Sorry for the lengthy post but I am hoping someone can tell me if the energy I am getting out of my battery bank is what I should expect to be getting. My questions are two fold: 1) Is the data my home energy monitor giving me what I should expect to get from my system? 2) What can I do to improve my system?
Here is what I have currently:
10 solar panels, configured in 2 arrays. All are 300 W panels.
Midnite PV combiner box
Midnite Classic 150 charge controller
AIMS 10K Inverter
8 BYD 24v batteries configured as 2 serial, 4 parallel, 48 volt battery bank.
Emporia Vue home energy monitor
My house is running a split power setup. All of the heavy hitter appliances like the furnace, dryer and stove are on a breaker panel running on grid. The power to this panel comes from Ameren UE, the utility company. The rest of my house, including the AC, is coming from a separate breaker panel that is fed from either the utility or my solar system. So it can run either on or off grid depending on a manual transfer switch. So it's a manual process to switch to off grid or on grid with a complete outage for all of my appliances. I am OK with that but plan to purchase an automatic transfer switch in the future, they are just so darn expensive.
My inverter feeds a breaker panel that is used strictly as a feed for the power to my house. The only other breaker in that panel feeds the Emporia Vue energy monitor. Since this monitor is fed by power from the inverter, it's only on when I am running my house on energy from the battery bank. When I am running everyhting on-grid, this energy monitor is powered off because the inverter goes into power saver mode and waits for a load.
I have done a couple experiments with running every thing off grid and so far, if I don't run the AC I can go almost 24 hours before my battery bank is depleted. However, I have not tried this exact experiment yet when I have good sun. That should extend my time off-grid by several hours. My last experiment was yesterday, and this was the first time running off-grid when I had the Emporia Vue energy monitor to show me exactly what it was getting out of the inverter. Yesterday at noon I cutover to off-grid power and ran for 8 1/2 hours before my battery bank reach 50.4 volts and I switched back to the utility company for power. I think that was pretty good considering I lived life as I normally would, including running the AC. I left everything on so the septic aerator run 1/2 of that time, it runs 30 minutes out of every hour. My well pump, septic pump, AC, 3 computers, TV, everything ran flawlessly for that entire time. I closely monitored by battery bank and cutover to the utility as soon as I seen my battery bank hit 50.4 volts. I could probably have run longer, but that is the value I chose to stop the experiment. 8 1/2 hours without attempting to conserve engery I think is pretty good.
When reviewing what my energy monitor shows me, I am a bit perplexed at the data but I assume it's accurate. The Emporia Vue shows me that yesterday during this experiment I used 179 Ah and 21 kWh of energy. I know this is an open ended question, but do you feel those numbers are pretty good for the setup that I have?
I know there are some things I need to change. First, I need more panels. I cannot produce as much energy in a day as what I normally use. According to my Ameren UE electric bill, when not running the AC I consume approximately 10kWh of energy per day. So that is my goal to produce from my panels, but so far I have only been able to produce 7.1 kWh in a single day. So that is the first thing I think I need to fix. The second thing I need to fix is my BMS, I have none. I know I need one and I plan to install one, but have not a clue what I need. I have been reading and honestly and just as confused as when I started this adventure last fall. Third, I need (want) an automatic transfer switch so I can simply kill the utility power into the ATS and cutover to off-grid power.
So in your opinion, how do those numbers from the Emporia Vue look? Is the 21 kWh from the 8 BYD batteries good? Is that number even accurate (I tend to think it is but have doubts)? I attached screenshots from the Emporia Vue so you can see what I see. It does have more detailed graphs and I can even get a download of the raw data if needed.
My second question is what can I do better? Please, no flaming I know I am derelect of knowledge about solar energy but I am trying to learn. The inverter and solar panels were here when I purchased the place. I trashed the rest of the system and replaced it because the batteries were garbage and the charge controller they were using was only good for AGM or lead acid batteries. The Classic 150 can make much better use of the power from the PV than the old Schneider CC they were using before.
