Sol-Ark 12K Grid/Off-grid

[Ldc_NH]

I have setup a sol-ark 12K, with off grid side and have connection to on grid side. How do I use battery and solar only on off-grid side, yet keep the connection so I can feed power to the grid side for home use only? I have 2 48 volt lifepo4 banks of 280 amp hour batteries on the off grid side, enough to run that side for a day or so with some sun. I setup the CT sensors and I am feeding power to both side of house (Off Grid and Utilities side). What I have not figured out is what needs to be done for the of grid side to use batteries and solar only. If I cut the power between the two sides the batteries and solar work fine, but I am no longer able to feed the utility side of the house when I have extra power. I have the setting for load only, no sell back and do not want to sell back. I still looking through the manual, but nothing is sticking out that will help me solve this challenge.

Any thought will be appreciated.

 

[robby]

Do you have a diagram of how it is connected?
Where is the CT connected?

 

[Ldc_NH]

Do you have a diagram of how it is connected?
Where is the CT connected?

 

[robby]

Do you have the CT sensor at the 50Amp side going to the Inverter or at the meter?

 

[Ldc_NH]

Do you have the CT sensor at the 50Amp side going to the Inverter or at the meter?

Yes I do.

 

[robby]

The Dayton transfer switch will block the Sol-Ark from ever supplying power to the main 200 Amp panel.
I get what your trying to do as mine was setup like that. I assume you wanted it that way in case the Sol-Ark ever died and you needed to Bypass it totally. My suggestion is to move more loads over to the critical loads panel until you are getting the most out of the Sol-Ark. I did the same thing and ended up being able to movie everything over to the Critical loads panel YMMV. I used a 60 Amp breakers, not 50 Amp.

Edit: I should have said I moved everything except a few workshop 120 and 240v plugs. I needed the 220v for my welding plant and did not want that being powered by the inverter. The 120V ones are in case any workmen with certain hi powers tools need them.

 

[Ldc_NH]

The Dayton transfer switch will block the Sol-Ark from ever supplying power to the main 200 Amp panel.
I get what your trying to do as mine was setup like that. I assume you wanted it that way in case the Sol-Ark ever died and you needed to Bypass it totally. My suggestion is to move more loads over to the critical loads panel until you are getting the most out of the Sol-Ark. I did the same thing and ended up being able to movie everything over to the Critical loads panel YMMV. I used a 60 Amp breakers, not 50 Amp.

Edit: I should have said I moved everything except a few workshop 120 and 240v plugs. I needed the 220v for my welding plant and did not want that being powered by the inverter. The 120V ones are in case any workmen with certain hi powers tools need them.

The 50 AMP connection allows electricity to go both way since the CT's were connected. The Transfer switch is there should I lose all power on the critical load side/off grid side (And in preparations for a 2nd Sol-ark). My real issue is that when the sun goes down, the battery takes over and feeds the power needs for both sites of the house. I want to feed both sides during the day when I have met the needs of the critical load/of grid side of the house. Once sun goes down I want the battery to only provide power to the critical load side/off grid side of the house. No battery power should go to the public utility side of the house.

 

[robby]

I had to do some reading up and a bit of experimenting as I had not used my Inverter in that way before as my original plans had changed.
Yes it can work. You need to move the CT sensor up to the area between the Meter and the Main panel so it is getting the reading from the Utility coming in. Then use the Limited power to Home mode and during the day any excess PV power will be directed to the main panel.
Of course during a power outage the main panel will be cutoff and only the Loads panel will be powered.

 

[Ldc_NH]

I had to do some reading up and a bit of experimenting as I had not used my Inverter in that way before as my original plans had changed.
Yes it can work. You need to move the CT sensor up to the area between the Meter and the Main panel so it is getting the reading from the Utility coming in. Then use the Limited power to Home mode and during the day any excess PV power will be directed to the main panel.
Of course during a power outage the main panel will be cutoff and only the Loads panel will be powered.

CT sensors are located above main circuit breaker of main panel coming into house. The inverter detected the CT 's and does send power to the main house and it set for home only. It seems to be working as is should when the panels are providing power. The challenge I have been having is that the of grid batteries continue to ship power to both sides of the house even when the solar panels are not producing power. I really am only trying to send excess solar power to main panel when it is available from the panels, not from batteries. I want my batteries to only supply the of grid side of my house as that side also includes my critical loads panel and the batteries were planed to keep that side going 24 hours a day.

