diy solar

diy solar

buying panels in bulk

Haven't checked GWL in a while, so maybe things changed. They had some good prices on solar panels some time ago...
Yes they used to be competitively priced but at the end of 2021 I was able to get twice the amount of batteries from Amy than from GWL for the same about of money. But now with cells no longer being $115 per 280Ah who knows....
@MaximusAnonus May I ask: did you ask for a quote already for those 500W panels from Yangtze? If so, what are they at currently and what do you pay shipping them (DDP I assume, or DAP) - if you're willing to share of course.
So far I've only received the quote for the 550W panels (SW550M-144) from Hefei Sunway Solar Energy Tech.Co.,Ltd with DAP shipping. I will know their DDP tomorrow same with Hefei Yangtze Solar Power Co., Ltd. where I asked for the 700W panels (YS700M-66).
I will post the prices tommorow after I finalize the sale. Supposedly they are running low on stock and I don't want to take any chances since the price is very nice. :)
 
My Solar Array is Canadian Solar Brand Panels, made just outside of Toronto Ontario. Again, this is likely to accommodate North American supply issues & for this market. Tarriffs on Panels only give Government money to spend on god knows nothing good. It does NOT help local or national producers and only increases costs to people buying/installing.

Then of course pending where you are, as the wholesale price will have the tariffs included then markup is added and to make it all worse, a Sales Tax can be applied on top (Taxing a Taxed Tax the Triple Run of government gouge) and folks put up with it. Gotta just Love the Ferenghi Tax Creatures
 
What inverter/SCC are you going to use with the YS700M-66?
The current is quite high on these panels otherwise they do look interesting.
Yes they used to be competitively priced but at the end of 2021 I was able to get twice the amount of batteries from Amy than from GWL for the same about of money. But now with cells no longer being $115 per 280Ah who knows....

So far I've only received the quote for the 550W panels (SW550M-144) from Hefei Sunway Solar Energy Tech.Co.,Ltd with DAP shipping. I will know their DDP tomorrow same with Hefei Yangtze Solar Power Co., Ltd. where I asked for the 700W panels (YS700M-66).
I will post the prices tommorow after I finalize the sale. Supposedly they are running low on stock and I don't want to take any chances since the price is very nice. :)
 
What inverter/SCC are you going to use with the YS700M-66?
The current is quite high on these panels otherwise they do look interesting.
I have no idea. Haven't been shopping for chargers yet.
@MaximusAnonus May I ask: did you ask for a quote already for those 500W panels from Yangtze? If so, what are they at currently and what do you pay shipping them (DDP I assume, or DAP) - if you're willing to share of course.
Concerning the price.
The SW550M-144 is around $136 without shipping.
The 700W panels from Yangtze are $189 a piece without shipping.
The 520W panels from Yangtze are $143 a piece without shipping.
The 480W panels from Yangtze are $132 a piece without shipping.

The SW550M-144 is the cheapest of the bunch for sure but to be honest I'm really dissapointed by their sales tactics. Yesterday they told me they are low on stock and the price was COMPLETELY different to lure me in and today the messaged me with "sorry lol it's actually twice as much".

Attached you will find the datasheets for the quoted panels.
 

Attachments

  • 450W~480W Half Cell Solar Panel.pdf
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  • 660w~700w 210mm Solar Panel.pdf
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  • 500-550W 96 cells solar panel.pdf
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  • SW530-550M-144.pdf
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The SW550M-144 is around $136 without shipping.
The 700W panels from Yangtze are $189 a piece without shipping.
The 520W panels from Yangtze are $143 a piece without shipping.
The 480W panels from Yangtze are $132 a piece without shipping.

The SW550M-144 is the cheapest of the bunch for sure but to be honest I'm really dissapointed by their sales tactics. Yesterday they told me they are low on stock and the price was COMPLETELY different to lure me in and today the messaged me with "sorry lol it's actually twice as much".

I take it those prices are USD? That's 25c per watt if they were half that price I would have been amazed.

They are listed here as well.


Easier to read than the Alibaba listings. The price here is US $0.19-0.25 / W
Don't know if that's supposed to cover the 550W at 0.19 going upto the 600W at 0.25.

