I have a very small offgrid system. It had a single growatt SPF 3000TL LVM-48P, with standby consumption, on paper, of 2 watts. Typically the (1) eg4 lifepo 48v battery would be at 100% by 3-4pm and it would stop charging accordingly and by sun up the next morning the battery would be around 83% or so. That was my normal.The AC output has a 30 amp fuse box, and two outlets. I typically don’t have anything plugged in to the outlets. My first question is: is the AC out fuse box a draw? And would it be -15% overnight with nothing plugged in. Question 2: since the growatt died, I need to replace it. The Eg4-3000-ehv standby consumption is <50 or <15standby on paper. In all the reading and videos I’ve seen, this is high(er). Its hard to tell from my own experience with the growatt what my expectations should be, and what they should be if I went with the 3000-eh. If you need more stats, happy to provide.
Standby power consumption
- Thread starter Butler
- Start date
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
Standby = inverter off. Idle consumption should be low. AC power is NOT available in this mode, but it will charge via MPPT or AC charger.
Inverter on with no loads = 40-50W of continuous draw even if nothing is plugged in.
No. The AC box is not a draw. The inverter consumes power simply making AC power available.
All MPP Solar/Growatt units and the similar other-branded units suffer from this issue, typically 40-50W/3000W of rated output. It's their hidden cost.
I would not expect any replacement unit to be any better. If you get a 3kW Growatt or MPPT Solar unit, expect 40-50W of continuous idle power consumption, i.e., they will consume about 20% of your battery capacity daily.
Inverter on with no loads = 40-50W of continuous draw even if nothing is plugged in.
No. The AC box is not a draw. The inverter consumes power simply making AC power available.
All MPP Solar/Growatt units and the similar other-branded units suffer from this issue, typically 40-50W/3000W of rated output. It's their hidden cost.
I would not expect any replacement unit to be any better. If you get a 3kW Growatt or MPPT Solar unit, expect 40-50W of continuous idle power consumption, i.e., they will consume about 20% of your battery capacity daily.
RCinFLA
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2020
- Messages
- 3,570
You have to setup standby mode operation. It strobes inverter off and on, waking it up about every second or two for a short period to see if there is any load on the system. If it detects a load, it keeps the inverter active as long as the load exists.
The detection of load is anything from 5-15 watts. There is a limit to current measuring accuracy at this low level.
Some appliances have a momentary startup current when first powered up or enough off current draw to trip the inverter's load detection. This may lengthen the inverter 'ON' time for every sensing cycle or keep it permanently active if there is enough off current drain from the sum of connected appliances.
Aggravating things when using standby mode on inverter is any appliance with microcontroller may reboot every time the inverter strobes. If there is a beeper in appliance, like possibly a microwave oven, it may make a beep for every inverter active on strobe.
Low wattage LED lights may not provide enough load current to keep inverter on so LED light just momentary blinks on and off with the inverter strobing.
An appliance like a refrigerator with microcontroller may never turn on since inverter drops off again before microcontroller completes its reboot and decides it needs to turn on compressor. Also, many microprocessor controlled refrigerators hold off turning on compressor for up to 30 minutes after power is first applied to ensure compressor is not short cycled with refrigerant gas back pressure on compressor output.
The detection of load is anything from 5-15 watts. There is a limit to current measuring accuracy at this low level.
Some appliances have a momentary startup current when first powered up or enough off current draw to trip the inverter's load detection. This may lengthen the inverter 'ON' time for every sensing cycle or keep it permanently active if there is enough off current drain from the sum of connected appliances.
Aggravating things when using standby mode on inverter is any appliance with microcontroller may reboot every time the inverter strobes. If there is a beeper in appliance, like possibly a microwave oven, it may make a beep for every inverter active on strobe.
Low wattage LED lights may not provide enough load current to keep inverter on so LED light just momentary blinks on and off with the inverter strobing.
An appliance like a refrigerator with microcontroller may never turn on since inverter drops off again before microcontroller completes its reboot and decides it needs to turn on compressor. Also, many microprocessor controlled refrigerators hold off turning on compressor for up to 30 minutes after power is first applied to ensure compressor is not short cycled with refrigerant gas back pressure on compressor output.
Last edited:
TomC4306
Solar Obsessive
Or, add another solar panel.
I have 3 freezers, variety of ages and sizes. And I have 2 mini-fridges (college refrigerators). Is it better battery hygiene (for lack of a better word) to do my daily -15% with no load OR add (any of the above) and experience a larger swing (particularly on cloudy days).
I can do that, good point. In doing so, I currently have 8 Richsolar panels. They're going to be in series because of the volt requirements of the all-in-one. I see all over the forum and other places the articles warning "not to mix panels, but." Most of the people saying that have huge systems—which means the difference in the amps quickly adds up to be a significant loss (because the lower amps drags the others down and the math compounds itself). I get it. In my case, I don't have a bunch of panels, and the difference in my amps is one set of 4 at IMP=5.32A and another set of 4 at 5.38A. Am missing something? So adding another panel to 9 won't hurt me either, right?
Last edited:
I have a remote system with a bunch of 48Vdc and 12Vdc loads (security cameras, weather station, routers, starlink). I was using an MPP LVX6048 and just leaving the inverter AC output OFF. In that condition the unit goes off at night and when solar reaches about 120v it turns on and charges. That was a great way to power my DC loads with minimal parasitic power. Recently it stopped working that way and now only comes on and charges if the AC output is ON, haven't been able to figure out why.
I was thinking about adding this to the system as a charger only. my solar system setup is about 380VOC so some of the charger only setups won't work with that. but this one will https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-solar-charge-controller-mppt-500voc-100a-mppt100-48hv/
EG4 MPPPT100-48
It says 25watt self-consumption
anybody have experience with this unit? not sure if it is new or not but I don't see much about it on the forums.
I was thinking about adding this to the system as a charger only. my solar system setup is about 380VOC so some of the charger only setups won't work with that. but this one will https://signaturesolar.com/eg4-solar-charge-controller-mppt-500voc-100a-mppt100-48hv/
EG4 MPPPT100-48
It says 25watt self-consumption
anybody have experience with this unit? not sure if it is new or not but I don't see much about it on the forums.
I have seen people discuss this issue but no one has delivered such a straight forward answer. Thank you for the clarity.
Similar threads
