Growatt MIN series battery requirements

[TexasSun]

I asked this as a side topic on another thread, but I thought it was meaningful enough to put here for future readers to find this topic.

I am looking at the Growatt MIN series inverters to recommend for friends. The specs and pricing is fantastic. The 11.4kW version is under $1500. It has built-in inverter, charger, stackable, even AC coupling mode. What a bargain considering I just dropped almost $7k on a Sol-Ark 12k unit (not complaining, it's great).

HOWEVER, there is one blaring issue with the MIN series. From my communications with Growatt support, it only supports working with the Growatt ARO series batteries. And they are proud of those batteries, a 10 kW-hr battery is $6k+. That's 2 or 3 times what you can find comparable LiFePo batteries at.

So my question to the community, does anyone know if the MIN series inverters will work with generic LiFePo batteries?

Edit: I should add it is the MIN 11400-TL-XH-US.

 

[Batronca]

Hi. I am also interested in this topic.
Did you find something?

 

[TexasSun]

From what I was able to find, it looks like they only work with Growatt batteries. Well, at least that is all that is officially 'supported'. It may be possible to trick it to work with others but I did not find anyone who has tried it.

 

[van-traveler86]

$7k on a solark... that inverter is the same as the deye hybrid same company and the deye is $2.4k the just rebranded the outter case...

that growatt inverter is awesome and good priced the only issue is that you need high voltage batteries 400v, it doesnot work with 48v lifepo4 cheap batteries... they have another inverter called the sph6000 bl-US that can use 48v batteries but no 11400w version.

 

[Bokes]

I'm looking into a Growatt Min 5000 inverter in combination with an Amass GTX3000 (https://www.sofarsolar.com/product-detail/565/GTX3000) since these are much cheaper than the ARK batteries.
When looking into the manuals of the inverter and the battery, the communication looks kinda the same, but with another order and connection port. So maybe it will be possible by switching the wiring and swapping the connection port.
I just emailed the Growatt support since they refer to it on any technical question in youtube comments to their instruction videos. ?
If I receive a response, I'll post it here.

 

[van-traveler86]

are you in North American grid? because i believe that inverter only works in europe grid

 

[Bokes]

I'm living in Europe (Belgium), so indeed it will differ.

 

[van-traveler86]

why you dont use the sph5000 instead i think they use low voltage batteries and you could use any 48v battery.

 

[Bokes]

What's making me doubt the SPH is the 3000W battery input/output limit and a maximum battery size of 12kW. So it's a little less future proof.

 

[van-traveler86]

i just read and maximum battery is 2000ah that is a lot, but yeah 3000w is not that much load, but in a power outage i think is plenty.

 

[Evolved Organism]

The Growatt ARO battery cabinets contain one, two, or three nominal 48V packs (connected in parallel) and then seem to use a DC-DC converter to connect to the MIN inverter at nominal 400V. Electrically, a 128S LiFePO4 pack should work, however, the MIN inverter might not operate in the absence of signals it expects from the ARO. If one were willing to buy a minimal (3.3kWh) ARO unit, I suspect it shouldn’t be too difficult to reverse engineer a subset of the signals sufficient to get the MIN inverter to work with a DIY battery.

In my opinion, this would be a good project for David Poz or Will Prowse.

 

[lucariffer]

Growatt ARO batteries incorporate very high quality LFP cells (ATL I believe), so higher cost/higher quality ARO pack plus low cost XH inverter makes a very effective hybrid package overall. Would love to see YouTuber review of this.

 

[njhokie]

I wonder if it would work with BYD or LG 400V packs?

 

[MajicDiver]

I wonder if it would work with BYD or LG 400V packs?

The Growatt shine tools phone app for the MIN has a setting for battery type, there are only 2 choices, “Growatt “ and “LG”. It’s under the quick settings menu. I have a MIN-6000-TL-XH-US with 7.9kW of panels. No battery yet.