Did you hear back from the other company? Any idea on how much shipping would cost? Even if shipping doubles the cost pretty that's still cheaper than anything I could find in Australia.
 
I take it those prices are USD? That's 25c per watt if they were half that price I would have been amazed.

They are listed here as well.


Easier to read than the Alibaba listings. The price here is US $0.19-0.25 / W
Don't know if that's supposed to cover the 550W at 0.19 going upto the 600W at 0.25.

Did you hear back from the other company? Any idea on how much shipping would cost? Even if shipping doubles the cost pretty that's still cheaper than anything I could find in Australia.
Yes, the prices are in American dollars.
Sure 25c per watt is ok but I don't like these tactics from seller. It's a HUGE red flag to me. And when you add shipping they aren't nowhere close to 25c.

Anyway in the end I bought 62pcs of the 550W variant of the DHM-72X10 from Anhui Daheng Energy Technology Co., Ltd. they will arrive in early April with shipping to my doorstep and everything at roughly 30c per watt. What's nice is that this company has a warehouse in Europe and only requires a 30% deposit.
I also bought some Epever Tracer10420AN charge controllers from Ningbo Cinco Solar Co., Ltd. to go with them. Hope it will all work well with my current setup (which is 24V because I was a dumbass when I started and didn't correctly thought it through, should've made it 48V or higher).

I will post some afterthoughts once it all arrives.
 

Attachments

  • 182-DHM-72X10-540~560W(2279×1134×35mm).pdf
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Hope it will all work well with my current setup (which is 24V because I was a dumbass when I started and didn't correctly thought it through, should've made it 48V or higher).
The or higher option is hard....I am trying a 20 cell pack at 68 volts and it is working but hard to find components that work that high. I wouldn't recommend it. It appeared 72 volts was going to take off a few years ago but it didn't, stick with 48 volt 16 cell pack....18 cell pack is doable also.
 
Depends on what you do. I have A LOT of my system at 24V and then do DC-DC step down to 5V (USB gadgets) 19V (laptops and other computers) etc. So doing 72V and using different DC-DC step downs would be possible.
Only a few things I use are 230V. (Mainly the car charger).

But I agree skip all the 12V/24V nonsense and go straight to 48V if at all possible.
 
Anyway in the end I bought 62pcs of the 550W variant of the DHM-72X10 from Anhui Daheng Energy Technology Co., Ltd. they will arrive in early April with shipping to my doorstep and everything at roughly 30c per watt. What's nice is that this company has a warehouse in Europe and only requires a 30% deposit.
Nice find!
They have some nice looking bifacial panels as well, that i'm very interested in. How was communicating with them?
Was the 30% deposit for all orders or just your european order? I assume it's pay the other 70% on delivery?

I just got my grid tie system installed today 19.89Kw (10k+5k inverter), Loving the start of my system.
 
Nice find!
They have some nice looking bifacial panels as well, that i'm very interested in. How was communicating with them?
Was the 30% deposit for all orders or just your european order? I assume it's pay the other 70% on delivery?

I just got my grid tie system installed today 19.89Kw (10k+5k inverter), Loving the start of my system.
Communication was pleasant. Bit heavy on the "my friend!" and "? emojis everywhere" and all that "we are not only doing business but we are also becoming friends!" nonsense. But he speaks English on a near native speaker level and is very helpful with datasheets, delivery dates, shipping etc.
On Alibaba he goes under "Mr. Brain Ji" and his whatsapp is +86 131 0286 6779 for out-of-Alibaba messaging.

I have no idea. First he messaged me with 20%, then he deleted his message and changed it to 30%. I don't know if this is a European thing or not as the panels I bought were already on a ship headed for Europe. Might be different when shipping to Australia or other parts of the world.
Yes the rest will be supposedly paid after the panels reach their Rotterdam warehouse before they are loaded on a 3rd party truck to be shipped to my home address.

20kW is very nice but in the end it's all about space. There is only so much roof you can cover and using bifacials on the ground isn't always possible especially here in Europe in residential areas.