 

[robby]

CT sensors are located above main circuit breaker of main panel coming into house. The inverter detected the CT 's and does send power to the main house and it set for home only. It seems to be working as is should when the panels are providing power. The challenge I have been having is that the of grid batteries continue to ship power to both sides of the house even when the solar panels are not producing power. I really am only trying to send excess solar power to main panel when it is available from the panels, not from batteries. I want my batteries to only supply the of grid side of my house as that side also includes my critical loads panel and the batteries were planed to keep that side going 24 hours a day.

Have you called Sol-Ark? This seems like a problem with one of your settings.
Although I am not sure that TOU has a separate option for Mains and Loads Panel. Maybe the battery export function can work for that. You should call them as they would know right away while it would take a few hours of trying various things for me to find what setting works.

 

[Ldc_NH]

Have you called Sol-Ark? This seems like a problem with one of your settings.
Although I am not sure that TOU has a separate option for Mains and Loads Panel. Maybe the battery export function can work for that. You should call them as they would know right away while it would take a few hours of trying various things for me to find what setting works.

I have been talking with Sol-Ark, they have made several adjustments. Things are improving, using more of the batteries, charging better... But I am still sending battery power to the on Grid side of house after solar hours are done. Really wish I could figure out how to send only extra panel power over to the grid side of the house. On the bright side with each adjustment we are getting better use of all the equipment and batteries.

 

[Bluedog225]

Trying to follow. What’s a ct sensor? Thanks

 

[Ldc_NH]

Trying to follow. What’s a ct sensor? Thanks

The CT sensors wrap around the incoming power to the house and detect the load the house is using, in my case I have 200 amp service and they are placed just above the main breaker. I included a picture of one, not the one I am using but allows you to see what I am talking about. These like mine are split sensors, thus allowing to you get them on the wire without taking any wiring apart.

 

[krstamchl]

I have been talking with Sol-Ark, they have made several adjustments. Things are improving, using more of the batteries, charging better... But I am still sending battery power to the on Grid side of house after solar hours are done. Really wish I could figure out how to send only extra panel power over to the grid side of the house. On the bright side with each adjustment we are getting better use of all the equipment and batteries.

Hello, did you resolve your issue? I have the same question, where does the grid sell come from? When doing grid-tied it comes straight from solar panels right, but for this setup you now have a battery installed, so hybrid setup now....
The question is that how did Sol-Ark explain the setting for the grid sell to come from solar panels ONLY, and not from the battery cause the point of the batteries are for backup, it shouldn't be used to sell back to grid too.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

Hello, did you resolve your issue? I have the same question, where does the grid sell come from? When doing grid-tied it comes straight from solar panels right, but for this setup you now have a battery installed, so hybrid setup now....
The question is that how did Sol-Ark explain the setting for the grid sell to come from solar panels ONLY, and not from the battery cause the point of the batteries are for backup, it shouldn't be used to sell back to grid too.

Using Ct sensors the batteries would be able to only supply the power that your main panel loads are using and not sell back. This allows for any excess solar to be saved in the batteries during the day to be used at night to zero the electric bill

 

[robby]

Hello, did you resolve your issue? I have the same question, where does the grid sell come from? When doing grid-tied it comes straight from solar panels right, but for this setup you now have a battery installed, so hybrid setup now....
The question is that how did Sol-Ark explain the setting for the grid sell to come from solar panels ONLY, and not from the battery cause the point of the batteries are for backup, it shouldn't be used to sell back to grid too.

This is the method to use if you only want extra PV power to be sold to the Grid and Not Sell Any Battery Power.
If your doing it on the web interface then you would go into (Equipment-Inverter-Parameter) settings and then go into Work Mode.
Once in work mode turn on the "Solar Sell" Option. Next set the "Maximum Power Sell" which is the Max amount of surplus power that you want it to send from the PV to the Grid. If your doing this from the LCD screen then you would turn on the "Limited Power To Home" Mode and the "Grid Selling" option and then set the Max Power. Both methods achieve the same thing.
Once this is done it will now sell power to the grid whenever excess PV is available.