 

[MajicDiver]

Downloaded the updated (may-2022) min-TL-XH-us commissioning guide and it states the LG RESU10H/16H can be used. Photo of that page below. However, there is no price advantage with the LG and I believe it is technically inferior to the Growatt LFP HV, LG is NMC not LFP

 

[sheldoneby]

I am working on setting up a growatt min 11400tl-xh-us inverter along with an ARO 9.9h-c1-us battery bank. Once I had the initial system running and commissioned, I found out that the expansion breaker on side of the primary ARO battery box was 51v. It is designed to add an additional ARO expansion battery box alongside the primary one with the high voltage transformer in it. What I decided to do is to order six of the EG4LL 48v batteries and add them in parallel with the original ARO battery bank. The ARO battery bank has a port labeled canbus to daisy chain to the Growatt expansion cabinet. I am not sure yet if I will be able to get all batteries talking to each other. I'll follow up with a progress report once all the wiring arrives. Any suggestions on the BMS would be appreciated.

 

[lucariffer]

Based on my understanding, ARO batteries are designed to be stacked in parallel, but they are high voltage, ie 400V, not typical 48V standard LFP (like Growatt AXE LFP batteries). MIN-XH series hybrid inverters are only compatible with ARO batteries as far as I know. So adding an EG4 48V pack to expand capacity will not work, because you need to keep battery voltage in close proximity. BTW, Microgreen Solar (Ontario) has a bunch of ARO batteries in inventory if you need more.

 

[van-traveler86]

I am working on setting up a growatt min 11400tl-xh-us inverter along with an ARO 9.9h-c1-us battery bank. Once I had the initial system running and commissioned, I found out that the expansion breaker on side of the primary ARO battery box was 51v. It is designed to add an additional ARO expansion battery box alongside the primary one with the high voltage transformer in it. What I decided to do is to order six of the EG4LL 48v batteries and add them in parallel with the original ARO battery bank. The ARO battery bank has a port labeled canbus to daisy chain to the Growatt expansion cabinet. I am not sure yet if I will be able to get all batteries talking to each other. I'll follow up with a progress report once all the wiring arrives. Any suggestions on the BMS would be appreciated.

If you manage to do this it will be super cool, technically should work but i dont know if the nominal voltage of the eg4ll batteries is similar to the 48v packs of the aro please follow up on this im really interested.

 

[van-traveler86]

Based on my understanding, ARO batteries are designed to be stacked in parallel, but they are high voltage, ie 400V, not typical 48V standard LFP (like Growatt AXE LFP batteries). MIN-XH series hybrid inverters are only compatible with ARO batteries as far as I know. So adding an EG4 48V pack to expand capacity will not work, because you need to keep battery voltage in close proximity. BTW, Microgreen Solar (Ontario) has a bunch of ARO batteries in inventory if you need more.

actually they use a dc to dc transformer in the main aro cabinet it has the 48v to 400v transformer and the small packs are just 48v.

 

[MajicDiver]

I am working on setting up a growatt min 11400tl-xh-us inverter along with an ARO 9.9h-c1-us battery bank. Once I had the initial system running and commissioned, I found out that the expansion breaker on side of the primary ARO battery box was 51v. It is designed to add an additional ARO expansion battery box alongside the primary one with the high voltage transformer in it. What I decided to do is to order six of the EG4LL 48v batteries and add them in parallel with the original ARO battery bank. The ARO battery bank has a port labeled canbus to daisy chain to the Growatt expansion cabinet. I am not sure yet if I will be able to get all batteries talking to each other. I'll follow up with a progress report once all the wiring arrives. Any suggestions on the BMS would be appreciated.

I also have the 11.4 and 9.9kWh ARO. Seriously considering doing the same thing but not sure how difficult it will be to figure out the register differences and scaling so I’m kind of afraid of it- especially being first. If you want to bounce thoughts off someone in direct communication feel free to reach out. I reversed modbus communication in turbine controls in the past but have never dealt with CAN before