from the grid and still produce from power from PV? Sunsynk lacks that functionality. As far as I know Sunsynk shuts down in such situation.
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