Over paneling a Growatt?

[timselectric]

Members have had good reviews for the first two.
Alibaba, can be hit and miss.

 

[Taulli1]

Question: can you overpanel a Growatt 3000.
Answer: yes.

5000 es, 15-20% overpaneled, zero problems, zero regerts. (Tattoo spelling)
The system operates up to and slightly above, and caps the rest.

 

[Taulli1]

Working with a friend on a small off grid system way up north. Snow, clouds and short sun days. 39degrees latitude.
Need to over panel some for winter.
Thinking if a Growatt 3000tl all in one.
Will this be ok to overpanel like my Midnite Classic is? Will use bi-facials.
Thanks

Have you started the project? How is is going?

 

[timselectric]

5000 es, 15-20% overpaneled, zero problems, zero regerts. (Tattoo spelling)
The system operates up to and slightly above, and caps the rest.

Yup
Mine caps at 18.2 amps.

 

[Taulli1]

There's no limit. But, too much becomes wasteful.
As long as you keep the VOC below the max of the charger, you won't hurt anything. The panels don't push power into the charger. The charger draws power from the panels. More panels gives the charger more available sources to draw from.
Think of the solar panels as buckets. And solar energy as rain. In a heavy rain, you can collect a lot of water, with only a few buckets. But in a light rain, it will take a lot more buckets to collect the same amount of water, in the same time frame. You just have to find a balance. So that you can collect enough from a lower production day. Without having way more than you need, on a higher production day.
No point in paying for too many panels, if you are rarely able to utilize them.

Oh man, that is a great way of explaining it. Actually, I did not know that until I read it. Panels don’t push, the charger draws. Brilliant.

 

[Taulli1]

Oh man, that is a great way of explaining it. Actually, I did not know that until I read it. Panels don’t push, the charger draws. Brilliant.

Hey Tim, I just learned something shocking, figuratively speaking... well, it could have shocked me. The PV input terminals have high voltage DC differential (~185 from case to positive, ~240v case to negative, ~40v pos to neg) current unknown.

This was with the slave inverter in the oh-eff-eff position, but the parallel master on and running. Night time, PV breakers off, all PV cables removed. Of course the current sharing cables are likely to be the source, as I did not pluck them before starting the task.

The potential for damage and or injury may be something we discuss here? Clearly I had not used best practices when I found this out, but this is an instance where I don’t mind telling on myself, if someone can avoid the unknown. See if you can duplicate the scenario, if you want.