I'm doing initial testing of a 48V system - 2 Jenko 465W panels in series, Renogy AIO 3500W system, 4 100AH Aolithium 12V batteries. The renogy app shows 200 to 300W PV charging watts (cloudy day so seems reasonable), the Renogy panel is showing .07kW load ( a test light with 60W incandescent bulb) reasonable correlation to a 60W bulb. My expectation is that the system should be able to net charge the batteries but they slowly discharge. When load is turned off system/battery voltage shows steady increase. What am I missing? Is the inverter overhead that high (standby no load is spec'd at 50W )?. The inverter overhead or other system loss would seem to be over 250W?? Suggestions welecomed.
Renogy disappointing performance
- Thread starter cbfraser
- Start date
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
Cloudy day performance sucks ass. 200-300W sounds pretty good. I've seen cloudy days where 200-300W out of 3,000W is the best I can hope for.
Are you meeting the MPPT minimum voltage (Vmp)?
Please state your concern a different way. I can't tell if you're happy or complaining.
I'm complaining! The system isn't feasible if it can't use 300W of solar to run a 70W load and at least to some degree -charge batteries with say at 150W. It seems there's a loss of over 150W in the system with a small load on. The 70W represents avg load of a fridge and some LEDs. Perhaps system is really inefficient at a small load? Idle no load draw on the AIO inverter is 25(eco) or 50 standby so even 50 plus the load should leave a small amount to charge batteries. And yes panel V is >70V, minimum is 60V. I wonder if a seperate 48V inverter would be more efficient. The charging system of the AIO seems reasonable with no load. Somewhat smaller 48V standalone inverters have idle draw of 9W.
sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
Gotcha.
Welcome to cheap AiO and cheap inverter/chargers in general. For comparison, my 10kW (2x 5kW) of Victron Quattros burn 54W idle total between them. The MP-II 3kW only burns 11W.
You'll also likely find that the inverter/charger HATES AC input that's not uber-clean like grid or inverter generator.
50W * 24h = 1200Wh
You'd need at least 300W of panels and clear skies just to feed the inverter assuming no load.
(50+70W) * 24h = 2880Wh
You'd need at least 600-700W to keep that fed.
Note that eventually "idle" gets consumed in the efficiency number, but until you get to peak efficiency (about 30% of max output), it's more conservative to just consider it a load.
Welcome to cheap AiO and cheap inverter/chargers in general. For comparison, my 10kW (2x 5kW) of Victron Quattros burn 54W idle total between them. The MP-II 3kW only burns 11W.
You'll also likely find that the inverter/charger HATES AC input that's not uber-clean like grid or inverter generator.
50W * 24h = 1200Wh
You'd need at least 300W of panels and clear skies just to feed the inverter assuming no load.
(50+70W) * 24h = 2880Wh
You'd need at least 600-700W to keep that fed.
Note that eventually "idle" gets consumed in the efficiency number, but until you get to peak efficiency (about 30% of max output), it's more conservative to just consider it a load.
I switched from the Renogy AIO 48V to a 24V configuration because of shading at the site. And replaced Renogy AOP with Victron 100/50 SCC and an off brand Amazon inverter (3000W). For the money it looks promising 8W idle load , not the Victron 2000W idle load of 1.7W but very good and efficiency at 1000W is 93%, at 70W 92%.
We'll see how it holds up. I'll test the 70W load when SCC is active and see how system performs.
We'll see how it holds up. I'll test the 70W load when SCC is active and see how system performs.
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