EG4 6500ex with Lifepower4 rack under performing

[EscapedAritst]

I have two similar systems at two different locations that are acting the same. I'd love for someone to tell me what stupid thing I'm doing wrong.

• 36 panels 9s4p generating about 350v to 400v and rated for 455 watts each panel (ideally would add up to be 16kw)
• Panels are due south without shade. Set at 9 degree tilt as I am at 9 degree latitude and have no summer/winter bias
• 4 EG4 6500ex inverters with one string per inverter
• 6 Lifepower4 batter in a rack (soon to be 10)
• Solar Assistant

I'm in Costa Rica and we are in the dry season right now. There is not a cloud in the sky all day and the sun is strong.

The under performance is that neither of the two systems will provide more than 4kw (between the load and the battery recharging) during even the sunniest hours. I will post a Solar Assistant graph for today below. It seems that if I have 16kw theoretical power available from my 36 455w panels that I should be able to charge my batteries and service my loads at a minimum of 10kw or so.


I understand that after noon (the cliff in the graph above), my batteries are full and I have no need for the rest of the day, but when the batteries are at 50% SOC, I expect to draw at least 10kw to be filling them when the sun is shinning. During the rainy season, there will be days with just a couple of hours of sun and I don't want to have such low performance. I've searched the inverter settings for what might be wrong and the only setting that I can see is #2. I have that set at 70 amps which should be able to supply 3360w per inverter before topping off. But, I'm getting 3000w from all four inverters according to the graph. Hmmm...

The other question is what are those spikes about at 9:30 and 9:45? I get those a lot and some days a lot more than others. There are no clouds at all.

 

[fmeili1]

I have two similar systems at two different locations that are acting the same. I'd love for someone to tell me what stupid thing I'm doing wrong.

• 36 panels 9s4p generating about 350v to 400v and rated for 455 watts each panel (ideally would add up to be 16kw)
• Panels are due south without shade. Set at 9 degree tilt as I am at 9 degree latitude and have no summer/winter bias
• 4 EG4 6500ex inverters with one string per inverter
• 6 Lifepower4 batter in a rack (soon to be 10)
• Solar Assistant

I'm in Costa Rica and we are in the dry season right now. There is not a cloud in the sky all day and the sun is strong.

The under performance is that neither of the two systems will provide more than 4kw (between the load and the battery recharging) during even the sunniest hours. I will post a Solar Assistant graph for today below. It seems that if I have 16kw theoretical power available from my 36 455w panels that I should be able to charge my batteries and service my loads at a minimum of 10kw or so.

View attachment 187994
I understand that after noon (the cliff in the graph above), my batteries are full and I have no need for the rest of the day, but when the batteries are at 50% SOC, I expect to draw at least 10kw to be filling them when the sun is shinning. During the rainy season, there will be days with just a couple of hours of sun and I don't want to have such low performance. I've searched the inverter settings for what might be wrong and the only setting that I can see is #2. I have that set at 70 amps which should be able to supply 3360w per inverter before topping off. But, I'm getting 3000w from all four inverters according to the graph. Hmmm...

The other question is what are those spikes about at 9:30 and 9:45? I get those a lot and some days a lot more than others. There are no clouds at all.

Do you have a graph of the AIO's temperatures? The EG4-6500EX will reduce MPPT power if they getting too hot. See page 8 of the documentation:

 

[timselectric]

36 panels 9s4p

4 EG4 6500ex inverters with one string per inverter

Not 4p
If separate arrays

I expect to draw at least 10kw to be filling them when the sun is shinning.

If you are using closed loop communications. The batteries could be limiting your charging.

The other question is what are those spikes about at 9:30 and 9:45? I get those a lot and some days a lot more than others. There are no clouds at all.

If not cloud related. I would look at the other system graphs. And find a common denominator, at the same time.

Can you get more production, if you increase your loads?