If you need batteries then I can wholeheartedly recommend Amy from Shenzhen Luyuan Technology Co., Ltd. she never let's me down and still has some well priced cells left (I just bought a load of Grade A- 280Ah cells for $105 a pop). I will be running these cells with Daly BMS.
 
Communication was pleasant. Bit heavy on the "my friend!" and "? emojis everywhere" and all that "we are not only doing business but we are also becoming friends!" nonsense. But he speaks English on a near native speaker level and is very helpful with datasheets, delivery dates, shipping etc.
On Alibaba he goes under "Mr. Brain Ji" and his whatsapp is +86 131 0286 6779 for out-of-Alibaba messaging.

I have no idea. First he messaged me with 20%, then he deleted his message and changed it to 30%. I don't know if this is a European thing or not as the panels I bought were already on a ship headed for Europe. Might be different when shipping to Australia or other parts of the world.
Yes the rest will be supposedly paid after the panels reach their Rotterdam warehouse before they are loaded on a 3rd party truck to be shipped to my home address.

20kW is very nice but in the end it's all about space. There is only so much roof you can cover and using bifacials on the ground isn't always possible especially here in Europe in residential areas.

If you need batteries then I can wholeheartedly recommend Amy from Shenzhen Luyuan Technology Co., Ltd. she never let's me down and still has some well priced cells left (I just bought a load of Grade A- 280Ah cells for $105 a pop). I will be running these cells with Daly BMS.

Yeah, my grid-tie is on the house roof and was installed and gets some pretty nice rebates.

I've got a bit of room to work with so i'm looking to build some green houses and place panels on top and grow vegetables underneath.

I think I will have to talk to Amy, I got a qoute for $109 from Jenny Wu at Docan. Shipping was another $20 per cell, Taxes will be another 10-20.
I'm looking at the Daly as well, I run Home Assistant for home automation and you can connect an ESP-8266 to the UART on the daly to intergrate it.

What Amp/Version Daly are you looking at? I'm not sure if it's worth paying for the fan version or not. It's $16USD difference between 250A with UART with or without the fan.

Going to buy MPP Inverter 11kw and PCM60X SCC there looks to be a few ways to intergrate them into Home Assistant as well.
 
Yeah, my grid-tie is on the house roof and was installed and gets some pretty nice rebates.

I've got a bit of room to work with so i'm looking to build some green houses and place panels on top and grow vegetables underneath.

I think I will have to talk to Amy, I got a qoute for $109 from Jenny Wu at Docan. Shipping was another $20 per cell, Taxes will be another 10-20.
I'm looking at the Daly as well, I run Home Assistant for home automation and you can connect an ESP-8266 to the UART on the daly to intergrate it.

What Amp/Version Daly are you looking at? I'm not sure if it's worth paying for the fan version or not. It's $16USD difference between 250A with UART with or without the fan.

Going to buy MPP Inverter 11kw and PCM60X SCC there looks to be a few ways to intergrate them into Home Assistant as well.
Exactly. I'm running Home Assistant as well. That's why I've picked the EPEver and Daly stuff.

Supposedly the passively cooled version is better. You can contact Kevin Zhang from Dongguan Daly Electronics Co., Ltd. for more info. He can even get the BMS custom reprogrammed (mine are customized with low temperature protection which supposedly can't be set from the app). I've bought several 8S 150A ($81 per pcs) versions together with the parallel boards ($35 per pcs) so I can safely run the packs in parallel and watch each and every cell.

Thanks for the tip. Right now I have a bunch of Victron stuff (inverters, chargers etc.) and I have to say I really dislike their vendor lock in.
 
Exactly. I'm running Home Assistant as well. That's why I've picked the EPEver and Daly stuff.

Supposedly the passively cooled version is better. You can contact Kevin Zhang from Dongguan Daly Electronics Co., Ltd. for more info. He can even get the BMS custom reprogrammed (mine are customized with low temperature protection which supposedly can't be set from the app). I've bought several 8S 150A ($81 per pcs) versions together with the parallel boards ($35 per pcs) so I can safely run the packs in parallel and watch each and every cell.

