OK, I am definitely a beginner, and not an electrician so please be gentle with my lack of knowledge of the abbreviations and even concepts used on this forum. I know I'll come up to speed, slowly but surely. For now, it's OK if you talk to me using simple layman terms. We just got my system up and running on Thursday. (Off grid: nine 455w south-facing Solarever panels in series to ONE EG4 6500ex-48 to 3 EG4 48v LiFePower4 batteries) it was a pretty sunny day in mid Michigan with temps around 50° F and the expected sub-optimal sun to panels angle. That afternoon I was seeing around 2.2 - 3.5kW production - which I think was not too shabby for the conditions. The next day was similar, with a little less sun and I happily found my batteries were fully charged, despite having a few minor loads applied, such as some led lighting and of course whatever the inverter was drawing. I left everything on the first night with no load, the next night with a couple of freezers drawing a load. No surprises here, the batteries went down to 2 bars - I guess that's 50% ish or so.
(Side quest: can anyone tell me how to see the percentage of charge remaining on the battery bank at any given time.. Or ever for that matter?)
However, on the third day (yesterday) it was overcast with highs around 45°F. The EG4 showed only around 50-70 *watts* of production every time I looked through the day ... So over the course of that day my usage exceeded my input - which was altogether only around 660 watts..
That seems low, I mean abysmally low. Even on a really overcast day with rain, shouldn't I be able to expect a minimum of 10% of the capability of the panels or ~400 watts of input at any given moment during daylight hours? I shut the whole thing down through the night so the inverter wouldn't fully drain the battery bank. Now, today, at just about noon, with overcast skies, outside temp of 33, battery location temp around 50 I'm seeing 74-75 Watts of production and 91Wh since 10am when I knew the Cloud covered sun was up enough to be above any trees that could possibly block the diffuse light of it.... Are my expectations unreasonable, or is there something I'm failing to take into account?
Thank you. Feel free to answer main question or side quest or both ?
(Side quest: can anyone tell me how to see the percentage of charge remaining on the battery bank at any given time.. Or ever for that matter?)
However, on the third day (yesterday) it was overcast with highs around 45°F. The EG4 showed only around 50-70 *watts* of production every time I looked through the day ... So over the course of that day my usage exceeded my input - which was altogether only around 660 watts..
That seems low, I mean abysmally low. Even on a really overcast day with rain, shouldn't I be able to expect a minimum of 10% of the capability of the panels or ~400 watts of input at any given moment during daylight hours? I shut the whole thing down through the night so the inverter wouldn't fully drain the battery bank. Now, today, at just about noon, with overcast skies, outside temp of 33, battery location temp around 50 I'm seeing 74-75 Watts of production and 91Wh since 10am when I knew the Cloud covered sun was up enough to be above any trees that could possibly block the diffuse light of it.... Are my expectations unreasonable, or is there something I'm failing to take into account?
Thank you. Feel free to answer main question or side quest or both ?