 

[Adam De Lay]

As @timselectric said, if you have EG4 set for option 5 (battery comms) the batteries could be limiting your charge current. Unfortunately when battery comms are used, the inverter values don't update with what values the batteries are actually using. You would have to plug a computer into the batteries and use the BMS tools app to see what's going on from that standpoint.

You said you have 1 string connected to each inverter. Are they all using the PV1 input on the inverter? I know that if you don't have a direct connection from each inverter into Solar Assistant, you could be missing data for PV2 from all slave inverters.

Can you share a picture of your Solar Assistant configuration page where you have your inverter and batteries set up?

 

[marionw]

Is one of the 6 Lifepower4 batteries address set to 0? If so that battery is the "Master" which polls the other batteries on pins 7&8 of the RJ45 jacks on the batteries.
The invert talks to the "Master" battery (on pins 1&2) which sends the data to the inverter as "One Big" battery. I use an EG4 Communications hub instead of having a battery address set to 0 (mine are 1 thu 6). The inverter then connects to the hub. The hub acts that same as a battery in "Master" mode.
By going this way the hub talks to all the batteries on pins 7&8 of the battery RJ45 jacks and pins 1&2 (which would normally be used by the inverter) are now free to be used by the Pbms tool or SA.
Solar Assistant can be connected to the battery stack with an RS485 to USB converter that uses pins 1&2 on it's RJ45 connector. SA will then display each battery so you can monitor them individually.
With the Pbms Tool (disconnect SA) using an RS485 to USB connector (pins 1&2, the same as the SA cable) you can monitor each battery during operation including battery SOC, battery status (Charging, discharging idle), individual cell voltages, Charge and Discharge MOSFET status and any alarm conditions. This way you can tell whether the inverter is in fact charing the batteries and by how much during the nice sunny days you have

 

[Zapper77]

I have two similar systems at two different locations that are acting the same. I'd love for someone to tell me what stupid thing I'm doing wrong.

• 36 panels 9s4p generating about 350v to 400v and rated for 455 watts each panel (ideally would add up to be 16kw)
• Panels are due south without shade. Set at 9 degree tilt as I am at 9 degree latitude and have no summer/winter bias
• 4 EG4 6500ex inverters with one string per inverter
• 6 Lifepower4 batter in a rack (soon to be 10)
• Solar Assistant

I'm in Costa Rica and we are in the dry season right now. There is not a cloud in the sky all day and the sun is strong.

The under performance is that neither of the two systems will provide more than 4kw (between the load and the battery recharging) during even the sunniest hours. I will post a Solar Assistant graph for today below. It seems that if I have 16kw theoretical power available from my 36 455w panels that I should be able to charge my batteries and service my loads at a minimum of 10kw or so.

View attachment 187994
I understand that after noon (the cliff in the graph above), my batteries are full and I have no need for the rest of the day, but when the batteries are at 50% SOC, I expect to draw at least 10kw to be filling them when the sun is shinning. During the rainy season, there will be days with just a couple of hours of sun and I don't want to have such low performance. I've searched the inverter settings for what might be wrong and the only setting that I can see is #2. I have that set at 70 amps which should be able to supply 3360w per inverter before topping off. But, I'm getting 3000w from all four inverters according to the graph. Hmmm...

The other question is what are those spikes about at 9:30 and 9:45? I get those a lot and some days a lot more than others. There are no clouds at all.

Is Solar Assistant plugged in to each inverter and are all 4 inverters selected in the settings page?

Try to cycle each battery breaker...going from 0,2,3,4,5,6

We assume you are using battery communication. Is that correct?

Check you maximum charging setting.

 

[EscapedAritst]

Not 4p
If separate arrays

Ok, so I would call that 9s per inverter with no parallels?

If you are using closed loop communications. The batteries could be limiting your charging.

If not cloud related. I would look at the other system graphs. And find a common denominator, at the same time.

Can you get more production, if you increase your loads?

