100+ MOBILE SOLAR GENERATORS AUCTION

[Hedges]

If I don't win one of these, what's you bottom line on a pair of islands ? I've got 12.5 kw of panels to power up. This is full on off grid 2000 SFO house in desert. May need 4 in the end
Greg

I'm not planning on selling any (They're mine! All mine!) but I see sellers advertising for $2200 including shipping. Some have gone for $1250 plus shipping. One guy bought the older 5048 model at the auction for $500. So that gives you a range of figures to come up with an offer. I'd suggest offering an eBay seller $5000 for four. Or maybe the guy who bought two trailers and only needs the extra PV capacity would part out and sell you two.

The Sunny Island is quite robust and able to start heavy motor loads. 5750W continuous at ambient temperature, 7000W for 30 minutes, 180A AC surge current (22 kW) for a couple 60 Hz power line cycles. Two would power most reasonable house loads. As grid-backup, the 56A relays can pass up to 6.7 kW per SI to the grid. You could use either DC charge controllers (set for a battery voltage higher than SI wants) or Sunny Boys for AC coupling and back-feed the grid. With Sunny Boy you have more total AC power available while the sun shines, and more efficient conversion of PV to AC if consumed at that moment.

I have mostly transformerless Sunny Boy. They seem fine except when I ran a 3-phase pump with VFD, which may have caused Sunny Boy to throw an error. But induction motor in air conditioner runs fine off batteries and PV.

 

[Pyrofx]

Ok thanks.
So .... since you have the islands,
Can you add the regular grid tie inverters to the system for added juice.
And since I'm asking , can you run micro inverters on the panels with a sunny island ?
I get conflicting reports of cooking batteries , but most are talking about standard " dumb " inverters.

 

[Hedges]

Sunny Island will make sure the batteries don't get cooked, so long as its parameters are set accordingly.
If you have DC charge controllers, either they or Sunny Island sets voltage parameters (with data cable and interface, some Midnight charge controllers talk to Sunny Island.)
But, during bulk charging, maximum current available from PV is delivered by the DC charge controller, regardless of what SI wants. That could exceed the 0.1C or 0.2C your batteries might want.
With GT inverters, Sunny Island regulates everything including charge current. If DC plus AC (GT), DC will do what it wants, and SI will control GT, so charge current will either be whatever DC produces, or DC plus just enough more from AC.

SMA's default settings in SI put battery charge current at 0.55C, which is excessive. After configuring battery, that parameter should be reduced. They also recommend 100 Ah (at 48V) per kW of PV, which if followed would limit charging to 0.2C. I bend or break rules, don't follow them. I have about 1/4 of the recommended battery capacity.

The GT inverters need to support frequency shift power control. Otherwise, they bang on line and off, putting in full power and then dropping offline for 5 minutes.

I understand Enphase IQ7 micro-inverters do support frequency shift. Many new "grid support" versions of GT inverters will support it. Practically all Sunny Boy do that. (But my SWR2500U, at least with the ROMs mine have, do not.) SMA has a table of which Sunny Boy inverters support grid-backup and which support off-grid. Their email and blog messages have indicated even some shown as not supporting one or both can actually be used.

A Sunny Island + Sunny Boy system is a nice setup. It does need a "load shed" relay to disconnect house if battery SOC gets low, and/or some amount of DC coupled PV. Those allow sun to recharge batteries next morning with loads disconnected, in the event they were drained at night. Use the signalling relays to disconnect things like air conditioning at a higher SOC, so balance of house usually doesn't get disconnected.

It isn't cheap. There are hybrid inverters with varying feature sets (e.g. not all include backfeed to grid) for less money. But with the surplus and used deals out there, a budget of $5k to $20k or more can build a powerful system around SMA inverters.

 

[Ralo]

I wouldn't mine picking up a 2016 with the newer batteries on them, but it looks like folks will be fighting over them. Some will likely go for the starting price of $3000 but they are the 2012 or 2015 models like the ones I got and the batteries are hit and miss. I plan to take mine to a shop that rejuvenates forklift batteries for $300 each. I hope it works because I'm not keen on rolling the dice again. Yes, one could come out ahead if the have the time and facilities to part these things out, but I'm not in the mode for that right now. So I'm going to pass.

 

[Pyrofx]

Great information Hedge. I may PM you later to pick your brain if you don't mind.
Batts will be around 50kwh of lifepo4

 

[Picasso]

prices so far on the $$$$ side, I need sub $6k all in to make me feel good again.

It's well worth it to have someone flush the cells. AKA remove them and turn them upside down. The one I got after refilling had a ton of junk floating in it.

 

[Pyrofx]

You ain't kidding

 

[Hedges]

If there are really 400 available, I'll bet prices drop in the end. Anybody planning on resales should know by now the market is glutted.
They're still a good deal at $6k for someone who needs everything including trailer, but we can buy Sunny Island, charge controllers, and panels for no more than that, so if to strip and re-mount on a house, no big bargain. The battery, if good, would make that worth while.

If buyers get all get their fill, maybe will drop to opening bid before they're all gone.

 

[Pyrofx]

That's how I saw it. Good deal if you need it all. But I have trailers coming out of my ears

 

[HaldorEE]

This is an online auction going on for over 100+ MOBILE SOLAR GENERATORS. I've been thinking about building one but I might be able to buy one at this auction cheaper than I can build it. The only problem is...it's in Las Vegas and I'm in Atlanta. But if I get one cheap enough, I should be able to hire a carrier to deliver it. I hope that's not too expensive.

