EG4 3000 EHV 48 Solar Harvesting

[Aldricoak]

Hello All,

I am looking for someone to share their experience on solar harvesting with an EG4 3000 EHV 48 during a cloudy/wintery day. Should you have close to the 500 VOC, what kind of panels are connected and what have you seen your device collect on any given wintery day?

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Hello All,

I am looking for someone to share their experience on solar harvesting with an EG4 3000 EHV 48 during a cloudy/wintery day. Should you have close to the 500 VOC, what kind of panels are connected and what have you seen your device collect on any given wintery day?

The questions you are asking don't seem to be model specific unless you're trying to confirm behavior you're observing.

Cloudy/wintery day = crap production. Daily production is on the order of 10-20% if you're lucky regardless of brand/model.

Maximum power output is ALWAYS in the general vicinity of Vmp, not Voc. If Voc is observed, 0A is flowing, and the MPPT isn't even trying to pull power.

Under no circumstances should you design your array to be anywhere near the max Voc for the MPPT. You should have a solid temperature margin either using NEC factors or calculating your own using your record low temperature and your panel's Voc temp coefficient.

If you're seeing anything near 500Voc on a cloudy day, you likely have a bad array design.

 

[Aldricoak]

Thank you for your response. By numerical values I have configured the solar array to work out to 425 VOC. On the VMP end of things I was wondering what others are harvesting under wintery days. I live in up state ny and our winter days are absolute crap unless the temperature falls into the teens and below then the sun shines. Sadly, this years winter is warm, wet and consistently cloudy. The EG4 3000 EHV 48 is new to me and I have no comparisons/expectations to work with. Thus far I have observed what you state: 10-20% for 4 hours or less weather depending. I intend to build a second array and add an additional EG4 3000 EHV 48 in the fall.

 

[sunshine_eggo]

Thank you for your response. By numerical values I have configured the solar array to work out to 425 VOC.

Based on 25°C cell temp (STC conditions)?

On the VMP end of things I was wondering what others are harvesting under wintery days.

Find the datasheet for your panels. It should give you power curves vs. irradiance.



With lower intensity, Vmp is lower, but not horribly far from STC Vmp.

I live in up state ny and our winter days are absolute crap unless the temperature falls into the teens and below then the sun shines. Sadly, this years winter is warm, wet and consistently cloudy. The EG4 3000 EHV 48 is new to me and I have no comparisons/expectations to work with. Thus far I have observed what you state: 10-20% for 4 hours or less weather depending. I intend to build a second array and add an additional EG4 3000 EHV 48 in the fall.

Cloudy performance is just horrible, and it's painfully variable. What others get in no way will relate to what you get unless their array is right next to yours.

If your system is sized to meet your daily needs with 24 hours of battery backup, when it's cloudy you will almost certainly need generator or grid as backup.

 

[BarracudaBob]

For what I have read you don't want to exceed 450V for best MPPT operation. Best range is 120 - 450 Vdc. I am getting 30-50% due to winter clouds. Every now and then I hear the fans spinning up and getting >80% and I do the happy dance. Running two different panel manufacture and two different directions and getting similar percentages of 23-80% with average around 52% for 4.5 Hours/day. Rated Watt x .52 x 4.5hr = Watts per day. Temp in South FL in 50-80F. Nothing like a nice cool panel when the sun comes out

Admittedly I am fairly new with the EG4 3K but it is matching my Victron Charge Controller I previously had.

I attached a pic of my maximum PV level I ever saw with 6K (2x3K panels) with a Voltage between 300-350Vdc 9.5A average 14.5A Max

 

[Aldricoak]

For what I have read you don't want to exceed 450V for best MPPT operation. Best range is 120 - 450 Vdc. I am getting 30-50% due to winter clouds. Every now and then I hear the fans spinning up and getting >80% and I do the happy dance. Running two different panel manufacture and two different directions and getting similar percentages of 23-80% with average around 52% for 4.5 Hours/day. Rated Watt x .52 x 4.5hr = Watts per day. Temp in South FL in 50-80F. Nothing like a nice cool panel when the sun comes out

Admittedly I am fairly new with the EG4 3K but it is matching my Victron Charge Controller I previously had.

I attached a pic of my maximum PV level I ever saw with 6K (2x3K panels) with a Voltage between 300-350Vdc 9.5A average 14.5A Max

Thanks for the reply. The information on the EG4 3000 matching the Victron CC is encouraging to hear. South Florida? Must be nice having all that sun down there. I'm in upstate NY and this years winter has been bleak. Usually we have some decent sun when the weather drops and stays cold but this year the weather is warm (20's to 40's (F)), wet and dark. A bad time to start with new 48v inverter. This is the biggest issue I am having: not knowing what to expect with this new device (new to me) because of the weather, oh, and I am under paneled . I switched out a bunch of 24v Epevers to which I combined all my solar panels to build an array for the EG4 and yet I am still under powered. I have twenty panels which gets me to the threshold of powering on the charger but still not enough sun to truly start charging the unit for any length of time to see an impact on the battery charge. I have ordered more panels and will have them collected in 14 days. This should make a difference and allow me to harvest somewhere around 10-20% of the total array during these dark days.

 

[BarracudaBob]

I started with (8) HQST 190W and was very unhappy with the output. I doubled that to (16) HQST 190W and started to get somewhere. Then I combined (10) Hyundai 305W in parallel with the first (16) string array things really took off. I have them pointed SE the other SW due to trees and other structures. The voltages of the two arrays were really close with the 16 vs 10 of the two different brands. Getting the voltage up and combining the two in different directions made a huge difference. I have a 2nd EG4 3K that need to hook up and split up the panels on and double my inverter power. Like any good DIY project it is never done