diy solar

diy solar

Add another inverter or more batteries?

danwouden

New Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2023
Messages
3
Location
Utah
We have a house boat at Lake Powell, Utah. At the lake, we are completely off grid with just a back up 12.5 westerbeke generator. We have been updating and upgrading it over the years. This past year we upgraded the ac system to geothermal and 12v to 24v conversion. Here's our current set up:
9 panel 320w each for 2880 total watts
Batteries are storz battery 30.7kw
Sol-Ark 12 k inverter
We can run the ac for 4-6 hours at night just on the batteries. Ideally, I'd like to be able to run for 10 hrs on just batteries. We do have kitchen appliances, lights, and pumps hooked up as well. I'll take some pictures to upload later.
Batteries:
Inverter:
 
We have had issues with the BMS on the batteries. They will read 40% but shutdown due to low level and when we get them back on again they will be around 20%
 
Likely your batteries are out of balance. They may "total" 40%, but in reality some cells might be higher than 40%, while others are near zero. As you add more batteries in either series or parallel, it becomes more difficult to keep them in balance. I am not familiar with that brand. You should contact the manufacturer for a procedure to balance them again.
 
Using my quick estimates, you need 2x the solar to charge that pack up if you want to rely primarily on that.

It does seem like you are only accessing a portion of your battery pack. Perhaps a few of the BMS have tripped and need to be re-set.
 
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