JetForMe
New Member
I’m on my utility's time-of-use plan, where 11 pm to 8 am is 1x, 4 pm - 7 pm is 3x, and the other times are 2x. I have a couple of panels slapped on the roof with microinverters giving me 400 W during the peak part of the day, enough to cover the always-on power consumers in the house.
I'd like to design a a PV, storage, and backup system that I can build out incrementally, starting with something that can reduce my grid use during the most expensive time periods. I'm 99% sure the Sol-Ark can do this kind of thing easily, but with the EG4 6000 Xp being so cheap, it might be an inexpensive way to at least get some demand reduction.
But I can’t quite tell if it’s up to the task. Even its manual is a bit confusing, as it calls itself an "off-gird inverter" and then shows grid connections. In general I find its manual pretty poor compared to the Sol-Ark’s.
To complicate matters further, I'd love to be able to connect this thing initially to the subpanel in my garage, as my meter is integrated into the main panel on the house. I don’t know if these inverters need to sit between the meter and the main panel or not in order to handle the functions I want (charging from the grid/ac-couple solar, providing just enough power to zero out the grid demand during peak times, etc).
Technical feasibility thoughts, please. While I want any installation to be safe, I'm not interested in muddying the conversation with code-compliance concerns.
I'd like to design a a PV, storage, and backup system that I can build out incrementally, starting with something that can reduce my grid use during the most expensive time periods. I'm 99% sure the Sol-Ark can do this kind of thing easily, but with the EG4 6000 Xp being so cheap, it might be an inexpensive way to at least get some demand reduction.
But I can’t quite tell if it’s up to the task. Even its manual is a bit confusing, as it calls itself an "off-gird inverter" and then shows grid connections. In general I find its manual pretty poor compared to the Sol-Ark’s.
To complicate matters further, I'd love to be able to connect this thing initially to the subpanel in my garage, as my meter is integrated into the main panel on the house. I don’t know if these inverters need to sit between the meter and the main panel or not in order to handle the functions I want (charging from the grid/ac-couple solar, providing just enough power to zero out the grid demand during peak times, etc).
Technical feasibility thoughts, please. While I want any installation to be safe, I'm not interested in muddying the conversation with code-compliance concerns.