Thanks for the tip. Right now I have a bunch of Victron stuff (inverters, chargers etc.) and I have to say I really dislike their vendor lock in.
Nice, have you seen https://esphome.io/components/sensor/daly_bms.html?highlight=daly ?

That's what I thought, I'm keeping everything in a garage and i'll put a window AC in for climate control so shouldn't really need to worry abotu fan unless there's heat spot where I install the BMS.

First time I heard of the parallel boards, not sure if they are really required I'm going to have enough battery capacity and won't pull high enough loads that tripping BMS's from uneven lods would be a problem.
Are you worried you might pull more from one pack and have it D/C or damage the BMS?

Yeah, A lot of the expensive stuff looks that way, your at their mercy for what can and can't be done.
 
Yes I've seen that wiki page. Haven't tested anything yet tho.

Same. My basement is pretty stable temperature/humidity wise. I don't have any problems with my current setup and that's all passively cooled too.

Supposedly the parallel board is needed when the BMS are connected in parallel. Here is the datasheet for it with the wiring diagram.

Yeah like a few months ago their software stopped working after an update. Their solution? If you want to keep using the old inverters with the new software you need a new blackbox for $200. Sure their stuff is extremely well built but the software side sucks.
 

Attachments

  • PACK并联保护板规格书15A.pdf
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Yes, the prices are in American dollars.
Sure 25c per watt is ok but I don't like these tactics from seller. It's a HUGE red flag to me. And when you add shipping they aren't nowhere close to 25c.

Anyway in the end I bought 62pcs of the 550W variant of the DHM-72X10 from Anhui Daheng Energy Technology Co., Ltd. they will arrive in early April with shipping to my doorstep and everything at roughly 30c per watt. What's nice is that this company has a warehouse in Europe and only requires a 30% deposit.
I also bought some Epever Tracer10420AN charge controllers from Ningbo Cinco Solar Co., Ltd. to go with them. Hope it will all work well with my current setup (which is 24V because I was a dumbass when I started and didn't correctly thought it through, should've made it 48V or higher).

I will post some afterthoughts once it all arrives.

Nice find! Looking forward to your review.
 
@MaximusAnonus If you haven't already, try https://secondsol.com/
It's a marketplace, so they themselves don't sell anything but there are some used panels (some by the pallets from repowering projects).
But they also sell new ones in bulk. If you have infinite space I would also go with used, but old used panels can well be below 50% efficiency of current new panels, so you should really consider it well ;)
If you're by any chance located in Germany, keep in mind regulations: Any single piece of glass may only be a max area of 2 m^2. So panels of over 2m^2 need special permits (no fun + expensive) or can only be mounted free-standing... I'm just mentioning it because I stumbled upon that, after having done all my calculations based on 595W panels :rolleyes:
 
If you're by any chance located in Germany, keep in mind regulations: Any single piece of glass may only be a max area of 2 m^2.

Wait, what? Any glass? A single window pane can be 2 m² max?
Could you point me to that regulation? (I speak German, so feel free to link to some legislature).
 
Heh a week doesn't go by for me to be glad I ain't a German or live anywhere near there.

Anyway the prices are very nice. Some of the panels are roughly the same price (mine is 0.29€) but my price is with shipping.

Had I knew about this website I would use it. But now I bit the bullet and I have to see it through.
 
Wait, what? Any glass? A single window pane can be 2 m² max?
Could you point me to that regulation? (I speak German, so feel free to link to some legislature).
I was told that by an architect and did some research back then. It's in some DIN. luckily they are not publicly available unless you pay ~400€ xD
To me the publicly available sources were
These are the sources I found. So basically nobody says it's forbidden. But it was enough for me to decide to just use smaller panels and not deal with the hassle...

I think it's a ridiculous norm, as long as you mount everything properly it's as safe as any other installation, I really can't see the benefit. I don't want to discourage anyone from doing what they want, just let you know, what I found out last year. And even though my plan is to take my house off the grid completely medium term - also using some none-norm-components I decided against these panels since it's not a big issue to use smaller ones instead. And if ever anything happens there are at least some points that are up to code ?
 
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