My SMA system install so far and precharge questions

[ChrisFullPower]

Interested in seeing how this turns out!

 

[SilverbackMP]

 

[SilverbackMP]

So it’s up and running besides installation of two batteries (6 installed). And no remote monitoring…it’s working and I fly out in the morning for three or so months and don’t have time to mess with that (or risk screwing it up).

Everything seems to be communicating.




Battery combiner box with and without cover.

 

[ArtDeco]

I just found this thread. What you've done so far is both awesome and inspiring. Thanks for sharing ?.

 

[G.W. Mad Scientist]

So it’s up and running besides installation of two batteries (6 installed). And no remote monitoring…it’s working and I fly out in the morning for three or so months and don’t have time to mess with that (or risk screwing it up).

Everything seems to be communicating.

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Battery combiner box with and without cover.

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You have a very gorgeous installation, I like how you're using Sma's and Sunny boys.

 

[Bluedog225]

Extraordinary. Well done!

 

[beastman]

It’s sized (right now) for winter. I will dump some of the summer excess into electric water heaters and daytime use only mini splits on various outbuildings (not really covered above) for semi climate controlled storage. AC coupled so this should work out well (I think).

I don’t have the second house built as of yet and that will be a couple of years away (barring societal collapse and/or world war between then and now).

Shop might not use much power on a given day or it may use a ton when I fire up a 3-5hp dust collector and wood working machines. Will have independent mini splits for AC only, fridge, couple of freezers, air exchanger. Radiant floor heat powered by wood with propane backup.

My mom’s house won’t draw much. Energy star rated fridge (we just replaced her 25 year old propane unit), smallish TV, couple of higher SEER mini splits (probably two 9,000 BTU units). Stove, dryer, secondary heat are propane. Primary heat is wood.

But yes, I’ve kind of made it modular so I can easily “plug in” more of everything except more total continuous power draw.

I thought about provisioning for a SMA multicluster box for more Sunny Boys, but that introduces more complexities into the system and more risk for a complete system failure should we get a lightning strike.

If I need more continuous power, I’d rather have more independent systems for redundancy..and with a series of transfer switches, I think I could share that power from one chunk to another should one portion have issues.

Plus the multicluster box is $14k. That buys a lot of other stuff.

That multicluster box is about the cost of two 15k solarks.. not sure if the sunny islands can sync to the solark signal on the load side or not. I have a solark 15k and two sunny islands as well w/ the SB7000US/SB6000US. The SI's are not installed. The sb's and Si's take up a ton of room compared to the Solarks. Totally understand your thoughts on lightning strikes, might want to see about placing some AC panel surges near the SB's in that case and some 4 AWG grounds at the racks. I worked in the last mile wireless field for quite some time on the design and surge suppression - if you elevate the ground higher than the rack it will catch most of the surge before it hits your panel and surrounding wires. We had one engineer from texas who called this the 'cone of protection' on antenna's. The company I designed equipment for put copper traces into the antenna's at the null's so it would channel the ESD away from the radio's so they didn't get blown out from lots of humidity and discharges in the vicinity. Lots of ESD with just lightining and cloud cover can be discharged this way. A direct strike most things don't stand a chance. I would fuse everything going back with a few layers between your racks and the SB/SI equipment. That's probably your best bet. The more modern AC surge equipment has both brownout and high voltage shunts, on the DC side you probably want fuses and some high wattage diodes to channel the energy back to ground above 600v. With as much money as you have invested here, I think it would be prudent. Just my $.02.

 

[beastman]

We got almost half the panels hung today. Now that we know what we are doing, we can fly through the rest this week.

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How do you like the sinclair mounts? Worth the cost? Assuming you drilled 4' holes and filled them with concrete. They look nice. Not sure what the bill was there but I am looking at adding an additional 16kw to my existing 8kw system going to a solark 15k.