Tarquinbob
New Member
I live in france and my house is wired as 3 phase. I currently have 4x400W panels connected to a hoymiles 1600W grid tied micro inverter connected on a single phase. In France, for installations of less than 3kW you can inject back in on a single phase and the Linky smart meter is clever enough to sum up the usage on all 3 phases and if the sum is less than what is being produced on a single phase then the net usage is zero and I inject the excess for free to the grid.
I'd like to add a battery to the system as my main power usage is actually at night because as is typical in most French houses my hot water is from an immersion heater running on overnight cheap rate electricity. I've been looking at AC coupled systems, but haven't seen anything that would do what I want it to do. Basically I'd like to find a meter that acts like the smart meter that monitors all 3 phases and only if there's a net export use the surplus to charge a battery.
Does anyone know of something like that that exists and doens't cost a fortune?
The alternative that I've been thinking about is to use another grid tie inverter that's just fed by a battery and get a connect 2 of the panels to a charge controller to charge the battery during the day and then let the battery dishcharge overnight and let my house smart meter handle the phase balancing.
As I live in the south of France and can regularly end up exporting 5-10kWh a day, even on my small install, it seems a shame to waste so much energy. I can't sell the excess because it's a DIY system so I'm just iving it away to the grid for free.
P.S. I know someone is going to say why don't I just convert my house to single phase, but I'd quite like to keep the 3 phase for some woodworking machinery that I have and also for future use for faster charging if I ever get an electric car. Also, siwtching the immersion heater to day wouldn't really work for me either unless I fit significantly more panels which I don't have the space for as the rest of the roof get's too much shade from trees.
Cheers,
Phil
I'd like to add a battery to the system as my main power usage is actually at night because as is typical in most French houses my hot water is from an immersion heater running on overnight cheap rate electricity. I've been looking at AC coupled systems, but haven't seen anything that would do what I want it to do. Basically I'd like to find a meter that acts like the smart meter that monitors all 3 phases and only if there's a net export use the surplus to charge a battery.
Does anyone know of something like that that exists and doens't cost a fortune?
The alternative that I've been thinking about is to use another grid tie inverter that's just fed by a battery and get a connect 2 of the panels to a charge controller to charge the battery during the day and then let the battery dishcharge overnight and let my house smart meter handle the phase balancing.
As I live in the south of France and can regularly end up exporting 5-10kWh a day, even on my small install, it seems a shame to waste so much energy. I can't sell the excess because it's a DIY system so I'm just iving it away to the grid for free.
P.S. I know someone is going to say why don't I just convert my house to single phase, but I'd quite like to keep the 3 phase for some woodworking machinery that I have and also for future use for faster charging if I ever get an electric car. Also, siwtching the immersion heater to day wouldn't really work for me either unless I fit significantly more panels which I don't have the space for as the rest of the roof get's too much shade from trees.
Cheers,
Phil