diy solar

diy solar

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

Aleksrussian said:
That's standby with no Inverter power, the inverter power will be 96.5-97.5% efficient also the 12k has a 60w standby rating.

So if you pull the full 15,000 from solar and turn it into AC you should have 615w of loss with the 90w considered.
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Is the idle consumption added to the efficiency loss.... or is it only a factor when at idle or very low power output?

I would think that 97% would mean that if I drove it a full power I would see a 3% loss total. Not 3% + Idle consumption.
 
FilterGuy said:
Is the idle consumption added to the efficiency loss.... or is it only a factor when at idle or very low power output?

I would think that 97% would mean that if I drove it a full power I would see a 3% loss total. Not 3% + Idle consumption.
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That's actually a good point you could be right I don't know. For me when these things matter most is during low power consumption during winter trying to maintain battery charge, so im hoping it can pull less than 90w + losses in some low power cases
 
"The Sol-Ark team will be taking pre-orders from distributors on Monday morning 4/11/22 at 08:00am CST"
 
Egl_81 said:
"The Sol-Ark team will be taking pre-orders from distributors on Monday morning 4/11/22 at 08:00am CST"
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Hopefully the distributors make it available for pre-order from them that day too. Has the MSRP been confirmed?

Edit: I see $8000 on the sol ark website. Decent price compared to the 12k.
 
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I'm late seeing this thread and now will likely have to pay a pig price :) . So I have been collecting various components to do a summer install. I'm in a urban area and planning to do a grid tied system with battery for providing uninterrupted power to critical load I already purchased a Deye 8k and a Lumin smart panel. The new offering from Sol-Ark changes everything. A 200 amp pass through with a built in ATS is a very compelling value. Their new smart panel is also superior on paper to Lumin due to larger current handling and a much faster switching. I'm seriously considering selling the Deye and Lumin in favor of this. The overall price is going to be double (11k vs 6k) for just these two components alone but I save on ATS which can run over a grand or above for a decent quality switch. This is atleast in short run is a much more future proof system. After balking on sol-ark for selling rebranded Deye for double the price - I'm basically giving up. Wish me luck !
 
FYI if you want to ac couple AND zero export ...
- Greater Ability to Control Production – Sol-Ark inverters cannot control the power of AC coupled solutions, the AC coupled power is either on and producing or totally off. If AC coupling in a grid down scenario, the Sol-Ark inverters must shut down AC coupled solutions when the batteries get near a full SOC%/V. However, if you are DC coupled instead, the Sol-Ark inverters can curtail PV production to match loads if the batteries become full, this way you can utilize as much solar power as possible.

I asked them and this was in the emailed reply....
 
Just found these forums while looking up the sol-ark 15K.
Mine is on the wall, panels and wiring is in progress.
I am not doing the install myself, GenPro is doing it.
 
Sounds to me like you have to be careful and really read the specs.
A Sunny Island 6048 looks like it can do 6,000 watts, right? Yes, sort of. See below. It can do 6,000 watts at 25C for 3 hours. At 40 C it can only do 5,000 watts for 3 hours. I think it can do 5,750 watts continuously. But see also that it can do 11,000 watts - but only for 3 seconds.
Solark name seems to be somewhat confusing. Then the Sunny Island could also be named "11048-US" (meaning it could do 11,000 watts). The 12k in the solarc name seems to be referring to the max pv power you can connect, not max ac output. 12k of pv then = 9k of ac.

I trust the SMA specs. If they say 11,000 for 3 sec then that I believe it. A big ac can pull 90 amps on startup and that is 21,600 watts (on 2 inverters) and the SI's handle it. The trouble is that with some specs, they are just made up. (How often can you trust that a 280ah lithium grade A battery really is that?). I don't see anything in the sol arc that says you are limited to 4,500w per leg. Or am I missing something?

Even with a Sunny Island system, you probably should not load 1 of the inverters with more than 5700 watts or you could have the same problem. 240V loads load both legs equally I imagine. Probably we we have 200 amp services so we don't run into issues like this. Probaly also why load centers alternate the 120V breakers - to keep the loads as even as possible.

Is any Sol Aarc user going to label all their 120v outles and say which leg they are on? - "better use the right outlet so we don't trip the inverter."

With all this, maybe the Sol Arc should be though of as 2 4,500w inverters in 1 box where you can plug 12kw of pv into.


