iSwannie
Now that's WATT I am Talking About!
Very nice to hear. Looking forward to the picture postings.
Inverter recommendations for 48V off-grid installation
- Thread starter jsocolof
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afro-solar
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Agreed.
I have the Sunny Island 8.0-H13, which comes standard with Ethernet and wi-fi. This allows you to log into the web GUI on the LAN for real-time monitoring and management.
I also added the Data Manager M Lite, which also provides real-time data from solar, battery and grid, as well as uploads data to SMA's cloud portal, ennexOS.
The inverter also supports MODBUS, and I use the "EnergyMeter" iOS app for real-time PV, Battery and Grid data.
If you have an earlier Sunny Island (I think anything earlier than the H-12), you may need some additional piggyback cards for data and network monitoring.
The only gripe I have with all this is that SMA do not have IPv6 support, but this is only because I am a network geek
.
afro-solar
New Member
Sounds like the Sunny Island being sold in the U.S. is 2nd-class
. The one we are picking up on this side of the world is much sleeker, and comes with no corny display screens.What features do you need on the SMA that you are not getting? The two big ones, for me, that impressed me with the Victron, are the lack of an integrated Earth-Neutral Bridge + a voltage sensor. But I don't like Low Frequency inverters, and I could install these components separately, so I went with the Sunny Island.
Hedges
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SMA of course made products for Germany and Europe, and because U.S. 120/240V split phase is different (also electric building codes), we get the products later with redesign.
We have an older design Sunny Island, which has been around 15 years. Slightly updated, seems to have improved cooling so 5.75kW continuous vs. 5.0kW, and single large battery cable lug instead of two smaller ones. All use same firmware. It is an indoor model, with SD card slot and mechanical breaker. Also the display you mention and keypad. Convenient to be able to configure it without needing interfaces, PCs, networks.
I noted it was packaged same as the "Opticool" Sunny Boys which are rain tight, and put a silicone sheet over the front panel. With a modification, I can work the breaker through that, but have to remove front cover to use SD card.
The main feature it lacks is time and inverter/charger wattage control to shave usage during peak rates. It is primarily an off-grid or backup inverter and seeks to maintain battery charge, rather than zero export or minimum import/maximum export at some times of day.
Does your "H" series have features like that?
Another big plus for the European models (including previous one just like present US one) is that at double the AC voltage, same 56A relay can handle double the wattage. So 6kW Sunny Island can have 12kW of Sunny Boy while on grid. We are limited to 6.7kW on-grid (56A x 120V) but can have 12kW for an off-grid only system.
I would expect it to come to the US eventually. For now, guess is they are working through old inventory (DC Solar with $1B to spend bought a lot of them, resulting in liquidation sales that let us buy Sunny Island for 1/2 or 1/4 of retail price, so I'm happy.)
Do you use external relay to pass grid/generator through to load, or internal relay? (Given both, smaller internal relay could have been assigned to generator, but probably firmware doesn't support that.)
I've considered coupling such AC sources to Sunny Island by rectifying them and putting through a Sunny Boy (likely older model with "Constant Voltage" or "Turbine" mode, not using "MPPT" mode.) This would make it a double-conversion UPS, with Sunny Island rather than the source being what establishes voltage and frequency. No dropouts due to switching. No backfeed, either.
We have an older design Sunny Island, which has been around 15 years. Slightly updated, seems to have improved cooling so 5.75kW continuous vs. 5.0kW, and single large battery cable lug instead of two smaller ones. All use same firmware. It is an indoor model, with SD card slot and mechanical breaker. Also the display you mention and keypad. Convenient to be able to configure it without needing interfaces, PCs, networks.
I noted it was packaged same as the "Opticool" Sunny Boys which are rain tight, and put a silicone sheet over the front panel. With a modification, I can work the breaker through that, but have to remove front cover to use SD card.
The main feature it lacks is time and inverter/charger wattage control to shave usage during peak rates. It is primarily an off-grid or backup inverter and seeks to maintain battery charge, rather than zero export or minimum import/maximum export at some times of day.
Does your "H" series have features like that?