100+ Mobile Solar Generators Auction by CA Global Partners

All Lots are subject to Court Approval. You will be notified within 48 hours of approval if you are the winning bidder. As part of a series of auctions to liquidate DC Solar assets, this offering presents a unique opportunity to bid on over 100+ complete mobile solar generators located in...

www.industrialbid.com

Buy me one and I will tow yours to you.

Kidding. I don't really want one.

 

[Storm]

well missed out again, they sold fast

 

[Walkingant1955]

I bid on a stack of trailers in that last auction in LV, didn't win the stack of trailers but did buy 3 trailers with solar. Two with solar, batteries, trailer, control cabinet, with everything inside. And one trailer with solar and batteries, no control cabinet. Now to find something to power.

 

[Picasso]

I was shy by $600 winning another trailer.....Those that got trailers. Some of the big lead acid battery boxes the cells sit in dont have drain holes. Filling the cells overfull will leak into the battery box. Use care and drill a hole for spilled acid to drain and sprinkle baking soda ontop of cells when moving as some water/acid will exit.

 

[Storm]

congratulations WalkingGiant, I feel your pain Picasso, lol

 

[Obie]

I'm new here, I bought a dc mobile solar generator from a reseller. I plan to use the trailer for energy to construct my off grid home on northern california. Are there other forum users familiar with these units? I've been exploring the sunny island user interface and it seems that my unit is configured for 2 batteries when in fact the double battery is wired in parallel and should only show on the sunny island as one battery. It seems this is causing some confusion for the inverter because my state of charge for the ghost battery is great at 100% but the second battery hasn't gone up above 75%. I've downloaded the SMA user manual but thought I'd ask here for any expert advice on why the master thinks it has 2 battery banks when in fact the trailer has a double battery wired up in parallel.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hedges]

I'm new here, I bought a dc mobile solar generator from a reseller. I plan to use the trailer for energy to construct my off grid home on northern california. Are there other forum users familiar with these units? I've been exploring the sunny island user interface and it seems that my unit is configured for 2 batteries when in fact the double battery is wired in parallel and should only show on the sunny island as one battery. It seems this is causing some confusion for the inverter because my state of charge for the ghost battery is great at 100% but the second battery hasn't gone up above 75%. I've downloaded the SMA user manual but thought I'd ask here for any expert advice on why the master thinks it has 2 battery banks when in fact the trailer has a double battery wired up in parallel.

Thanks in advance.

I don't believe SI 6048-US has any concept of multiple battery banks. What chapter/paragraph of the manual?

What parameters look like they reference two batteries? My system just shows voltage, state of charge, watts charge/drain for "the battery"

The two inverters can be wired in series for 120/240V split phase, with 56A pass through from the utility and about 50A from batteries. Or for 120V with 112A pass through and 100A from batteries. Or they could be completely separate systems.

Batteries (lead-acid in this case) can be one or more strings of 48V, all strings wired in parallel like a single battery.

Assuming there is an ethernet-type cable connecting the two inverters (it is a different protocol), they can be commissioned with one as the slave and the other as master, having a particular size battery.

 

[Obie]

Looks like I am using the compact meter incorrectly.... I guess it says batt 1 and batt 2 in reference to the status parameters. So nevermind!

 

[Hedges]

View attachment 23178

Maybe I am using the compact meter incorrectly but when I scroll through the inverter status it shows me state of charge on Battery 1 and 2

I never noticed that before. Manual does mention "compact meter" and "battery 1" "battery 2"
Maybe there is some kind of external meter? Multiple shunts supported?
The 400V Sunny Boy Storage uses up to three lithium batteries with with BMS.
Sunny Island can use lithium with BMS, but doesn't have multiple battery terminals.

Just watching the display scroll, does it accurately describe your one bank with two strings of cells?

Checking mine, #150 Compact Meters --> Bat1 shows 94.4%, --> Bat2 shows float 54.0V.
Try #120 Battery Meters. Mine looks normal.

There is something about compact meters being a convenience for installer.

The trailer has a large battery but small PV array, so your battery may not be fully charged.
Get some advice from the people here on how to test, condition, etc. those batteries. I've never used forklift batteries. Some guys saw batteries from DC auction that were good, others bad.

You may want to add PV panels. Looked to me like hinged panels could be folded on top of the two rows to double size.
Do the charge controllers have capacity to add more? If not, and if wired for 120/240VAC, I suggest using Sunny Boy for AC coupling.
Either AC or DC, you can parallel strings of a different orientation to spread power production over the day. That would fit more within charger max power, but isn't needed to limit battery charging current in your case due to such large batteries.
The trailer could be moved for angle rotation, panels tilted for azimuth, but moving throughout the day isn't convenient. Separate mounts aimed at different time of day would work better.
But again, battery charge current isn't the limitation. Limit is 110A per Sunny Island so 10 kW of AC coupling can go into battery, plus whatever the separate DC charge controllers can do. All could be oriented at Noon sun.

Does trailer come with an AC cord for charging? Try that to bring batteries to full charge.
If not, you can add 120V or 120/240V plug and configure max current in quick-start.
If you add any AC coupled PV sources, configure SI appropriately for back-feed or not. It can be set to only charge from AC below a certain SoC.

 

[Picasso]

Some great deals over at https://www.renvu.com/Browse?utm_source=RENVU+customers&website=solar#Solar-Sales/Solar-Cyber-Deals

48v LED flood lights from the DC systems trailers $29bucks

 

[JoeHam]

Another auction today. Info courtesy of @Steve_S

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