200A Bypass of Sol-Ark and EG4

[Banjohn]

While I am doing my research on whole-home backup, I found that only Sol-Ark 15K and EG4 18kPV are capable of doing 200A bypass or passthrough.

Not sure what's the difference between bypass or passthrough but all the other inverters of ESSs seem to rely on a smart distribution panel like Gateway, IQ combiner, or aGate for bypassing.
A friend told me that the max. AC input is 48A in order to pass city inspection, and the overcurrent protection device is usually 1.25 times larger than the AC input.
That explains why the Tesla Powerwall 3 has a 60A overcurrent protection device.

If the max. AC input is limited to 48A to pass city inspection, wouldn't 200A bypass capability make it fail the inspection?
Without a smart distribution panel, can Sol-Ark 15K and EG4 18kPV utilize existing third-party PV inverters in outages?

 

[Danke]

While I am doing my research on whole-home backup, I found that only Sol-Ark 15K and EG4 18kPV are capable of doing 200A bypass or passthrough.

There are others.

 

[zanydroid]

all the other inverters of ESSs seem to rely on a smart distribution panel like Gateway, IQ combiner, or aGate for bypassing.

This is called the Microgrid Interconnection Device. You can think of it as integrated in the 18kpv/15K world

If the max. AC input is limited to 48A to pass city inspection, wouldn't 200A bypass capability make it fail the inspection?

It should not. IIRC under NEC A EPS generator only needs to be big enough to supply the largest single load. This dates back to generator backfeed through inlet circuits. Unfortunately I don’t have a code reference for you.

Without a smart distribution panel, can Sol-Ark 15K and EG4 18kPV utilize existing third-party PV inverters in outages?

This is somewhat nuanced but the answer is No
even with a separate MID architecture. There is minimal interoperability between inverters in the sense of boosting their AC output. Even within the same manufacturer stacking different models together is fairly rare outside of Enphase and Tesla.

You may think AC coupling of grid tie inverters would work, but across brands you cannot exceed the AC output of your EPS island forming inverter, since that is the only stable power source. You generally cannot stack unmatched island forming storage inverters.

 

[zanydroid]

IQ combiner

Wrong Enphase component. You mean System Controller

 

[Banjohn]

Wrong Enphase component. You mean System Controller

You are correct. Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Banjohn]

There are others.

Can you recommend some 200A-capable inverters?

 

[Banjohn]

This is called the Microgrid Interconnection Device. You can think of it as integrated in the 18kpv/15K world

Would you say it's capable of microgrid interconnection?

It should not. IIRC under NEC A EPS generator only needs to be big enough to supply the largest single load. This dates back to generator backfeed through inlet circuits. Unfortunately I don’t have a code reference for you.

The Tesla wall charger is about 11.5kW. Most of the inverters can't power it alone.
Not sure how to determine the largest single load.

 

[zanydroid]

Would you say it's capable of microgrid interconnection?

I don't know what you're asking. It is the name of the listed component that can connect/disconnect from your POCO and create a microgrid as appropriate. Microgrid & MID are defined terms in NEC (IE in the definitions chapter) so you don't have to guess as much as other terms. I just looked at it and it indeed has the technical legalese to distinguish against an off grid AIO's behavior.

You can look at the wiring diagrams of 18kpv and 15k manuals to see how multiple of them can stack up to EG output 200A if you want.

You can Google or dig around upcodes.com for the 3 or 4 NEC references to MID to try to get more intuition.

The Tesla wall charger is about 11.5kW. Most of the inverters can't power it alone.

You can stack compatible inverters capable of teaming up within the same microgrid to add up to 11.5 kW. Or, you can derate the power offered by the wall connector to below your inverter's output. This is allowed in NEC. Not sure why you want to charge an EV when the power grid is out.

OR connect the Tesla wall connector (charger is onboard in the EV) outside the purview of the EPS / Microgrid side of the MID/Inverter, such that it is not available when grid is down. This can be done with EG splitting off the feeder from your meter, so that part of it goes to a subpanel feeding the wall connector and part of it goes to the MID input.

OR you can buy a PowerWall + SPAN combination, then you can provision the Wall Connector under the Span controlled by an appropriate load shed policy.

Not sure how to determine the largest single load.

Appliance nameplates. Procedure is to look for the biggest baddest ass double breakers in your electrical panels, walk over to that appliance, and look for the kW and kVA numbers on the nameplate

I see your location is Toronto -- you will want to verify everything on a forum with electricians familiar Canadian Electrical Code (maybe Diyforum.com)

 

[zanydroid]

100% Enphase (solar, storage, gateway) is probably the easiest to DIY out of all of these. And I'm not sure you can use the storage with non-Enphase, though I've not looked in details.

You pay for the privilege of the simplified ecosystem and good training materials.

You can also get a lot of support from r/enphase

 

[Banjohn]

I see your location is Toronto -- you will want to verify everything on a forum with electricians familiar Canadian Electrical Code (maybe Diyforum.com)

Thanks for the help!

 

[Banjohn]

100% Enphase (solar, storage, gateway) is probably the easiest to DIY out of all of these. And I'm not sure you can use the storage with non-Enphase, though I've not looked in details.

You pay for the privilege of the simplified ecosystem and good training materials.

You can also get a lot of support from r/enphase

EG4 seems to be a much simpler and cheaper solution since everything is integrated.
I don't have any existing solar system so retrofitting is not an issue for me.
However, Enphase is a much larger brand name than EG4.
Reliability and longevity would be the things I worry about for smaller brands like EG4.
Who knows how many brands would declare bankruptcy like Titan.

 

[zanydroid]

EG4 seems to be a much simpler and cheaper solution since everything is integrated.

You mean because it’s an AIO? Maybe. I don’t think you’ve dug into the details enough to conclude that it’s simpler. I would recommend looking at detailed wiring of hybrid AIO vs Enphase. Cheaper, yes. I think of Enphase as paying for much fancier electronics hardware to free yourself from having to do design work and learn a broader set of install skills

Everything in Enphase is standard AC wiring at 240V, and Enphase has manipulated the North American regulations heavily in their favor. EG4 requires DC solar wiring methods (metal conduit, rapid shutdown modules, DC disconnects, voltage and current calculations), large wire gauge battery DC connectors.

Microinverters free you from rapid shutdown, worrying about string shading (which takes a while to grok for people who need help with geometry and freshman year EE), … You only need to do current calculations, if even that.