Growatt MIN series battery requirements

[MajicDiver]

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.

Absolutely correct, except I have not seen battery voltage get much below 52 vdc.

 

[MajicDiver]

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.

Does MicroGreen ship to US?

 

[lucariffer]

Yes Microgreen ships to USA, typically ground shipment straightforward, contact them via website.

 

[Spanish Flyer]

Hi again from Spain,
I have just hanged up a Growatt-MIN-5000TL-XH and almost broke my back putting the ARK HV (high voltage) battery with three modules together 7.5 kW in total.
I'm disabled due to a motorcycle accident, so I cannot climb up the roof to install the 14 x 455 W panels; the guy who was supposed to come and install them is very busy and may take a while to show up.....So in the mean time, can you tell me if I can connect the Inverter and battery to the grid, and can at least charge and use the battery? FYI, my grid consists on external grid and three more 5KW inverters and 52 panels of all sorts (since I started my solar "career" in 2017), in such a way that during the day I have enough "sun-power" to fill all the house needs. I say that because the ARK battery would be charged using only solar power from the other inverters for the time being.
My guess is that PV power is not a must to make this Growatt run, but I just want to make sure.. ; )
My aim is and you might have guessed it by now is to get rid of the grid altogether one of these days.
Thanks and B.R.
Spanish Flyer

 

[MajicDiver]

My MIN-XH-US has a setting to turn on A/C coupling and charge battery from grid. I have no idea if the European version you have does or not.

 

[Spanish Flyer]

Thanks a lot MajicDiver,
Today I received confirmation from Growatt Spain that it is no problem not having solar panels and charge the batteries from the grid (in my case from the other three inverters during the day)..

 

[LydMekk]

Thanks a lot MajicDiver,
Today I received confirmation from Growatt Spain that it is no problem not having solar panels and charge the batteries from the grid (in my case from the other three inverters during the day)..

Hi from Malaga! In my 3xSPF 5000ES I can put the grid charging on a timer from f.ex. 01:00 to 07:00 in the morning to pull from the grid to charge the batteries at the cheapest rate in the day. You probably have the same option in your inverter.
But, the panels are the way to go. I am finally at 0,- in consumption from Endesa. My system is 3-phase with 3 linked Growatts.
I would highly recommend 2xbattery capacity vs. solar max wattage though.

 

[MajicDiver]

Hi from Malaga! In my 3xSPF 5000ES I can put the grid charging on a timer from f.ex. 01:00 to 07:00 in the morning to pull from the grid to charge the batteries at the cheapest rate in the day. You probably have the same option in your inverter.
But, the panels are the way to go. I am finally at 0,- in consumption from Endesa. My system is 3-phase with 3 linked Growatts.
I would highly recommend 2xbattery capacity vs. solar max wattage though.

Yes, u can do the same with the MIN-XH-US but I don’t

 

[stiive]

Would love to get a copy of the RS485/CAN comms between the ARO and the MIN TL-XH.
Seems to me there is no integrated charge controller, and it just outputs a voltage somewhere between 360-500VDC (nom 400VDC), and the battery requires to do its own current control via DCDC.
I am wondering if for a third party ESS if you cant just turn on the output through the enable pins, and then implement your own DCDC as long as current is below 17A should be fine?... but obviously it wants RS485 communication for SOC so it wont over charge or discharge, and ascertain the current limit. I guess this is the comms we need to reverse engineer for adding DIY battery.

Manual says;
"6.5.3 Connecting to Battery Pack
This series inverter support to connect lithium ion battery pack, the lithium ion battery
pack has its own battery management system, the bidirectional DC/DC box connect to
battery pack by RS485 or CAN,the XH series inverters connect to DC-DC box by
RS485. In addition, XH series inverters also have a pair of signals for waking up the"

 

[stiive]

if anyone can put a RS485 sniffer on the line that would be greatly appreciated

 

[van-traveler86]

im installing a growatt system with aro battery i would love to help with this but no idea how to do this if you can point me to what tool i need and software to do this i can do it.

 

[stiive]

That would be great! You don't really need any expensive hardware... most sniffer devices offer the function.

Here is a good resource for turning a cheap Arduino into a sniffer including build notes and source code... he paid 4 euros for the RS-485 to UART adapter.