Another big plus for the European models (including previous one just like present US one) is that at double the AC voltage, same 56A relay can handle double the wattage. So 6kW Sunny Island can have 12kW of Sunny Boy while on grid. We are limited to 6.7kW on-grid (56A x 120V) but can have 12kW for an off-grid only system.
I would expect it to come to the US eventually. For now, guess is they are working through old inventory (DC Solar with $1B to spend bought a lot of them, resulting in liquidation sales that let us buy Sunny Island for 1/2 or 1/4 of retail price, so I'm happy.)
Do you use external relay to pass grid/generator through to load, or internal relay? (Given both, smaller internal relay could have been assigned to generator, but probably firmware doesn't support that.)
I've considered coupling such AC sources to Sunny Island by rectifying them and putting through a Sunny Boy (likely older model with "Constant Voltage" or "Turbine" mode, not using "MPPT" mode.) This would make it a double-conversion UPS, with Sunny Island rather than the source being what establishes voltage and frequency. No dropouts due to switching. No backfeed, either.
afro-solar
New Member
The "H" series are meant for 230/240VAC, and can be combined to support either parallel off-grid deployments, or deployed as a 3-set system for 3-phase power.
In either case, the grid can be used as a generator.
The "H" series ships in 3 models... 4.4M (3.3kW continuous), 6.0H (4.6kW continuous) and 8.0H (6kW continuous). Each model can surge by 1.3X for 30 minutes, 1.5X for 5 minutes, and 2X for 3 seconds.
They come without a display, and just some buttons to start/stop the inverter. All configuration is done via the network (built-in wi-fi and LAN).
The "H" series is rated for IP54 and 3K6. I run mine in an enclosed garage, but I have seen folk deploy them outside, exposed to sunlight, heat, rain and wind. They appear to be solid, but I won't be testing that anytime soon
.The "H" has a ton of features in their 1.4.0.R firmware. You can control charge power through the selecting how many amps you want to use to charge the battery. You can decide at what wattage to call in the grid or generator to augment battery discharge. You can configure load shedding. You can set which months provide the best solar yield. You can configure timers for all sorts of things like when to use excess energy, voltage difference for excess energy, e.t.c. You can set at what SoC the grid or generator should come in to charge the battery, and at what SoC the grid or generator is released, e.t.c.
There are a lot of features and capabilities the "H" series has, and they all available and configurable via the web GUI.
There is another firmware version (3.30.12.R currently) which I first sampled in 2021 (3.21.04.R). It seems to be code designed for non-multi-cluster systems. I run into some weird issues with it, so I rolled back to 1.4.0.R, which lacked a few features compared to the newer code, but nothing that I missed. 1.4.0.R has been stable since 2020, and all new developments seem to be happening on the 3.x software train.
One of the cool features that seems to have arrived in 3.30.12.R is that you can now configure the Sunny Island via the ennexOS portal. At the moment, the portal is only a place to view the system's performance. You can't make any changes through the portal. For any changes, you have to log directly into the inverter itself.
You're right - grid pass-through is a whopping 11.5kW, and it handles it without any problems.
But assume that if you run it as a split-phase system, you can get 11.5kW out of it, yes?
It's well into its 4th year, I believe, the "H" series.
I am using the inverter's internal relay to connect to the grid. I don't use a generator, so the AC2 conductors are used for the grid. You can assign AC2 to either grid or generator.
Not sure I understand what you mean here fully. Please explain a little more.
I have an almost identical use case. I got the SolArk12K and 6 Trophy heated batteries and a Honda 7000is. Could not be more satisfied. It’s been flawless. I put my batteries in small heated and very well insulated closet. Batteries have never been below 50F event at -30F. My primaryarray is 10kwp. i have only had to use the generator once, but I do top off the batteries if I’m not going to be there.
SolArk is perfect for Off-Grid, don’t be mislead. I did this all myself, except for the ground mount, which i had engineered, primarily for heavy snow loads
Hedges
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The key features for us involve knowing time of day when rates are peak, monitoring grid current with a current transformer, and storing power in battery during off-peak to minimize import/maximize export at peak times.