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Calvin98 said:
Sounds to me like you have to be careful and really read the specs.
A Sunny Island 6048 looks like it can do 6,000 watts, right? Yes, sort of. See below. It can do 6,000 watts at 25C for 3 hours. At 40 C it can only do 5,000 watts for 3 hours. I think it can do 5,750 watts continuously. But see also that it can do 11,000 watts - but only for 3 seconds.
Solark name seems to be somewhat confusing. Then the Sunny Island could also be named "11048-US" (meaning it could do 11,000 watts). The 12k in the solarc name seems to be referring to the max pv power you can connect, not max ac output. 12k of pv then = 9k of ac.

I trust the SMA specs. If they say 11,000 for 3 sec then that I believe it. A big ac can pull 90 amps on startup and that is 21,600 watts (on 2 inverters) and the SI's handle it. The trouble is that with some specs, they are just made up. (How often can you trust that a 280ah lithium grade A battery really is that?). I don't see anything in the sol arc that says you are limited to 4,500w per leg. Or am I missing something?

Even with a Sunny Island system, you probably should not load 1 of the inverters with more than 5700 watts or you could have the same problem. 240V loads load both legs equally I imagine. Probably we we have 200 amp services so we don't run into issues like this. Probaly also why load centers alternate the 120V breakers - to keep the loads as even as possible.

Is any Sol Aarc user going to label all their 120v outles and say which leg they are on? - "better use the right outlet so we don't trip the inverter."

With all this, maybe the Sol Arc should be though of as 2 4,500w inverters in 1 box where you can plug 12kw of pv into.


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Maybe this will help you to understand:
 
Right. Maybe this all came from grid tie inverters. The model number is related to the max continuous ac power. A SB5000 can put out 5,000 w max continuous ac power. But you can also oversize it by 20% and still be ok. 5,000 watts of solar panels will not make 5,000w of output all the time. The SB5000 can take 6250W of panels, but they don't call it a "SB6250 INVERTER." Of course it gets a bit tricky also. A SB5000 = 6,250W "max generator input power," and 5,300w "maximum dc power." Model no is "SB5000"

But it looks like sol arc is fixing it in either case.
 
Calvin98 said:
Right. Maybe this all came from grid tie inverters. The model number is related to the max continuous ac power. A SB5000 can put out 5,000 w max continuous ac power. But you can also oversize it by 20% and still be ok. 5,000 watts of solar panels will not make 5,000w of output all the time. The SB5000 can take 6250W of panels, but they don't call it a "SB6250 INVERTER." Of course it gets a bit tricky also. A SB5000 = 6,250W "max generator input power," and 5,300w "maximum dc power." Model no is "SB5000"

But it looks like sol arc is fixing it in either case.
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No!
It's 9KW Inverter from PV voltage to 120/240V and Battery Charging Voltage and 3Kw of Inverting Only to Battery charging voltage.
Over Paneling is a completely different thing. All Inverters can typically handle a certain amount of over paneling.
Your SB5000 will Produce 5KW to power the house, lets say the house is using 4KW. If I have 10KWh of empty batteries what happens next?
I am pretty sure the batteries are only going to get 1KW of charge or it's going to take power from the house to charge the batteries.
The Sol-Ark always has a bare minimum of 3KW of Solar available for charging without disturbing the 9KW my house may be using.
In the Daytime my PV is mostly being used to charge the batteries for powering the house at night.

Anyway if you need more get the 15K. That way you can have 15KW derived from PV powering the house at all times. I don't need that much power but for about 20% more money you can get the extra power if you need it.
 
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The batteries won't get anything. The SB5000 is grid tie ac only.
Just an example of terminology. For hybrid inverters you probably need to know what the numbers are referring to. The model number does not always mean the same thing for different manufacturers.
Just trying to say that sol arc renamed the 12k and now calls it something else to avoid that confusion.
 
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robby said:
Do the math on Amperage and wire size needed for 15Kw from 48Vdc and you will understand why they limited it to 12Kw.
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Check this out. SMA has a new Sunny Boy Storage inverter.
Battery input can be up to 600V DC so the DC only needs to be wired for 10A current on 3 inputs. Not sure how it all works. But wires can be very small. You can get server batteries wired up in series to get that 600V (10 x 51.2vpacks = 512v).
Kind of like connecting a high voltage battery to an grid tie inverter at night to make power.....opens up a lot of possibilities. Connect the battery to the existing grid tie inverter and generate power at night. Probably not that simple though. Still, very interesting.


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