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Anyone have the scoop on the upcoming Sol-Ark limitless system?

I think it's coming out in February, I was given a hint that it might look different from the other models.
15KW is going to be really nice, but it's a lot more power than I would need but I can see where for off grid people it would be a great choice.
 
Nice piece of gear but if I spent anymore money on my system the wife would be seeking a divorce.
I can see where the AI learning would be perfect for my setup. I have several mini splits and this unit could learn when we use them and when we don’t.
Someone forgets to turn one off it would be shutdown if power is needed elsewhere.
 
bedpan said:
The designed in the USA I take issue with.. I have not seen the made in the USA on it. The Data being housed in China is an issue for me with it being a veteran based company. Saying all that I am Canadian so....

I don't think the 12k is wrong either.. Its a name, and it does do 12k in its own way. Just not pure inversion.
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It can take in 12k of power, you can only use 9k. That is deceptive advertising and they have caught a lot of flack for that. The unit is made in China and programmed by them.
 
200A pass through is definitely really nice for grid-tie. I see a pair of these in my future. For what it's worth, this will be running both our house + a 1200-ish sq ft woodshop, both built to Passive House standards, so I think even with both buildings on this - even if there were a power outage, I wouldn't have to change my usage patterns. It's just a one-man-shop, not a commercial one. So the max I'd be running simultaneously there would be a 2HP dust collector and a 3HP table saw - even if I fired BOTH of these up simultaneously, I believe LRA combined is 60-70 amps.

Question for folks:

Regarding the 15kw inverter for solar -vs- 12kw from battery... what's the limiting factor here for DC? Is it that this system runs on a 48V (nominal) battery bank, meaning that 12kw is 250A? The battery cable size is getting kindof big. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a 15 foot copper run of 48V @ 250A would require 1/0 AWG to be below a 2% voltage drop). 4/0 would be required at 500A (surge capacity, assuming 48V DC and supplying 24KW AC).

Totally nerding out now, as I think of this... in a parallel system, you'd need to handle 500A DC sustained, 1000A surge. A quick search online shows that Blue Sea Systems (intended for marine applications, but should work fine here) makes a 1000A busbar with 8 x 3/8" studs for $140 each. Crazy... but I guess if I'm building this for two buildings and want to factor in lots of safety... this really is a pretty nice way to go.

Brian
 
TootyBooty said:
200A pass through is definitely really nice for grid-tie. I see a pair of these in my future. For what it's worth, this will be running both our house + a 1200-ish sq ft woodshop, both built to Passive House standards, so I think even with both buildings on this - even if there were a power outage, I wouldn't have to change my usage patterns. It's just a one-man-shop, not a commercial one. So the max I'd be running simultaneously there would be a 2HP dust collector and a 3HP table saw - even if I fired BOTH of these up simultaneously, I believe LRA combined is 60-70 amps.

Question for folks:

Regarding the 15kw inverter for solar -vs- 12kw from battery... what's the limiting factor here for DC? Is it that this system runs on a 48V (nominal) battery bank, meaning that 12kw is 250A? The battery cable size is getting kindof big. Correct me if I'm wrong, but a 15 foot copper run of 48V @ 250A would require 1/0 AWG to be below a 2% voltage drop). 4/0 would be required at 500A (surge capacity, assuming 48V DC and supplying 24KW AC).

Totally nerding out now, as I think of this... in a parallel system, you'd need to handle 500A DC sustained, 1000A surge. A quick search online shows that Blue Sea Systems (intended for marine applications, but should work fine here) makes a 1000A busbar with 8 x 3/8" studs for $140 each. Crazy... but I guess if I'm building this for two buildings and want to factor in lots of safety... this really is a pretty nice way to go.

Brian
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That's exactly my plan as far as using the Blue Sea bus bars for my batteries and 2x 15k Inverters (hopefully soon). I'm running 4/0 copper for each bank, and using ¼" thick bus bar to connect individual batteries together.

Expensive, but with this many amps it's not worth messing about in my opinion.
 
Aleksrussian said:
That's exactly my plan as far as using the Blue Sea bus bars for my batteries and 2x 15k Inverters (hopefully soon). I'm running 4/0 copper for each bank, and using ¼" thick bus bar to connect individual batteries together.

Expensive, but with this many amps it's not worth messing about in my opinion.
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What type of batteries you thinking?

Been reading some stuff on these: https://www.signaturesolar.com/products/48v-100ah-lifepower4-battery-by-eg4
Seems that two 6-slot racks, using the busbars built into the racks for each group of 6, then connecting that back to the Blue Sea busbars to combine + distribute to the inverter wouldn't be a bad setup. The math is solid. This battery says 100A max continuous charge and discharge, but they recommend 30A. Two 15Ks would be 24kw max constant, 48kw peak. 24kw / 48V = 500A constant (max) / 12 batts = 41.67A each... since I'd typically be no where near 24kw, that seems very reasonable. Even 48kw (83A) peak is below the 100A per battery limit.
 