For tax reasons, may want to ensure battery only charges from PV, never from grid (makes eligible for credits; Tesla is careful to do this.)
If we have different rate for import-export (e.g. pay $0.25, get credited $0.03, we want it to adjust its inverter/charger power seeking to maintain zero amps through grid connection.
These features are in other models like Sunny Boy Storage, which can also be set up for grid backup. But those still aren't stackable and don't have same surge capability. Also use high voltage battery. Sunny Island is still the best for larger systems & bigger motors, also DIY or otherwise affordable batteries.
One SI for 120V single-phase system. Could add auto-transformer to use with 240V Sunny Boy (only small earlier lower wattage models are 120V).
If grid-tied, pass-through is 6.7kW but off-grid can handle 12kW.
Two SI for 120/240V split-phase, pass-through is 13.4kW, off grid can handle 24kW
Four SI for split-phase, pass-through is something under 26.8kW (can't count on perfect balance), off-grid 48kW
3 SI for 3-phase 120/208Y, similar calculation of pass-through and off-grid.
With four SI and paralleled, I had 3:1 imbalance using Square-D QO breakers. Maybe that isn't contact resistance, rather the thermal element.
Balanced with 10% using Schneider Multi-9 thermal-magnetic breakers.
Balanced with a few percent using Midnight/CBI magnetic-hydraulic breakers.
The off-grid limit of GT PV wattage 2x SI wattage I would guess is a fuzzy limit. Load addition would be limited to surge capability of SI (and whether it was already sourcing or sinking power), and load-dump I would think battery charge limit (do battery charge limit settings prevent momentary surge higher? Lead-acid would tolerate, but lithium BMS would disconnect unless they have surge programmed in.)
There are also minimum battery size recommendations - 100 Ah per SI, 100 Ah per kW of GT PV. My AGM is 1/3 the recommended size based on PV, seems to be OK with my loads.
AC sources (grid or generator) are normally connected to AC2 input. SI synchronizes to them, then lets them be voltage/frequency source. When disconnecting, there is a drop-out.
One could use the AC source to power a battery charger. SI needs to know battery current, so most likely with a shunt. If lithium and BMS, not sure if that takes care of it (would count amp-hours, but not let SI track and regulate amps on an instantaneous basis.
Consider if you connected a wind/hydro turbine or fuel cell through a Sunny Boy. The power would be coupled and curtailed by frequency shift same as PV. Somewhat different characteristics, and manual calls for wattage 1x SI not 2x as for PV.
My idea is to feed AC source, not into AC2 input, but into a Sunny Boy just as you would from a hydro turbine. Rectify the AC and connect to "PV" input of SB. Needs to be electrically isolated, so use a transformer. Capable of delivering large fault current, so have soft-start mechanism (e.g thermistor, precharge resistor, or transistorized current-limit circuit. Possibly use arc welding transformer, which limits current by inductance.) The nicer way would be a power-factor correction circuit, but rectifier-capacitor is the crude way.
If you have an inverter generator, probably just tap into its DC rail.
What this does is it lets SI be the voltage and frequency source continuously, no glitch on transfer.
afro-solar
New Member
So if you have SMA's Energy Meter (EM) and Data Manager (DM), you have a way to tell the SI about grid power. I am not aware of any way to tell the DM about grid tariffs, although this capability is available on the ennexOS portal, which may not be obviously useful for this type of feature requirement.
The most I have seen on the SI is the ability to define the most profitable month (in terms of solar yield + grid feed-in) and definition of seasons. But I have not dug into this as neither apply to me. Moreover, I don't think these will solve your problem anyway.
Have SMA told you whether they can support this feature in their "H" SI inverters at some point in the future?
Right, Tesla do this because they do not market the PowerWall as an off-grid system. SMA's focus is off-grid (even though they do support grid-tied deployments), so their philosophy is quite different from Tesla's.
I think this is something SMA can implement as part of their DM, but you would also need to install their EM and have a DM too. From my system, I don't see this capability today, but I do not see why it cannot be supported as part of a software update.
