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Sol-ark 12k Pricing - Canada (and USA)???

bedpan

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Aug 16, 2020
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Hey Folks,

As I move down the path to energy Eutopia I am starting to price options out and as I start roughing out plans. I think I finally got somewhere with my local Hydro One provider that will allow me to Grid Connect after getting the initial rejection... Sooo..

Where is the cheapest place to buy a Sol-Ark 12k in Canada? They seem to be landing around $11k Canadian but the cheapest I have found is $9300 at https://pioneersolarenergy.com/product/sol-ark-12-kw-hybrid-inverter/

What about USD? A quick search I see about $6900 USD or about $8700 CAD. Now that we can cross the border again this could be a decent savings crossing over if you can skirt the tax.

What prices have you seen?
 
I just saw a video about that inverter ...... it is on here somewhere and may be worth looking into.

The just of the video was that the 12K is only a model number ... it is actually a 9K inverter. Also, the 9K is the total for both legs. If either leg exceeds 4.5K, it will shut down.
 
I just saw a video about that inverter ...... it is on here somewhere and may be worth looking into.

The just of the video was that the 12K is only a model number ... it is actually a 9K inverter. Also, the 9K is the total for both legs. If either leg exceeds 4.5K, it will shut down.
It is 12K. Like any spilt phase inverters it has separate inverters for each phase. So you have two 4500W 120V Inverters and the third one is a 3KW battery charger. You can supply 9KW to your home and still charge the batteries at 3KW or if your home consumption drops to 5Kw it will direct 7KW to the battery charging or Grid sell.


That video you saw was done by an idiot who was deliberately trying to unbalance the phases to the point where they would trip the inverter. Any Solar installer worth his salt will always balance your 120V loads so you don;t have all of the heavy loads on one leg.
 
It is 12K. Like any spilt phase inverters it has separate inverters for each phase. So you have two 4500W 120V Inverters and the third one is a 3KW battery charger. You can supply 9KW to your home and still charge the batteries at 3KW or if your home consumption drops to 5Kw it will direct 7KW to the battery charging or Grid sell.


That video you saw was done by an idiot who was deliberately trying to unbalance the phases to the point where they would trip the inverter. Any Solar installer worth his salt will always balance your 120V loads so you don;t have all of the heavy loads on one leg.
.... but it seems prudent to understand the 4500 watts / phase limitation. A person could mistakenly think they are getting 6000 watts per phase.
It seemed to me that he was just trying to duplicate a problem he had been having and make sure people understand what they are getting.
Seems a little harsh to call him and idiot.
 
David Poz did a video on the 12k model on his You Tube channel.
One month ago announcing the install and up date three days ago.
 
.... but it seems prudent to understand the 4500 watts / phase limitation. A person could mistakenly think they are getting 6000 watts per phase.
It seemed to me that he was just trying to duplicate a problem he had been having and make sure people understand what they are getting.
Seems a little harsh to call him and idiot.
You can take any Inverter, even an SMA split phase and if you unbalance the load distribution by keeping one over it's limit and the other at almost half it's limit the Inverter is going to trip. The tripping point on the Sol-Ark 12K was actually told to David by another commentator before hand as a warning, but Instead of avoiding it he used it to sensationalize the video. He could have just as easily put the extra load on the other leg but he chose to keep bogging down the same leg with more load so as to make it look like the Sol-Ark could not handle the load when the truth is it could have handled that load easily and he could have added even more load.

As for people understanding how a true split phase inverter works I have no problem with that being demonstrated, but at the same time do not compare it with two single phase units that are coupled to an Autotransformer to make a comparison. You can also attach the Sol-Ark 12K to an Autotransformer and possibly draw a few extra KW on one leg but why would you do that and add extra losses to your system. A solar installer will always balance your load panel for you.

I guess lastly is the fact that he had tons of time to call Sol-Ark and let them know he was having a problem but he instead decided not to. Now we find out he was running the original release firmware on the unit. This firmware was very conservative in it's shutdown points. If he had updated the firmware he would have had over 5Kw per leg to play with for a limited time.
 
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There is a thread about the Poz video. I well aware of the limitation of split phase. Take the video discussion to that thread I suggest. I was asking for costing... Thanks though!
 
Talk to Renee at Eco Direct. She is the owner of the company and is very often flexible with her prices.
She will ship it to a location you choose and you can drive over and pick it up.
BTW I have never seen a listed price lower than $6900 except on eBay and I would not trade a $300 savings for the unknowns when dealing with eBay sellers.
 
It is 12K. Like any spilt phase inverters it has separate inverters for each phase. So you have two 4500W 120V Inverters and the third one is a 3KW battery charger. You can supply 9KW to your home and still charge the batteries at 3KW or if your home consumption drops to 5Kw it will direct 7KW to the battery charging or Grid sell.


That video you saw was done by an idiot who was deliberately trying to unbalance the phases to the point where they would trip the inverter. Any Solar installer worth his salt will always balance your 120V loads so you don;t have all of the heavy loads on one leg.
Man, you really giving Poz a hard time.. I’m sure there is/was a lot of people buying the SolArk and not realizing the inverter would shut off if one leg exceeded 4500w.. that means if one leg would have 3000w and the other 5000w the inverter will shut down well below 9000w. For the expense of the SolArk this imo shouldn’t happen, but as the name suggests, I’m Cheap... yes I understand an additional transformer can be added... I think Poz was simply saying with his much cheaper growatt setup with transformer, there wasn’t any issues losing power/inverters shutting down.. as he said he’s referring to offgrid usage only. And as he said the Solark does have more functionality for things he doesn’t need/use or know much about like ongrid functions.. from his video I gathered that for a person wanting to be offgrid only that the growatts are a better option, although the idle usage was higher for the growatts.. From what seen that makes sense.. He said the SolArk shutoff several times and the growatts did not. Then he was demonstrating why the SolArks shutdown. If I remember the video, he only had roughly a 3kw difference between the legs which can happen easily in any home even with care taken to balance the legs of the panel..
 
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Man, you really giving Poz a hard time.. I’m sure there is/was a lot of people buying the SolArk and not realizing the inverter would shut off if one leg exceeded 4500w.. that means if one leg would have 3000w and the other 5000w the inverter will shut down well below 9000w. For the expense of the SolArk this imo shouldn’t happen, but as the name suggests, I’m Cheap... yes I understand an additional transformer can be added... I think Poz was simply saying with his much cheaper growatt setup with transformer, there wasn’t any issues losing power/inverters shutting down.. as he said he’s referring to offgrid usage only. And as he said the Solark does have more functionality for things he doesn’t need/use or know much about like ongrid functions.. He said the SolArk shutoff several times and the growatts did not. Then he was demonstrating why the SolArks shutdown. If I remember the video, he only had roughly a 3kw difference between the legs which can happen easily in any home even with care taken to balance the legs of the panel..
And if he had spent 30 minutes and hooked the Sol-Ark to that same Transformer he would not have had any shutdowns. You do know that the main US Growatt supplier sponsors his channel!
Anyway the OP asked that we leave this out of his thread and I am trying to respect his wishes.
 
There is a thread about the Poz video. I well aware of the limitation of split phase. Take the video discussion to that thread I suggest. I was asking for costing... Thanks though!
My mistake.. just seen this
 
It is 12K. Like any spilt phase inverters it has separate inverters for each phase. So you have two 4500W 120V Inverters and the third one is a 3KW battery charger. You can supply 9KW to your home and still charge the batteries at 3KW or if your home consumption drops to 5Kw it will direct 7KW to the battery charging or Grid sell.

I think it is 12kW PV input to HV DC rail, 9kW battery charger (bidirectional to HV DC rail), 2x 4500W AC inverter (bidirectional to HV DC rail) for the two phases.
It can AC couple to grid-tie inverters, pull their output to the HV DC rail and down to battery. All within the above limits.
Balancing transformer should to some degree divide an imbalanced load between the two 4500W phases, but likely not completely because voltage sags going through a transformer.

I think it is supposed to be able to do 3000W battery charging and 9000W AC from 12kW PV. Or, 9000W battery charging and 3000W AC.
Actually, all those "W" are really "VA", if a load like a motor is less than 1.0 power factor (distorted, phase shifted), 9000VA will be less than 9000W.
 
That video you saw was done by an idiot who was deliberately trying to unbalance the phases to the point where they would trip the inverter. Any Solar installer worth his salt will always balance your 120V loads so you don;t have all of the heavy loads on one leg.
[/QUOTE]
Its sad to see we retort to this childishness...its unnecessary....mr poz has never claimed to be an engineer or misrepresented himself as anything more than a avid d.i.y'er who likes to play with things to see how they work.
 
Hey Folks,

As I move down the path to energy Eutopia I am starting to price options out and as I start roughing out plans. I think I finally got somewhere with my local Hydro One provider that will allow me to Grid Connect after getting the initial rejection... Sooo..

Where is the cheapest place to buy a Sol-Ark 12k in Canada? They seem to be landing around $11k Canadian but the cheapest I have found is $9300 at https://pioneersolarenergy.com/product/sol-ark-12-kw-hybrid-inverter/

What about USD? A quick search I see about $6900 USD or about $8700 CAD. Now that we can cross the border again this could be a decent savings crossing over if you can skirt the tax.

What prices have you
Hey Folks,

As I move down the path to energy Eutopia I am starting to price options out and as I start roughing out plans. I think I finally got somewhere with my local Hydro One provider that will allow me to Grid Connect after getting the initial rejection... Sooo..

Where is the cheapest place to buy a Sol-Ark 12k in Canada? They seem to be landing around $11k Canadian but the cheapest I have found is $9300 at https://pioneersolarenergy.com/product/sol-ark-12-kw-hybrid-inverter/

What about USD? A quick search I see about $6900 USD or about $8700 CAD. Now that we can cross the border again this could be a decent savings crossing over if you can skirt the tax.

What prices have you seen?
I believe hightech lab on here is a dealer for them mabe you can see what pricing he can offer.
 
Man, you really giving Poz a hard time.. I’m sure there is/was a lot of people buying the SolArk and not realizing the inverter would shut off if one leg exceeded 4500w.. that means if one leg would have 3000w and the other 5000w the inverter will shut down well below 9000w. For the expense of the SolArk this imo shouldn’t happen, but as the name suggests, I’m Cheap... yes I understand an additional transformer can be added... I think Poz was simply saying with his much cheaper growatt setup with transformer, there wasn’t any issues losing power/inverters shutting down.. as he said he’s referring to offgrid usage only. And as he said the Solark does have more functionality for things he doesn’t need/use or know much about like ongrid functions.. from his video I gathered that for a person wanting to be offgrid only that the growatts are a better option, although the idle usage was higher for the growatts.. From what seen that makes sense.. He said the SolArk shutoff several times and the growatts did not. Then he was demonstrating why the SolArks shutdown. If I remember the video, he only had roughly a 3kw difference between the legs which can happen easily in any home even with care taken to balance the legs of the panel..
I Blocked that guy, no one needs insults. Poz is great second only to Will
 
I Blocked that guy, no one needs insults. Poz is great second only to Will
If you think that Poz is even close to Will in Knowledge you really know nothing! The only reason you would have blocked me is because I kept proving that a lot of your statements in previous posts were wrong.
 
Just bought a Sol-Ark 12K from Tandem Solar for $6225 plus shipping. No tax outside California. $6370 total to Iowa.
 
Just bought a Sol-Ark 12K from Tandem Solar for $6225 plus shipping. No tax outside California. $6370 total to Iowa.
Nice price, especially since it includes shipping.
Are you going to DIY your system or get someone to do it for you?
 
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