My 18K PV Experience (Part 1)

[42OhmsPA]

Good to know it’s mostly a positive experience. I was reading through some older reviews that seemed questionable, but it seems like the latest ones are positive. I’ve had some nudge towards a Sol-Ark because some were saying the 18k was a clone with less support, but.. apparently Sol-Ark are sourced from DEYE in China anyways. I like the 200 amp pass through and features for the price. Had considered two 6000xp, yet it seems like the 18kpv is a workhorse for a whole house.

That's what I've read as well.
Deye = solark
LuxPower = eg4 18kPV.

 

[Quattrohead]

about the 200 amp bypass.. if the 18k goes down, can it still bypass that 200 amps through.. is there a manual toggle switch In the unit to allow that? Or should I plan on an external 200 amp MTS? Oof those are expensive!

If you switch it to standby it will pass through your 200 amp feed from grid to load, however if it actually died on you, it defaults to keeping that connection open for safety.
They are exceptionally sturdy units and I have read of some being badly abused here and taking it no problem.
And yes some of the early reviews were not very good because the firmware had some issues, but they very quickly improved that.

 

[bfaubion]

If you switch it to standby it will pass through your 200 amp feed from grid to load, however if it actually died on you, it defaults to keeping that connection open for safety.
They are exceptionally sturdy units and I have read of some being badly abused here and taking it no problem.
And yes some of the early reviews were not very good because the firmware had some issues, but they very quickly improved that.

Good to hear it was just the firmware.. I think I like the 18kpv over the Sol-Ark, especially for what it offers and having the ability to do the 200 amp passthrough. Alternatively I have considered 2x 6000xp. If it dies, by keeping it "open", you mean there is no power running through it, so it doesn't bypass at that point.. at which point I'd be SOL if I didn't have a manual transfer switch. So I suppose one should probably plan for a 200 amp double throw.. phew, those are expensive, over 1K! I may be able to get by on a 100 amp circuit, rather than my existing 200.

 

[Zwy]

200A transfer switch https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-200-...uviPaPvSaWwSA2v6yU0aAg24EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

An automatic which can be tripped manually https://www.electricgeneratorsdirec...G2IMnQITNhOjY6zQtaG9oMeUHSA8MxQgaAkz6EALw_wcB

These are just examples, you can dig around and find a deal.

 

[bfaubion]

200A transfer switch https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-200-...uviPaPvSaWwSA2v6yU0aAg24EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

An automatic which can be tripped manually https://www.electricgeneratorsdirec...G2IMnQITNhOjY6zQtaG9oMeUHSA8MxQgaAkz6EALw_wcB

These are just examples, you can dig around and find a deal.

Thanks for the links! I see that one at HD looks like a good option, alternatively I may consider an interlock kit with a sub-panel.. that way I'd have the flexibility to move a few high demand circuits over to always be powered by grid if needed.

 

[ksmithaz1]

1) considering PHEV charging, like a Hyundai with 5kw charge.. do you think the 18kpv with one PowerPro battery is enough to charge in the evening (or during the day with full solar) when there are no other appliances or AC being used?

I have 2xEG4. in parallel, and two EV's. EV charging is much less difficult than AC motors, it ramps up rather than spiking. I'm using an Openevse EVSE unit which has an API, I adjust the rate on the fly... I keep one vehicle plugged in whenever possible.

Red line on the top graph is the EV. Bottom is the battery SOC & Voltage. You see the spike to 7500W at 1800, drops off at 2000 when I reach my minimum SOC based on Time of DAY. Then around 0030 I let it kick back on as my SOC is high enough to get me thru the night, but I limited the output to 1500W, based on SOC staying in a window as time moves forward. The car hit 100% and turned itself off at 0345ish, morning routines kick in, HVAC and Hot water spikes usage starting at 0530.

A single 18KPV would be quite capable of handling everything in this graph, I never exceeded 12KW of load (Max 10052 around 0515).

The problem with charging in the evening is it's all battery, which is extremely sub-optimal. You can see the batteries were at 100% and PV was just tracking use, non-the-less as long as you don't need the battery it's a win. Unless you have a LOT more battery (I have 60KWH) this is likely sub-optimal.



Charging during the day is going to depend more on your solar output. You should be able to charge without difficulty at 5700 in reasonable sun, even running your AC and range, assuming you are not pre-heating the oven, with all 4 burners on high, and the AC grinding away. Put a sensor on your inputs and check your demand. Electric clothes dryer + hot water heater really pushes demand up. Normally you should not run over 80% of a rated load for more than 3 or 4 hours, so 9600W steady state. PHEV does not generally require as much charge time. My Sonata PHEV would charge in ~2 hours at 5600. You could simply get an inexpensive adjustable Level 2 and knock it down to 20 or even 16A (3840W) and still charge in a reasonably fast, 3-4 hours.

 

[WorldwideDave]

How are you charting this? I want to do this as well.

 

[ksmithaz1]

How are you charting this? I want to do this as well.

Orange Pi, two RS-485 dongles, bunch of RS-485 voltage/current sensors, + an RS-485 connection to the EG4 inverters. A database (postgres w/timescaledb). Polling and control program written in C using libmodbus, it also has control of a bunch of switches and can turn things off / flip them to the grid via an RS-485 relay board. Grafana is running for this graph reading the various materialized views and plotting the data.

 

[WorldwideDave]

OK, I have no idea what 7/8 of what you said there is. Have you told me there was something for $200 I could buy it was turnkey I would.