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TootyBooty said:
What type of batteries you thinking?

Been reading some stuff on these: https://www.signaturesolar.com/products/48v-100ah-lifepower4-battery-by-eg4
Seems that two 6-slot racks, using the busbars built into the racks for each group of 6, then connecting that back to the Blue Sea busbars to combine + distribute to the inverter wouldn't be a bad setup. The math is solid. This battery says 100A max continuous charge and discharge, but they recommend 30A. Two 15Ks would be 24kw max constant, 48kw peak. 24kw / 48V = 500A constant (max) / 12 batts = 41.67A each... since I'd typically be no where near 24kw, that seems very reasonable. Even 48kw (83A) peak is below the 100A per battery limit.
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Yup that's the ones I plan to use 4 banks of 6, but I'm not buying their racks, I'm making my own.

Check out the first picture I've seen of a 15K. It apparently has a much bigger opening compartment and the unit itself seems bigger than the 12K by alot.
 

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32x Sunpower 435W so nearly 14kw of Solar.

I plan to run an all electric house and shop but this is not reasonable without the very specific construction of this place.
 
Aleksrussian said:
32x Sunpower 435W so nearly 14kw of Solar.

I plan to run an all electric house and shop but this is not reasonable without the very specific construction of this place.
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With two 15Ks... and therefore 6 MPPTs, how are you planning to divvy up your solar? 4 strings of 8, two on each 15K - leaving one MPPT on each unit unused? I'm curious of whay you chose (and more importantly WHY).

Being efficient is exactly why we are planning to build to Passive House specs. I'm planning to have propane at my property though - for a backup generator (I'm a network engineer, we like lots of redundancy in systems), on demand hot water and the cooktop (requirement from my wife... and if I'm being honest, I haven't met an electric cooktop that I like). Everything else will be electric. So according to PHIUS, we can get Passive House CORE certification, but cannot go for ZERO. The ZERO rating prohibits "fossil fuel combustion equipment". So I guess we'll just be CORE and net zero, without any "certification" (since certs aren't the goal, they're just a great way to ensure the design is implemented and confirming zero electricity bill is something I can easily do on my own). In fact, it's out plan to overbuild our solar array and be grid-tie, so we can put the extra back on the grid. In Oregon, net metering follows a 12-month calendar - and extra "credits" after 12 months gets dumped into a fund to help people that can't afford electricity... so it seems a nice, little way to give back for many many years. "Residential" is limited to 25kw for net metering, so my thought is to simply run 6 total strings of panels, similar in size to what you mentioned above... which would be ~ 21kw... and only pushing each MPPT ~ half of what is capable, which should also keep heat load inside both 15Ks even and low.
 
TootyBooty said:
With two 15Ks... and therefore 6 MPPTs, how are you planning to divvy up your solar? 4 strings of 8, two on each 15K - leaving one MPPT on each unit unused? I'm curious of whay you chose (and more importantly WHY).

Being efficient is exactly why we are planning to build to Passive House specs. I'm planning to have propane at my property though - for a backup generator (I'm a network engineer, we like lots of redundancy in systems), on demand hot water and the cooktop (requirement from my wife... and if I'm being honest, I haven't met an electric cooktop that I like). Everything else will be electric. So according to PHIUS, we can get Passive House CORE certification, but cannot go for ZERO. The ZERO rating prohibits "fossil fuel combustion equipment". So I guess we'll just be CORE and net zero, without any "certification" (since certs aren't the goal, they're just a great way to ensure the design is implemented and confirming zero electricity bill is something I can easily do on my own). In fact, it's out plan to overbuild our solar array and be grid-tie, so we can put the extra back on the grid. In Oregon, net metering follows a 12-month calendar - and extra "credits" after 12 months gets dumped into a fund to help people that can't afford electricity... so it seems a nice, little way to give back for many many years. "Residential" is limited to 25kw for net metering, so my thought is to simply run 6 total strings of panels, similar in size to what you mentioned above... which would be ~ 21kw... and only pushing each MPPT ~ half of what is capable, which should also keep heat load inside both 15Ks even and low.
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I'll be honest with you the 3 MPPTs was a complete surprise recently when the brochure came out, all of this was initially planned for 12K Inverters so this is a last minute change up with the 15K announcement, and you are probably right that I'll end up leaving one unused in each Inverter because shading is almost none. I also have a south facing shop roof I could cover with solar if the 14kw turns out to be not enough, thus those 2 extra MPPTs would be good to have as spares.

I don't like the idea of loading up close to the ratings with Inverters so yes I will be running the system pretty light and cool most days.