RS485 sniffer

Would be a fun project, and much appreciated by community i'm sure

the first comment is also interesting;
"Just wanted to say what a fantastic project. I am implementing solar panels at home and a battery storage system. None of the Hybrid 3 phase inverters will allow programmatic control of export values for battery storage (i.e. dump my batteries to the grid to enable me to take advantage of a high FIT) - however using your approach here i should be able to sit as the man in the middle and fake the info from the house monitoring CT clamps and overstate my usage to the inverter - thus fooling it into dumping battery output to the grid. Thanks for putting me on the right track"

 

[summit]

what's Growatt motivation to implement DCDC from 48v pack to 400vdc ? I was hoping there's a user battery option to use my EV as the battery pack. It seems an RS485 intercept is needed

 

[pdp1173]

what's Growatt motivation to implement DCDC from 48v pack to 400vdc ? I was hoping there's a user battery option to use my EV as the battery pack. It seems an RS485 intercept is needed

Growatt and many others do it for two reasons:

1) Because of 10x higher voltage you may use cables as thin as the PV cables (and same connectors) even with 5000+ W power from the batteries. Plus they can use same M4 connectores. Saves a lot on cables, equipment and manpower to install and reduces possible problems like bad contacts etc.

2) Since 48V BMS based systems are very widespread the manufacturers love to have back closed setups with no public protocols on the BMS to inverter RS486/CAN Bus communications. This allows them to much better control the market and lower their costs to support third party hardware. Growatt now simply states "ohh... you do not have our featured batteries on your SPH? Then there is no support for your problem..." . It is as simple as this. The procols are kept secret with almost death penalty for publishing. At least many (Growatt-) support members act like this.

There seems to be no standard for High Voltage Batterie coupling soon. :-(

Growatt did once manufacture an open 48V DC-DC converter named MIN3000 BDC DL . It allowed to connect standard 48V batteries (Pylontech CAN Bus BMS) to the high voltage Growatt MIN xxxx TL-XH But it disappeared very quick from the market.

 

[MajicDiver]

I made a “baby step” attempt at getting started with reverse engineering the Growatt MIN-US rs-485 modbus protocol. I started with the communication to the power meter, thought it would be an easier place to start than the battery communications. I was able to capture the modbus messages but the share-ware software sniffer I used crashed after a couple of seconds each time I connected it - the communications are high speed. When time permits I’ll look for something better. Curious if anyone else has gotten past first base on reverse engineering the battery communications?

 

[porchMan]

I made a “baby step” attempt at getting started with reverse engineering the Growatt MIN-US rs-485 modbus protocol. I started with the communication to the power meter, thought it would be an easier place to start than the battery communications. I was able to capture the modbus messages but the share-ware software sniffer I used crashed after a couple of seconds each time I connected it - the communications are high speed. When time permits I’ll look for something better. Curious if anyone else has gotten past first base on reverse engineering the battery communications?

I'm also interested in sniffing the battery communication on the MIN, but I haven't purchased one yet.
If there was a workaround to get 3rd party batteries to work it this inverter I would by it in a heart beat. I'm also trying to suss out how good the high frequency filtering is on the unit. Is there any chance you could take some pictures of the main board so I could see how large the capacitor bank is?
Sorry for the off topic request... How has your experience with the MIN-US been generally?

 

[MajicDiver]

That area of the inverter is sealed, kills warranty if opened.
Other than the relatively expensive battery and lack of plug/play 3rd party battery options, I like the system a lot. It’s been 100% hands off except when I added battery modules or PV. It just works. None of the seemingly endless “blips” I read about folks having with other systems discussed on this forum. Before I maxed out the PV inputs, it routinely produced max rated output of the panels, new panels at summer angle on clear day. Your discussions of ac ripple causing failure to achieve max output go over my head technically and I am unsure if it’s B/S or something to study……but I’ve now got about 2.1x the panels I’ll ever have load for and get battery (19.8 kWh soon to add another 9.9) charged easily on winter days like today with panels at summer angle. I travel a lot for work and play and want a system I can walk away from without concern and you can with this one. I plan to use a EG4 battery for the second module on my second inverter (6k min-us)

 

[porchMan]

That area of the inverter is sealed, kills warranty if opened.
Other than the relatively expensive battery and lack of plug/play 3rd party battery options, I like the system a lot. It’s been 100% hands off except when I added battery modules or PV. It just works. None of the seemingly endless “blips” I read about folks having with other systems discussed on this forum. Before I maxed out the PV inputs, it routinely produced max rated output of the panels, new panels at summer angle on clear day. Your discussions of ac ripple causing failure to achieve max output go over my head technically and I am unsure if it’s B/S or something to study……but I’ve now got about 2.1x the panels I’ll ever have load for and get battery (19.8 kWh soon to add another 9.9) charged easily on winter days like today with panels at summer angle. I travel a lot for work and play and want a system I can walk away from without concern and you can with this one. I plan to use a EG4 battery for the second module on my second inverter (6k min-us)

Oh bummer, I understand, I do wonder whats going on inside there though.
Yeah honestly that thread got a bit over my head too, and hearing that you're able to produce the max output of your panels makes the point mostly moot. That's also great to hear that the inverter has been trouble free, thanks for commenting.
Can I ask what your system set up is now? How do you plan on using EG4 batteries with your second inverter?