That is a testable hypothesis. I will give it a shot. Get 8kw running and see if the solar will support it. I'll be back to you.

 

[timselectric]

Ok, so I would call that 9s per inverter with no parallels?

Correct

That is a testable hypothesis. I will give it a shot. Get 8kw running and see if the solar will support it. I'll be back to you.

 

[EscapedAritst]

Do you have a graph of the AIO's temperatures?

I doubt it is high as I have it in an air conditioned room. However, how do I get Solar Assistant to report that. Right now it says "no data". I just checked and can't find a place for the inverter to tell me either.

 

[EscapedAritst]

As @timselectric said, if you have EG4 set for option 5 (battery comms) the batteries could be limiting your charge current. Unfortunately when battery comms are used, the inverter values don't update with what values the batteries are actually using. You would have to plug a computer into the batteries and use the BMS tools app to see what's going on from that standpoint.

You said you have 1 string connected to each inverter. Are they all using the PV1 input on the inverter? I know that if you don't have a direct connection from each inverter into Solar Assistant, you could be missing data for PV2 from all slave inverters.

Can you share a picture of your Solar Assistant configuration page where you have your inverter and batteries set up?

Damn I love this site and all you guys who will help out. I think you may have gotten the issue. I went to Solar Assistant configuration to show you the settings and saw that it had max charging amps at 10A. My EG4 6500ex have setting 2 at 70A. Strange this is in conflict. Can Solar Assustant override the EG4 settings?

 

[EscapedAritst]

So this is very interesting and likely the problem. I had the inverter setting 2 to 70A. Now it is set back to 10 on two separate but similar installations. This sounds like something is forcing the inverter to limit the amps at 10A and that seems to be what I'm getting. Anyone know what might be doing this?

 

[Adam De Lay]

Damn I love this site and all you guys who will help out. I think you may have gotten the issue. I went to Solar Assistant configuration to show you the settings and saw that it had max charging amps at 10A. My EG4 6500ex have setting 2 at 70A. Strange this is in conflict. Can Solar Assustant override the EG4 settings?

View attachment 188115

SA is just reading information from the inverters. The batteries are the ones that are controlling the charging current. This is what I was saying in my earlier post. The batteries will change that value on the fly based on the state of the batteries.

Edit: If your batteries aren't discharged far enough, you'll only get so much current from solar to recharge. How far do your batteries discharge each day?

 

[Adam De Lay]

As far as screenshots, can you send the following 2?
- On the main dashboard (the first tab), click the "inverter" icon and take a screenshot
- On the config tab across the top of the page, scroll down to the Inverter section and take a screenshot.

 

[JWLV]

The EG4 6500EX has two MPPT controllers. Each one has a max charge power of 4000W (or 18A if I remember correctly). If your solar panels are wired in one array (one string), you may be going over that limit and anything above it is being unused. I have a similar situation and I split up solar panels into two separate but identical strings.

 

[fmeili1]

I doubt it is high as I have it in an air conditioned room. However, how do I get Solar Assistant to report that. Right now it says "no data". I just checked and can't find a place for the inverter to tell me either.

You may know that the cooling air flow of the EG4-6500EX is far from ideal. The hot air which comes out of the bottom of the AIO will rise and gets sucked in at the top for cooling - this is a thermal shortcut. So even with conditioned ambient, they heat up fast (that's the reason why I've installed a small ducted concealed mini split just to inject cold air into the upper vent inlets). But a small wind shield placed about in the middle of each AIO's side also helps a lot to isolate the intake a bit from the hot air from the bottom (even without injecting cold air on top of that). It's a simple but effective way to help the cooling. I've printed some 45 degree with a 3D printer, like this.



Solar Assistant should show the temperature of each AIO in the Dashboard/Inverter view like this:

Do you see all other values of the AIO's? What about the SA "Chart" graph? It should be the 5th least chart beside the AC output voltage chart, like this: