MY wife and I (located in Reno, Nevada) have purchased a 30'x40' single slope steel building with a High Cube sea container behind the building for electrical equipment and battery banks. We ordered a altE Pre-wired Syst, SW4048,CL150, SCP but will have to upgrade to a XW PRO 6848 because of the (2) Absolyte GX battery banks (48volt/2,000 Amp hour). I am trying to configure the system to charge each battery bank separately with one inverter (if possible). I am completely new to all of the off grid and need help configuring the system - how many kilowatt are you able to place on your roof in your present layout? Not sure how large your roof is - but it looks close to our size roof. Thank you for any reply.
The XW PRO 6848 is not a solar charger. While it (I think) can charge from the use of grid power, it does not have a built in Solar Charge Controller (aka SCC) so I would assume you mean you also have at least 1 Solar Charge Controller?
Why would the SW4048 not work?
We ordered a altE Pre-wired Syst, SW4048,CL150, SCP but will have to upgrade to a XW PRO 6848 because of the (2) Absolyte GX battery banks (48volt/2,000 Amp hour).
This statement is unclear to me what you mean? Batteries are not charged from solar panels by an inverter. So why would the SW4048 and CL150 not work with the batteries? Was it a communication issue? Because I can assure you, if you do not need more than 4000 watts of AC power at any given moment, and the SC150 is configured correctly with the number of solar panels, the CL150 will charge whatever battery you connect to it.
The SW4048 and the XW Pro 6848 are Inverters
- The "convert" DC power to AC Power
- They take 48vdc in and output 120vac on 2 legs ... L1 and L2 ... just like a grid input from the Power Company Transformer on the Pole
- The SW4048 has a max load of about 4000 watts AC output to loads ...
- Where as the XW Pro has a max load of about 6800 watts AC output to loads.
- The only reason you would need to upgrade from the SW4048 to the XW Pro would be if your expected AC electrical Loads are Larger than 4000 watts.
- This would have no effect on the SCC's ability to charge the batteries
And I assume from the Alt-E Store description, that the CL150 is the MidNite Solar Classic 150?
- This is Your Solar Charge Controller
- How Many Classic 150s did you get?
- Or what are you using now?
What you need to configure and determine is
1. What are my expected AC power needs for a given 24 hour period
- This is expressed in Kilowatt hours (kWh)
- This is needed to understand how much power your solar panels need to produce not per hour ... but per day
- to Charge the batteries AND supply the loads
2. What is the Max load I will be needed at any given moment
- This will determine the size inverter you need
3. My battery bank is charged by my Solar panels and controlled by my SCC
4. My loads are supplied either by my battery bank, my solar array or a combo of the 2
- This determines my Solar Array size
- How big of an array do I need to both Charge my batteries AND supply my loads
So this is just the start of my calculations