But again, given SMA really sell themselves as an off-grid vendor, I'm not sure how much appetite they would have for this, especially since not all markets have this from their grid providers (although, to be fair, the U.S. and Australia, which are big SMA markets, do).
Indeed.
The SB Storage also supports Li-Ion batteries only, so this is a limitation for LA installations. It is what comes closest to Tesla's PowerWall, which is why it can support similar grid-tied features.
The SI 8.0-H is 6kW rated, 11.5kW grid pass-through. The 6kW rating from the inverter is governed by other factors such as temperature and conversion losses. However, the 11.5kW pass-through performance is guaranteed under all conditions, as it's just a relay across the SI between loads and the grid.
The limit I have hit with grid pass-through on the SI is the connection point from the grid provider. In South Africa, single-phase houses typically get 20A, 40A or 60A services. I get a 60A service, which is 13.8kW (230VAC service). If you parallel SI's and have a larger grid source (like 100A or 3-phase), you should be able to have good surge capability from just the grid, i.e., 11.5kW per SI in your system.
The SI "H" inverters allow you to set charge and discharge current differently and separately. I have 7x 48V 100Ah Li-Ion batteries, so I set total charge current to 140A (0.2C per battery). However, I set discharge current to 665A (95A per battery). I never hit that discharge current in any situation - I just set it that way to allow for sudden surges. Each of my batteries can discharge 6kW peak for 60 seconds, so that is 42kW for 1 minute in total vs. 33.6kW rated.
But you are right, it all comes down to how relaxed the Li-Ion battery OEM is, and if they are restrictive, you may trip the battery sooner than you may trip the inverter during a surge. This makes is helpful to either choose the right battery OEM, or have access to the BMS where you can change thresholds based on your requirements.
SMA permit a minimum of 50Ah for Li-Ion, but seem to recommend 100Ah for LA. But as you point out, they recommend 100Ah minimum for C10 capacity per battery per 1kWp of PV.
Technically, if your load is stable and smooth, I do not see an issue with you running a battery smaller than 100Ah. I think the issue will arise if you get a sudden in-rush of PV power, as the SI is slower to react via FSPC (Frequency Shift Power Control) vs. if charge current was coming from the grid. So a bigger battery ensures safety, because that sudden surge of PV power would have somewhere to go as the SI and SB ramp down PV production to match what the BMS is asking for.
The SI can react quicker if the charge current source is the grid, which is also why I've seen my SI automatically set a higher charge voltage when the grid is the charge source vs. when PV is the charge source (by up to 1.0V difference).
So this has been markedly improved in the "H" series compared to the U.S. SI's.
The SI 4548-US-10 and 6048-US-10 have a switchover time of up to 35ms for low-resistance outages from grid or generator.
However, this has been improved for the "H" series inverters from 1.03.00.R, specifically the 6.0H-12/13 and 8.0H-12/13, to 20ms.
In practice, I have come across both scenarios, where high-resistance outages from the grid enjoy a 0ms - 10ms switchover (so UPS's notice, but nothing else in the house), as well as where low-resistance outages lead to a drop-out... but in that case, the inverter automatically restarts 60 seconds later.
I installed a voltage sensor to help the SI disconnect from the grid before they see a brownout, but that doesn't help all the time. I keep it anyway, just as an extra protection point, especially against unintended high voltage from the grid.
There have been numerous reports of SI customers across Africa of this issue during low-resistance grid outages, and a voltage sensor has been the recommendation. But as I mentioned, this is not a guaranteed solution in all cases. When it works, and when it doesn't, is unpredictable. I have to admit that Victron handle this better than SMA, probably because they have an in-built voltage sensor.
I think the issue lies somewhere between the SI and battery agreeing to quickly form a grid once the main grid fails, and one or both of them are unhappy by the low-resistance outage.
I'm thinking about whether monitoring grid frequency sag might be better than monitoring voltage sag. Any thoughts?
