diy solar

diy solar

Newbie Needing Advice and Counsel

AGDorsum

New Member
Joined
May 19, 2021
Messages
21
Location
Tri-Valley, CA
Hello from Northern California, Tri-Valley area where it’s a beautiful, cloud free day with early summer temperatures - still no rain?.

In 2012 I installed an Enphase system I purchased online. Ten Canadian Solar 250w panels, 10 M215 grid tied inverters, and an Envoy. In 2018 I added another 10 Canadian Solar 250w panels, 1.3kwh Enphase battery, and an Envoy-S with production and consumption monitoring. Very happy with Enphase, it’s been a “set it and forget it” experience with a monthly report activity.

But changes are afoot in CA regarding rates and Solar connection fees for homeowners (https://www.aurorasolar.com/blog/what-you-need-to-know-about-cpucs-2021-proposed-changes-to-nem/). Add to that the historic drought in CA and the entire SW, hydroelectric production will be severely curtailed probably leading to rate increases. I expect rolling blackouts this summer from high demand, more public safety outages from wildfires/wind events. Power delivery has become a profit center. Last month I used net $38 of electricity but was billed $141 in delivery/transmission fees.

My solution (if feasible) is to install an AC-coupled (grid forming) split phase inverter/48vdc 230-280Ah battery between grid and the Enphase system to capture excess solar and stop exporting to the grid. This would also allow my Enphase system to continue solar production during outages, not to mention I would have power?.

My biggest problem is that I don’t know what I don’t know?. Given that my installation is now about 10 years old, are there issues with the vintage of my Enphase equipment in an AC-coupled environment? I will start additional threads for battery build and inverter selection.

Thank you to all who contribute here, what an incredible resource???
 
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