 

[MajicDiver]

Can I ask what your system set up is now? How do you plan on using EG4 batteries with your second inverter?

System is described in my profile. Will be putting 9.9 kWh ARO on the 6k-MIN in a week or so when it is delivered. All the charge/discharge totalization and retention for the battery appears to be done in the BMS and communicated to the inverter- I believe if a EG4 or similar battery were put in parallel with the three ARO batteries the inverter won’t know the difference. I’m semi retired now, will be fully retired in 6 months or so, will have time to figure it out then.

 

[El Escribano]

Hi again from Spain,
I have just hanged up a Growatt-MIN-5000TL-XH and almost broke my back putting the ARK HV (high voltage) battery with three modules together 7.5 kW in total.
I'm disabled due to a motorcycle accident, so I cannot climb up the roof to install the 14 x 455 W panels; the guy who was supposed to come and install them is very busy and may take a while to show up.....So in the mean time, can you tell me if I can connect the Inverter and battery to the grid, and can at least charge and use the battery? FYI, my grid consists on external grid and three more 5KW inverters and 52 panels of all sorts (since I started my solar "career" in 2017), in such a way that during the day I have enough "sun-power" to fill all the house needs. I say that because the ARK battery would be charged using only solar power from the other inverters for the time being.
My guess is that PV power is not a must to make this Growatt run, but I just want to make sure.. ; )
My aim is and you might have guessed it by now is to get rid of the grid altogether one of these days.
Thanks and B.R.
Spanish Flyer

Hi, Spanish Flyer, MajicDiver and others that might be able to help.
BTW, I am also in Spain.
I (foolishly I think) decided to forego learning too much about solar and let my installer come up with a quotation. Based on a desire to zero my electricity bill (like MajicDiver) my only two requests were that it should include a 10Kw solar array and that I should be able to add batteries at a later date. He came up with a quote for the panels, etc., two Growatt MIN 5000TL-XH inverters, two breaker boxes (one for each inverter AC circuit), running to an Eastron 230Modbus smart meter, which then connects to the house load and the grid meter. I went ahead and this was completed in March 2022. Once I finally got an ethernet cable up to the solar hut in November, I was able to confirm that the system is operating reasonably well.
To cut to the chase and because the price of electricity in Spain is now around 50 cents (inclusive of VAT) a KWh, I decided I wanted batteries this autumn. So I called Autosolar en Valencia on the phone and they told me that I needed their there ARK 2.5H-A1 HV batteries and BMS, and I bought three 2.5 KWh modules and the BMS. However, I was then informed by Growatt aftersales service in Spain that their ARK 2.5H-A1 HV and BMS would not work because I have two inverters not one, even if I only connect the Growatt battery bank to one of the inverters. It's all been a bit of a shock to me. I thought this would just be plug and play, but now I'm starting to get an idea of the state of play (steep learning curve! I am not a born electrician or engineer by any means).
Since I do not want to spend a fortune changing the inverters and the battery bank and I no longer trust the installer (I had to connect the comms from the smart meter and change the baud rate), I would very much appreciate you letting me know if there is another solution to this problem, or confirming that the solutions I have gleaned from other sources are viable.
One solution sent to me schematically (not a wiring diagram) by one of the staff at the shop is attached.
Another solution that I thought if myself is to split the inverters by having two separate Eastron 230Modbus smart meters which I assume would enable me to have two separate plants on the ShinePhone app that I could just add up to monitor the system, but I do not have a clue as to whether this would work.
Please let me know what you think if you think you can help me to clear up some concepts here. The inverters are great and so simple. Additionally the idea suggested by Majicdiver I may be able to add any batteries I want as long as they add up to the equivalent voltage and amperage of the Growatt modules and do not exceed the 7 units advised by Growatt is very promising. Majicdiver, please tell me more!