I do not recommend an on demand water heater instead a heat pump water heater is the ideal choice and if combined with a waste water heat recovery system is the ultimate in hot water energy conservancy.
 
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Aleksrussian said:
I do not recommend an on demand water heater instead a heat pump water heater is the ideal choice and if combined with a waste water heat recovery system is the ultimate in hot water energy conservancy.
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I definitely am aware that the ASHP based water heaters are the efficient/electrical choice... BUT... I'm honestly concerned about the long recovery times of that solution - hence the on-demand/propane system. Add to that, Oregon's climate is dealing primarily with heating, less so with cooling... so I would think it would be better to place the water heater outside the envelope of the living area (if doing ASHP)... in my case, in the garage. I'm super early in the planning/research stage, so as I get more information on the HP based systems, and location of it (inside or outside the airbarrier/insulation) - I'm certain my opinion will morph. Building science. It's fun, right?!?!
 
TootyBooty said:
I definitely am aware that the ASHP based water heaters are the efficient/electrical choice... BUT... I'm honestly concerned about the long recovery times of that solution - hence the on-demand/propane system. Add to that, Oregon's climate is dealing primarily with heating, less so with cooling... so I would think it would be better to place the water heater outside the envelope of the living area (if doing ASHP)... in my case, in the garage. I'm super early in the planning/research stage, so as I get more information on the HP based systems, and location of it (inside or outside the airbarrier/insulation) - I'm certain my opinion will morph. Building science. It's fun, right?!?!
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I plan to just simply do both with a Y split duct and a damper to switch between inside and outside during winter and summer.

This means I get free air conditioning from it in the summer while harvesting tank insulation losses into the home during the winter.

Building science is my jam, the amount of stuff already done for this build and in progress is pretty awesome.

The drain recovery system is actually something I'm very excited to get hooked up as it is handmade and theoretically better than available products but I won't know my exact savings until I install it and test it. I expect 80%+ hot water recovery, meaning recharge times are not very relevant with an 80 gallon HPWH and the majority of hot water recirculating back into the system during use by non direct contact thermal recovery.
 
I've been a network engineer for 25-ish years at this point. While the money is amazing... my passion for it is gone. We've saved enough that I could stop working completely, but I'm planning to make a transition into the green building industry in ~ 2 years (I have a few projects, and a LOT of training that I want to finish so my current team has access to the 18 years of tribal knowledge I've built at my current company). Over the next couple years, will be taking some random building science courses/certifications and think a good entry point for me is becoming a HERS Rater. Exciting times!

Brian
 
Just sat in on their presentation today at the AltE conference and looks like the 15k MSRP is $8,000 and will be released in April. It's in beta testing right now and I think they're waiting on getting the UL certs back. Sadly looks like it may be too late for an upcoming project I'm working on.
 
Mhoward84 said:
Just sat in on their presentation today at the AltE conference and looks like the 15k MSRP is $8,000 and will be released in April. It's in beta testing right now and I think they're waiting on getting the UL certs back. Sadly looks like it may be too late for an upcoming project I'm working on.
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$8K , ouch ?, seems powerful though
 
Ampster said:
I haven't looked at the actual details of what the 15k means. My 5kW Skybox can pass through 13kW of energy. Up to 5kW from the inverter and 8kW from AC coupled micros.
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If I recall correctly it was 12k continuous on battery, 3 MPPT inputs. The 15k continuous is with AC pass through (Edit: AC to grid). The peak looks to be 100a/24kw so that should be able to start pretty large ACs
 
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Mhoward84 said:
I recall correctly it was 12k continuous on battery, 3 MPPT inputs. The 15k was that 3:1 something rating
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So they are playing the number game again. By omitting the "W" we are fooled into thinking it is a 15 kW. I do not understand what 3:1 has to do with anything? Is it three times four or three times five? I will be interested if the specs offer more details. Are you saying it will out put 12 kW or is that the inverter and AC coupled solar? What size is the AC bidirectional breaker?
 
Ampster said:
So they are playing the number game again. By omitting the "W" we are fooled into thinking it is a 15 kW. I do not understand what 3:1 has to do with anything? Is it three times four or three times five? I will be interested if the specs offer more details. Are you saying it will out put 12 kW or is that the inverter and AC coupled solar? What size is the AC bidirectional breaker?
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From the bits and pieces I have been told think it will be 15Kw to the load.
I also think we will have some promotional material with Specs coming out by the end of February.
I personally never had a problem with the way they did the 12K naming but I can fully understand why some people would. Trying to get my unit up to 9K takes some deliberate appliance usage on my part and I can still get 3K going to the batteries at the same time. I think my usage is high at 1500-1600Kwh per month. My limiting factor is not my Sol-Ak 12K, it's my 21Kwh of batteries.
 
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