Hmmh, that is quite the solution, I have to admit
. Not sure SMA would be pleased to hear you've turned their Sunny Boy into a rectified DC inverter, but well... My workaround, for now, is to disconnect the main grid from being the main voltage source for loads by running the SI's as off-grid, even if they are grid-tied. I then set thresholds where the grid is called in if the battery is discharging at 4kW or higher for more than 45 seconds. This is ideal in periods of low sunlight where calling in the grid will help keep the battery charged so we have enough backup energy for emergency conditions.
This way, if the grid goes away, there is no drop-out because, well, it was not the voltage source at the time.
Have you tried monitoring the external grid via other mechanisms so that you give the SI some buffer where it does not have to "surprise" you during a grid/generator outage?
Hedges
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SMA talks about selling power to the spot market. That may be a future thing but not what I'm interested. It could also be related to the communication and control features required by our newer UL-1741-SB
Just time of use for the tariffs is all we would be looking for. If rate is $0.50 from 4:00 to 9:00 PM, $0.35 from 9:00 to Midnight and 3:00 to 4:00 PM, $0.25 from Midnight to 3:00 PM, want to use battery to avoid importing at high rates, even export at high rates. (But then if grid fails at night you're in the dark.)
The US model SI will draw from battery to limit maximum current drawn from grid. If battery is charged to higher voltage than it wants (by external SCC), then it will export from battery to grid. I don't think it has any commanded or time based export, or any continuous regulation of export. If we reached in and commanded a low battery voltage I think it would invert at maximum to achieve that. What is desired is analog monitoring of current transformer and inverting to keep that at a target current to grid (like zero.)
SBS and SB, with external meter, offer zero export (and battery storage of what would have been exported.) I don't think US model SI does.
Not regarding H. I asked a question of this sort once about one model and never heard back.
Technical support usually takes 6 weeks or so to get any response. So I don't bother with questions other than how to fix an issue, or replacement of a bad card (took a couple months to get new Speedwire card.)
Hopefully H series has command set for battery charge/discharge to accomplish zero/limited export and to take advantage of time based pricing. I think for SB, output wattage is commanded (something about involving their internet portal, while I think it should only need current transformer.)
That was a big part of what they did early on. Although SB was specifically AC coupled grid interactive (and was developed when PV was far more expensive than grid.)
I would think 95% to 99% or more of their sales volume is grid tie. Lots of SB on the grid, also MW scale inverters for grid tie. They offer MW scale battery inverters as well, don't know how many are used off-grid vs. grid attached storage.
I think amps pass-through is what is guaranteed. Watts depends on line voltage.
Firmware does what it does, not always what we expect.
I connected 3x SI as 120/208Y 3-phase, with 3-phase TriPower, but connected just one SI AC2 input to the grid.
Power from the AC coupled PV passes through on that one leg, while the other two legs just charge battery. SI on the first leg sees elevated voltage on battery so it inverts and adds that current to grid on its leg.
I did that with 5kW of PV connected, and set (what parameters I could find) for grid current to 8A, about 1kW at 120V. SI went ahead and exported 2400W (the amount of sun available) by inverting from battery, rather than limiting that to the 800W from AC coupling plus just 200W from battery (which would result in battery voltage rising.)
I don't know if it would have limited to 56A, the max setting, or if SI would have added current to TriPower on one leg and exceeded that. I was hoping inverting from battery would limit, charging from AC would limit, AC voltage would rise, and TriPower would reduce wattage collected.
I've imagined CT on SI AC2 to command TriPower, limited export through SI relay. This would be to allow AC coupling in excess of relay capability. (Not such a problem for you because at 230V, pass-though wattage limit same as GT PV wattage limit for SI to manage.) More for my split-phase to 3-phase conversion. Only "Y" with 120 degree phase shift not high-leg delta with 90 degree phase shift settings, so only one SI can connect to split-phase grid.
SI monitors grid for voltage and frequency. Limits are wider under UL-1741-SA. I would think internal monitoring should be sufficient.
Hmmh, that is quite the solution, I have to admit
Only older models SB have "turbine" setting. SMA dropped Windy Boy. But I use older models.
