Growatt Solar Setup

[WernerSA]

Hi All, hope you are well. Ive had a Growatt 5000ES installed since march. Everything is working well but the solar panels has been bothering me for some time now. A friend of mine has the same setup only differance is he has 12 panels i have 15.

Solar config or setup on mine:
5 x 435Watt Panels in series and 3 banks (Total 15 x 435Watt Panels)

This is what I get on the invertor: When i connect the first bank of panels (5 Panels) the inverter displays the total wattage approximately 1600 Watt. When I add a second bank the invertor displays approximately 3200 Watt. But when i add the 3rd bank it displays a maximum of 3595 watt. Regardless in what order i connect the 3 diiferant banks the findings is the same. Keep in mind this done on full load, i switched on the oven and some hot plates and the power drawn was about 5050watt on the AC side.

My friend with exactly the same setup only differants that he has 3 banks of 4 panels each. Also 435watt. The findings are exactly the same on his system just with slightly lower wattage readings.

I then started tesing and put 10 panels in series. I will then get 3250 watt on any 2 banks of 5 in series. In other words any combination of 2 banks in series gives me 3250 watt. This meaning that all my wiring and panels are working fine.

I dont know if anyone else has a similar setup to test with?

Thanks

Werner

 

[mopat]

I then started tesing and put 10 panels in series.

Ten panels in series could produce an open circuit voltage of 856 volts DC. I believe that inverter has a maximum PV open circuit voltage rating of 450 volts.

856>>450 not good.

 

[WernerSA]

Maybe something wrong with your Voc setting? Or you need to check the inverter input for Voc and the 5 series module Voc.

Tx for the response, will try and add 1 more panel and do a 8 and 8 bank split to get the voltage up

 

[WernerSA]

Ten panels in series could produce an open circuit voltage of 856 volts DC. I believe that inverter has a maximum PV open circuit voltage rating of 450 volts.

856>>450 not good.

Panels are 44v open circuit. I see the manual says 6000Watt Max Panel wattage.

 

[WernerSA]

Changed my Config to 8 Panels in Series and 2 banks in parallel. I was not taking the 18A into consideration. But actually the manual should state that the only voltage input should be 350V because that's the only way to get to 6000Watt unless you only have a few panels hooked up to the invertor.

350V (Open Circuit) x 18A = 6300Watt (Calculated at 44V Per Panel)
310V (Connected to Invertor with full load) x 18A = 5580Watt

Previously I had 5 Panels in Series and 3 banks in Parallel. (5Panels x 44V = 220)
205V x 18A = 3690Watt (Then at 9:00am I will reach 3600Watt and it will stay there steady up until 15:00)

Bottom line is that the Growatt 5000ES is limited to 18A Current from the Solar panels and if you have 6000Watt Solar capacity or more your voltage must be as close as possible to 350V.

Thanks for everyone's help