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EG4 12000XP, Main Service Panel

Reality Wizard

New Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2024
Messages
12
Location
Texas
Hi all,

I'm working with permit/design group and wanted to see y'alls take on this:

I have a 125 amp main service panel, I figured that while the inverter can only do 50amps it will be fine since I generally don't believe I use more than this on a usual basis. Also, since the grid pass through is 100 amps the 125 main service panel is actually appropriately sized as that is 125% the total load that the house will ever draw.

The design company is telling me that they think it will not quite work as it only has 50amps and I have 125 amps service, so it is only partial backup. They suggested going to a 200amps main service panel and doing a critical loads panel off that. Otherwise they say that the service will have to be derated to 100amps.

I don't see why I can't wire the inverter upstream of the main service panel but downstream of a manual transfer switch. This would theoretically allow me to usually keep the switch on the inverter for 99% of the time, but should the inverter go down I can manually switch to grid power and fix the inverter. This also allows for the inverter to handle pulling from the grid vs solar vs battery automatically.

Unless I'm seriously missing something, then the 50amps will be fine most of the time and the few times it's not the pass through will work, meaning there's no reason to do a main service panel upgrade and no reason to do these critical loads panels and such.

I am also somewhat unsure on how the battery amperage plays into this, the discharge amps being 250?

Thanks y'all!!

I'm finally getting this solar show on the road and excited to have it done lol.

Edit: Also, to be clear this is definitely for an off-grid system (don't feel like playing the electric game and don't want to help the companies), and will include batteries. I'm open to battery suggestions too! (I'm aiming for the EG4 LL-S V2 48V, but that's mostly a diff topic).

Will also include around 9kW solar is the plan (may change to 7-8kW depending).
 
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I have 200 amp service going into the property and 3 6000xp inverters, the inverters are only fed by breakers from the main service, so the service size going into your property should make no difference at all. I have a manual transfer switch setup (actually 2, one for the pole barn and one for the house) so I can bypass all solar/inverters and power my house/pole barn off grid only or the inverters in case I had to take all the solar down for something.

As far as batteries I would go this route, about 2k for 15 kwh's of storage per battery for brand new grade a 306ah lifep04 cells. Super easy to "build" and get up and running too.


This is how I built my system (just got it up and running last week, working perfectly btw! :) )

 
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Hey what shelf are you using on the top of that Startech server rack? Is it this heavy duty shelf? I was thinking about buying that same rack and mounting that shelf at the top to hold 200lbs of bare LFP cells, and then I'm going to use the rest of the rack as intended for server/network gear.

EDIT: Never mind I see you're just using some rails and not that shelf, but looks like that rack has no issues holding really heavy gear.
 
Hey what shelf are you using on the top of that Startech server rack? Is it this heavy duty shelf? I was thinking about buying that same rack and mounting that shelf at the top to hold 200lbs of bare LFP cells, and then I'm going to use the rest of the rack as intended for server/network gear.

EDIT: Never mind I see you're just using some rails and not that shelf, but looks like that rack has no issues holding really heavy gear.

No you are right, I am using the shelf you linked, 4 of those shelves, the ones without the perforation in them though, just solid top but same weight capacity, like 330lbs per shelf.
 
I have 200 amp service going into the property and 3 6000xp inverters, the inverters are only fed by breakers from the main service, so the service size going into your property should make no difference at all. I have a manual transfer switch setup (actually 2, one for the pole barn and one for the house) so I can bypass all solar/inverters and power my house/pole barn off grid only or the inverters in case I had to take all the solar down for something.

As far as batteries I would go this route, about 2k for 15 kwh's of storage per battery for brand new grade a 306ah lifep04 cells. Super easy to "build" and get up and running too.


This is how I built my system (just got it up and running last week, working perfectly btw! :) )

Wow what a setup! Did you see the EG4 Gridboss setup?
 

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