Nope, was counting on SI doing that. SMA discusses length of dropout vs. grid voltage (or impedance, or something)
afro-solar
New Member
Does this seem feasible considering how mature the off-grid/renewable market has become?
It should not be that onerous to implement, but something tells me that SMA's focus is on off-grid deployments.
Well, this is configurable on the "H" series. Is this not flexibly configurable on the US versions?
Well, that is likely because the CC does not support FSPC, yes (which makes sense, since the CC and battery are directly connected via the same DC bus)?
But then again, this would not really apply where Li-Ion is concerned, since the BMS would throttle charge back from a CC, yes?
So the "H" series give you the option to prevent grid export. See attached.
"H" series allows you to disable grid export. It does not allow you to manage all this based on grid tariffs.
PV production from the SB is managed by FSPC signaling from the SI.
This is not limited to the SB, as other PV inverters that support FSPC can be commanded to ramp-up/ramp-down by the SI via frequency.
For MW-scale, SMA's central PV and battery inverters are typically deployed by grid operators.
Enterprise users looking for MV-scale applications will typically go for other vendors, as SMA currently do not have an MV-scale battery inverter for that market. They do have an MV-scale PV inverter (the Core 1, Core 2, Central and Central UP units), but there are a number of Chinese vendors who are pushing MV-scale hybrid inverters in the 100kW - 600kW range that SMA currently have no answer for.
Yes, agreed. I am stuck in my 230VAC land
.That is wild.
Are you running LA packs?
Is your external grid only reachable via the one SI?
Technically, as long as the SI and PV inverters are AC-coupled, it should signal to the PV inverters to ramp-down. But that is, ultimately, directed by the battery's BMS.
If you are running LA packs, and assuming you don't have a BMS that sends data back to the SI, have you setup your charging profile in the SI to ramp-down charge current from PV or grid when the battery is at the set charge voltage?
Do you have a DM?
I assumed your PV inverters only get access to the external grid via the SI, but it seems to me that your PV inverters have a more direct path to the external grid. Is that the case?
So the SI does "report" external grid voltage and frequency, but you cannot tell it what to do with those values.
What I would like to do is configure the SI to cut over from external grid to battery if the voltage and/or frequency were at a certain value. Even on the "H" series, you cannot do this yet, which is why I use a voltage sensor.
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Hedges
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"Mature", not sure if growing much? But on-grid is massive, supplies significant fraction of California's power at times. Once briefly touched 100%.
For on-grid market. Utility gives very low credit for backfeed as "net metering" gets killed off. But an agreement could be made where someone aggregates many rooftop or other small PV to supply controlled amounts of power on demand
Maybe for SI. I think on-grid is the vast majority of their business.
SI has capability SBS does not. I see they are now introducing a hybrid (with no AC coupling of SB) in the US.
We can set import current, and SI uses battery to avoid exceeding it.
SI used to support DC coupled charging and loads by shunt (which can trigger export to grid) and by digital communication with Sunny Island Charger. Not UL listed, so had Midnight make an interface to the listed Midnight Classic. I've acquired both those setups and have operated with SIC-40. With communication, SI can command battery voltage targets (but not current.) It can adjust its chare current so together with SCC current it achieves target for LA battery (and presumably for LI BMS request.)
BMS can't do anything except say, "Pretty Please". Or yank the plug.
If BMS tells SI and SI tells SCC, then target voltage is reduced. For SI charging, current can be throttled.
Same for the US series. If export starts to occur, disconnect from grid and raise frequency. Same for generator.
There are some time-based generator start options. Want time-based options to minimize/maximize imports and exports, buffering in battery.
To keep selling in markets like Hawaii where no more export was allowed, SMA uses SunSpec or Modbus commands to SB and TriPower. They don't offer a good diagram and explanation of how to assemble it, but appears to use CT on grid connection, Wattnode energy meter, and something about their Internet portal.
With the addition of SBS, same setup can also charge/discharge battery to avoid waste. And to manage vs. time of use rates. That's what I think SI should include, was hoping 8.0H did that.
4 MW battery inverter.
What's the distinction between "grid operators" and "Enterprise users"?