Did I miss anything, I am sure I did? Any feedback is welcome, I am open to ideas.
Here is what I have currently:
10 solar panels, configured in 2 arrays. All are 300 W panels.
Midnite PV combiner box
Midnite Classic 150 charge controller
AIMS 10K Inverter
8 BYD 24v batteries configured as 2 serial, 4 parallel, 48 volt battery bank.
Emporia Vue home energy monitor
My house is running a split power setup. All of the heavy hitter appliances like the furnace, dryer and stove are on a breaker panel running on grid. The power to this panel comes from Ameren UE, the utility company. The rest of my house, including the AC, is coming from a separate breaker panel that is fed from either the utility or my solar system. So it can run either on or off grid depending on a manual transfer switch. So it's a manual process to switch to off grid or on grid with a complete outage for all of my appliances. I am OK with that but plan to purchase an automatic transfer switch in the future, they are just so darn expensive.
My inverter feeds a breaker panel that is used strictly as a feed for the power to my house. The only other breaker in that panel feeds the Emporia Vue energy monitor. Since this monitor is fed by power from the inverter, it's only on when I am running my house on energy from the battery bank. When I am running everyhting on-grid, this energy monitor is powered off because the inverter goes into power saver mode and waits for a load.
I have done a couple experiments with running every thing off grid and so far, if I don't run the AC I can go almost 24 hours before my battery bank is depleted. However, I have not tried this exact experiment yet when I have good sun. That should extend my time off-grid by several hours. My last experiment was yesterday, and this was the first time running off-grid when I had the Emporia Vue energy monitor to show me exactly what it was getting out of the inverter. Yesterday at noon I cutover to off-grid power and ran for 8 1/2 hours before my battery bank reach 50.4 volts and I switched back to the utility company for power. I think that was pretty good considering I lived life as I normally would, including running the AC. I left everything on so the septic aerator run 1/2 of that time, it runs 30 minutes out of every hour. My well pump, septic pump, AC, 3 computers, TV, everything ran flawlessly for that entire time. I closely monitored by battery bank and cutover to the utility as soon as I seen my battery bank hit 50.4 volts. I could probably have run longer, but that is the value I chose to stop the experiment. 8 1/2 hours without attempting to conserve engery I think is pretty good.
When reviewing what my energy monitor shows me, I am a bit perplexed at the data but I assume it's accurate. The Emporia Vue shows me that yesterday during this experiment I used 179 Ah and 21 kWh of energy. I know this is an open ended question, but do you feel those numbers are pretty good for the setup that I have?
I know there are some things I need to change. First, I need more panels. I cannot produce as much energy in a day as what I normally use. According to my Ameren UE electric bill, when not running the AC I consume approximately 10kWh of energy per day. So that is my goal to produce from my panels, but so far I have only been able to produce 7.1 kWh in a single day. So that is the first thing I think I need to fix. The second thing I need to fix is my BMS, I have none. I know I need one and I plan to install one, but have not a clue what I need. I have been reading and honestly and just as confused as when I started this adventure last fall. Third, I need (want) an automatic transfer switch so I can simply kill the utility power into the ATS and cutover to off-grid power.
So in your opinion, how do those numbers from the Emporia Vue look? Is the 21 kWh from the 8 BYD batteries good? Is that number even accurate (I tend to think it is but have doubts)? I attached screenshots from the Emporia Vue so you can see what I see. It does have more detailed graphs and I can even get a download of the raw data if needed.
My second question is what can I do better? Please, no flaming I know I am derelect of knowledge about solar energy but I am trying to learn. The inverter and solar panels were here when I purchased the place. I trashed the rest of the system and replaced it because the batteries were garbage and the charge controller they were using was only good for AGM or lead acid batteries. The Classic 150 can make much better use of the power from the PV than the old Schneider CC they were using before.
Did I miss anything, I am sure I did? Any feedback is welcome, I am open to ideas.