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

[TootyBooty]

I do not recommend an on demand water heater instead a heat pump water heater is the ideal choice and if combined with a waste water heat recovery system is the ultimate in hot water energy conservancy.

I definitely am aware that the ASHP based water heaters are the efficient/electrical choice... BUT... I'm honestly concerned about the long recovery times of that solution - hence the on-demand/propane system. Add to that, Oregon's climate is dealing primarily with heating, less so with cooling... so I would think it would be better to place the water heater outside the envelope of the living area (if doing ASHP)... in my case, in the garage. I'm super early in the planning/research stage, so as I get more information on the HP based systems, and location of it (inside or outside the airbarrier/insulation) - I'm certain my opinion will morph. Building science. It's fun, right?!?!

 

[AleksK]

I definitely am aware that the ASHP based water heaters are the efficient/electrical choice... BUT... I'm honestly concerned about the long recovery times of that solution - hence the on-demand/propane system. Add to that, Oregon's climate is dealing primarily with heating, less so with cooling... so I would think it would be better to place the water heater outside the envelope of the living area (if doing ASHP)... in my case, in the garage. I'm super early in the planning/research stage, so as I get more information on the HP based systems, and location of it (inside or outside the airbarrier/insulation) - I'm certain my opinion will morph. Building science. It's fun, right?!?!

I plan to just simply do both with a Y split duct and a damper to switch between inside and outside during winter and summer.

This means I get free air conditioning from it in the summer while harvesting tank insulation losses into the home during the winter.

Building science is my jam, the amount of stuff already done for this build and in progress is pretty awesome.

The drain recovery system is actually something I'm very excited to get hooked up as it is handmade and theoretically better than available products but I won't know my exact savings until I install it and test it. I expect 80%+ hot water recovery, meaning recharge times are not very relevant with an 80 gallon HPWH and the majority of hot water recirculating back into the system during use by non direct contact thermal recovery.

 

[TootyBooty]

I've been a network engineer for 25-ish years at this point. While the money is amazing... my passion for it is gone. We've saved enough that I could stop working completely, but I'm planning to make a transition into the green building industry in ~ 2 years (I have a few projects, and a LOT of training that I want to finish so my current team has access to the 18 years of tribal knowledge I've built at my current company). Over the next couple years, will be taking some random building science courses/certifications and think a good entry point for me is becoming a HERS Rater. Exciting times!

Brian

 

[Mhoward84]

Just sat in on their presentation today at the AltE conference and looks like the 15k MSRP is $8,000 and will be released in April. It's in beta testing right now and I think they're waiting on getting the UL certs back. Sadly looks like it may be too late for an upcoming project I'm working on.

 

[Ampster]

looks like the 15k MSRP is $8,000

Outback's Mohawk will probably. come in at tha price point to be competitive.

 

[Glucola]

Just sat in on their presentation today at the AltE conference and looks like the 15k MSRP is $8,000 and will be released in April. It's in beta testing right now and I think they're waiting on getting the UL certs back. Sadly looks like it may be too late for an upcoming project I'm working on.

$8K , ouch ?, seems powerful though

 

[Ampster]

seems powerful though

I haven't looked at the actual details of what the 15k means. My 5kW Skybox can pass through 13kW of energy. Up to 5kW from the inverter and 8kW from AC coupled micros.

 

[Mhoward84]

I haven't looked at the actual details of what the 15k means. My 5kW Skybox can pass through 13kW of energy. Up to 5kW from the inverter and 8kW from AC coupled micros.

If I recall correctly it was 12k continuous on battery, 3 MPPT inputs. The 15k continuous is with AC pass through (Edit: AC to grid). The peak looks to be 100a/24kw so that should be able to start pretty large ACs

 

[Ampster]

I recall correctly it was 12k continuous on battery, 3 MPPT inputs. The 15k was that 3:1 something rating

So they are playing the number game again. By omitting the "W" we are fooled into thinking it is a 15 kW. I do not understand what 3:1 has to do with anything? Is it three times four or three times five? I will be interested if the specs offer more details. Are you saying it will out put 12 kW or is that the inverter and AC coupled solar? What size is the AC bidirectional breaker?

 

[robby]

So they are playing the number game again. By omitting the "W" we are fooled into thinking it is a 15 kW. I do not understand what 3:1 has to do with anything? Is it three times four or three times five? I will be interested if the specs offer more details. Are you saying it will out put 12 kW or is that the inverter and AC coupled solar? What size is the AC bidirectional breaker?

From the bits and pieces I have been told think it will be 15Kw to the load.
I also think we will have some promotional material with Specs coming out by the end of February.
I personally never had a problem with the way they did the 12K naming but I can fully understand why some people would. Trying to get my unit up to 9K takes some deliberate appliance usage on my part and I can still get 3K going to the batteries at the same time. I think my usage is high at 1500-1600Kwh per month. My limiting factor is not my Sol-Ak 12K, it's my 21Kwh of batteries.