This is the method to use if you Want Battery Power Sold to the Grid.
If you want to sell power during the Night to say do peak shaving then you have to do all the same things as above but now you have to click the needed "Sell boxes" for the TOU. So lets say your TOU slot #6 runs from 8pm to 3am and you have it set to use the battery SOC down to 50% and the usage is set to 2000 Watts Max. If you Click the "#6 Sell Box" and turn it on, now your TOU #6 setting at 8pm will start selling power to the grid until 3am.
If you leave the 50% setting and the 2000W setting then what will happen is that if your house is using 1200W at 8:15pm it will Send the extra 800W to the Grid as Sell back power, so only excess battery power is sent to the Grid. If you want it to sell a constant 3000+ Watts to the Grid then up your "Power" box from 2kw to 5kw and now you will have roughly 3kw being pushed to the Grid until the battery reaches 50% SOC and it will then cutoff battery power and you will be drawing all your power from the Grid or PV if it is available.

Keep in mind a power outage overrides all these settings and the Sol-Ark will of course stop Grid selling and pull as much power from the battery as needed (up to the Max Battery limit you set) to power the Critical Loads Panel

 

[krstamchl]

This is the method to use if you only want extra PV power to be sold to the Grid and Not Sell Any Battery Power.
If your doing it on the web interface then you would go into (Equipment-Inverter-Parameter) settings and then go into Work Mode.
Once in work mode turn on the "Solar Sell" Option. Next set the "Maximum Power Sell" which is the Max amount of power that you want it to send from the PV to the Grid. If your doing this from the LCD screen then you would turn on the "Limited To Home" Mode and the "Grid Selling" option and then set the Max Power. Both methods achieve the same thing.
Once this is done it will now sell power to the grid whenever excess PV is available.


This is the method to use if you Want Battery Power Sold to the Grid.
If you want to sell power during the Night to say do peak shaving then you have to do all the same things as above but (Via the Web Interface) now you have to click the needed "Sell boxes" for the TOU. So lets say your TOU slot #6 runs from 8pm to 3am and you have it set to use the battery SOC down to 50% and the usage is set to 2000 Watts Max. If you Click the "#6 Sell Box" and turn it on, now your TOU #6 setting at 8pm will start selling power to the grid until 3am.
If you leave the 50% setting and the 2000W setting then what will happen is that if your house is using 1200W at 8:15pm it will Send the extra 800W to the Grid as Sell back power, so only excess battery power is sent to the Grid. If you want it to sell a constant 3000+ Watts to the Grid then up your "Power" box from 2kw to 5kw and now you will have roughly 3kw being pushed to the Grid until the battery reaches 50% SOC and it will then cutoff battery power and you will be drawing all your power from the Grid or PV if it is available.

Keep in mind a power outage overrides all these settings and the Sol-Ark will of course stop Grid selling and pull as much power from the battery as needed (up to the Max Battery limit you set) to power the Critical Loads Panel

that is very detailed thank you for that. I just have a few more questions:
-PV power to be sold to grid but not battery power- Do I need to put CT sensors? Or just do these settings
-What if I put the setting of this one (see below) to 100%? Does that mean that it will also not sell back to grid from batteries? This is from page 36 of the manual

 

[krstamchl]

Using Ct sensors the batteries would be able to only supply the power that your main panel loads are using and not sell back. This allows for any excess solar to be saved in the batteries during the day to be used at night to zero the electric bill

So did you mean that I only need ct sensors? What setting do i need to do

 

[robby]

You need to have the CT sensors hooked up.
I only tried this for learning purposes but I would suspect that "100%" would block it, but I never tested that.
If you want to prevent a time slot from selling then don't check the "Sell" box for that time period.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

So did you mean that I only need ct sensors? What setting do i need to do

My comment was in regards to you saying that a battery is just for backup and shouldn’t be used to sell back to the grid. A battery can and in my setup is used for more than just backup. I use Cts to limit the inverter output to only what my home is using. To do so the inverter uses solar power if it’s available and battery power at the same time if solar isn’t enough to fully supply the homes loads. I use my batteries to zero my electric bill, not just for backup. The Cts enable the inverter to see how much power the home is using so it will only produce that amount. If a home rarely has power outages then the type of setup I use is more advantageous than moving most or all of the homes loads to a sub panel to be powered by the a SolArks load output.
For the SolArk to only use pv power to feed into the grid I’m sure battery discharge into the grid can be turned off so it simply stays charged for whenever you power loads offgrid. But if the grid is connected to the home then using the SolArk with Cts and using limiting to home mode is the way I would do it