Not a hybrid, but so what? One box for battery inverter, another for PV inverter. They're big enough to forklift separately.
PV + battery:
For 3-phase testing, 100 Ah 48V AGM from SunXtender (old pack, 40 Ah remaining). 3x SI 5048US + TriPower 30000TL-US
My house has 400 Ah 48V AGM. 4x SI 6048 US split-phase + SB 5000US
Yes, for my experimental 3-phase setup.
I've tried changing voltage and adding transformers for 120/240V high-leg delta (orbiting phase causes varying voltage seen from grid.)
I've tried isolation transformers between 3-phase L2, L3, and second grid phase. Almost worked, but differing on/off grid voltages or something else caused a fight.
So all I get is one SI relay making the connection.
I was going to use this for a new permitted install, but turns out 30kW TriPower is UL-1741-SA but not features required since 2020. The TriPower Core or other new 33kW and up inverters do comply.
Only when disconnected from grid. I would like to have 15kW SI, 30kW PV, yet limit export to 6.7kW
I've tried unsuccessfully to use transformers to get 13.4kW path from 3-phase SI to split-phase grid. Even connected once (with transformers off L2 and L3 SI to reach split-phase lined up 180 degrees from L1 SI), but it drew 20A then disconnected. No PV there, just SI syncing to grid.
Just battery bulk, absorption, float settings of VRLA.
Where I have excess PV on SB vs. battery, default charge current was 0.6C so I reduced parameter to 0.2C
No.
Only through SI relay.
I might arrange transfer switch as a way to support excess SB, either above relay limit or above agreement with utility.
Must have 5 second disconnect before transfer, so for now just manually interlocked breakers.
Might just use relay to disconnect SB AC based on "grid connected" status of SI.
PjD
New Member
Hi mvonw, which trophy batteries do you have and on the EU7000is how did you wire it for auto start from the SolArk? did you need an additional module?
I have that generator already and I'm getting ready to buy an AIO and batteries to update my system.
Thank you for your input.
Pj
Hedges
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If you're considering a $7000+ inverter like his SolArk, also consider Schneider and SMA low-frequency inverters.
You could pick up a couple Sunny Island around $2500 each and Sunny Boys at various prices up to $1800. If off-grid, don't need the latest UL-1741-SA features, so older models which can be had cheaper would be good.
You could pick up a couple Sunny Island around $2500 each and Sunny Boys at various prices up to $1800. If off-grid, don't need the latest UL-1741-SA features, so older models which can be had cheaper would be good.
I have the 120 (listed as 110)AH batteries. I don't think he's selling those any more. I connect my Honda directly to the Grid input of the Sol Ark and set the Grid limit to 75A, so it doesn't overload the generator. I use a remote start to manually control charging, because the I only want to run it at night or very overcast days and not have it controlled by strictly SOC of the batteries. Auto start isn't very useful because of the limited fuel capacity of the Honda. One tank doesn't even completely charge my 720 ah battery bank.
PjD
New Member
This is exactly what I was wondering.
I have the Genconnex wired remote start on it now, and I could just start it as needed on cloudy days, or when I know we need to run an air compressor or large load.
I am looking at going with two of the Trophy 48V220E-1, this would give me plenty of storage for my little cabin.
Hedges
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Some inverters can start a decent size air compressor, may not need generator.
How much air do you need? For me, often just a few seconds of impact wrench.
How about patching in a tiny compressor, share the same big tank?
(Just don't blame me if it burns out its oil-free piston with the run time to fill your 20 gallon tank.)
How much air do you need? For me, often just a few seconds of impact wrench.
How about patching in a tiny compressor, share the same big tank?
(Just don't blame me if it burns out its oil-free piston with the run time to fill your 20 gallon tank.)
PjD
New Member
primarily used to inflate low tires, clean chainsaws, and in the winter, connect to the plumbing to blow out the water lines; I have a small pancake-style compressor now that works well off the generator.
PjD
New Member
True, that's why I like the idea of going server rack style.You always need more..
I’ve been looking at the Schneider with the victron inverter- any likes on this combo? Comments?!
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