 

[TootyBooty]

From my memory of the presentation yesterday:

- 200A grid pass-through with ATS (this really is a nice feature for grid-connect, no need for an outboard ATS)
- 15kw continuous inverter capability from DC connected solar
- 12kw continuous inverter capability from DC connected battery. The battery input includes TWO, parallel 200A DC breakers with a busbar on the inverter side, so you do not have to combine externally. I asked what the limiting factor here was - the answer was that 12kw is a lot of power at nominal 48v dc batteries and the battery industry is really focused on 48v... for what it's worth, 2 x 200A DC breakers at 50V = 20kw...
- 3 MPPTs, with amperage upped to 26A per MPPT to handle increasingly larger panel availability
- Gen breaker supports 24kw (100A) for either generator or AC-Coupled inverters.

That's the extent of my ability to recall data. LOL!

 

[Glucola]

Here is the link for overview of the 15k & smart load with pricing if any one is interested

 

[Mhoward84]

From my memory of the presentation yesterday:

- 200A grid pass-through with ATS (this really is a nice feature for grid-connect, no need for an outboard ATS)
- 15kw continuous inverter capability from DC connected solar
- 12kw continuous inverter capability from DC connected battery. The battery input includes TWO, parallel 200A DC breakers with a busbar on the inverter side, so you do not have to combine externally. I asked what the limiting factor here was - the answer was that 12kw is a lot of power at nominal 48v dc batteries and the battery industry is really focused on 48v... for what it's worth, 2 x 200A DC breakers at 50V = 20kw...
- 3 MPPTs, with amperage upped to 26A per MPPT to handle increasingly larger panel availability
- Gen breaker supports 24kw (100A) for either generator or AC-Coupled inverters.

That's the extent of my ability to recall data. LOL!

Which is much greater than my ability! ?

 

[Roqm]

Does anyone here have the scoop on the Sol-Ark product about to be released? I'm wondering if it's worth waiting around for it to be released, or pull the trigger on a 12k. I'm also curious if it's another Deye product.

Taken from practical preppers website.

 

[FunnyLogic]

If I recall correctly, they said the SmartLoad-14 was $3,100 during the presentation. They also just uploaded the official spec sheet on the website for the 15k:

https://www.sol-ark.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Sol-Ark-Product-Catalog-2022-1-dragged-1.pdf

I'm so close to building my system, so I may just wait for it. The 200A pass through and the max PV input + AC coupling may be enough that I won't need two unit like I would with the 12k. Still working on analyzing my usage to see overall needs.

 

[robby]

I'll be honest with you the 3 MPPTs was a complete surprise recently when the brochure came out, all of this was initially planned for 12K Inverters so this is a last minute change up with the 15K announcement, and you are probably right that I'll end up leaving one unused in each Inverter because shading is almost none. I also have a south facing shop roof I could cover with solar if the 14kw turns out to be not enough, thus those 2 extra MPPTs would be good to have as spares.

Oh man I would really have loved that third MPPT port on the 12K. I would have put in some West facing panels to top up the batteries just before sunset.

 

[robby]

When he said in the video that they limited to 12Kw on Battery because of wire size and current I was a bit skeptical but after doing the math I see what he is saying. At 12KW we are talking about over 250 Amps being drawn.
You would need 4/0 AWG wire for that assuming the run is not to long. Going up to 15KW would require specialized wire like 350 Kcmil wire. That stuff is over 3/4" thick and I can imagine that internal parts to make that work are going to be super expensive as you are now dealing in the fringe market area.

 

[TootyBooty]

When he said in the video that they limited to 12Kw on Battery because of wire size and current I was a bit skeptical but after doing the math I see what he is saying. At 12KW we are talking about over 250 Amps being drawn.
You would need 4/0 AWG wire for that assuming the run is not to long. Going up to 15KW would require specialized wire like 350 Kcmil wire. That stuff is over 3/4" thick and I can imagine that internal parts to make that work are going to be super expensive as you are now dealing in the fringe market area.

I was glad I asked about the battery limitation, too. Always good to understand the design constraints. Makes me wonder if 48v batt days are limited. Triple the voltage to 144v, 15kw from batts is only 104 amps… and one of the two 200a battery breakers could be removed.

But to your 4/0 comment… keep in mind the 15k has two 200a breakers, so two runs must be made for each 15k. My calculations show two 2awg runs at 48v DC with 250 amps total could run 19 feet at just below a 2% voltage drop. So I do hope that in the future, they change the limits in software to allow up to 15kw via batt… though the hard limit on bursts would still be 400a due to breakers, or roughly 20kw.

I assume if you parallel two 15k units on a house with 200A service, just a single 15k needs the grid feed. So much easier than having three 12k units, each passing 63A through! Cannot wait for the 15k manual to be released.

 

[AleksK]

Oh man I would really have loved that third MPPT port on the 12K. I would have put in some West facing panels to top up the batteries just before sunset.

You could still technically do that by installing tigo optimizers on the west facing string and paralleling with an existing string and then into the 12k assuming you haven't maxed out the 13kw of solar input per unit already.

Not the best solution but it's probably still cheaper than the 15k price increase over the 12k.

 

[TootyBooty]

You could still technically do that by installing tigo optimizers on the west facing string and paralleling with an existing string and then into the 12k assuming you haven't maxed out the 13kw of solar input per unit already.

Not the best solution but it's probably still cheaper than the 15k price increase over the 12k.

Another option is to AC-Couple those west-facing panels on your generator input, assuming you aren't using the gen input already...