Sol-Ark 15K All in One Inverter Released.

[Hedges]

50V / 16s= 3.125V per cell.

Link has table and graph for 48V pack. 50V is around knee of the curve, so IR drop at higher current could make BMS vs. inverter voltage vary.
How about 48V vs. 46V? Far apart in voltage, but both at a couple percent SoC.

A device that measures amp-hours could work better, but only if re-zeroed (or "fulled") often enough to not have accumulated error.

LiFePO4 Battery Voltage Charts (12V, 24V & 48V) - Footprint Hero

LiFePO4 battery voltage charts showing state of charge for 12V, 24V and 48V lithium iron phosphate batteries -- as well as 3.2V LiFePO4 cells.

footprinthero.com

2.5V/cell would be 40V

3V/cell or 48V is shown as 9%

Find chart/table for your battery, which may differ.

 

[12kw_2021]

I don't have the equipment to test, but typically you would get those numbers to use from a manual or spec sheet for your batteries. Also if the batteries have communication abilities with Sol-Ark plugging them into the communication feature will basically auto-program the Sol-Ark for your batteries.

With regards to the BMS, it both tries to prevent overdraw and overcharge, but when an overdraw condition is triggered, it's my understanding that it shouldn't limit the ability for the battery to receive a charge. But you would have to test or check your documentation to confirm, however, this would be a really odd use case to prevent a battery from charging after it's BMS prevented an over-discharge event.

Hello
I have a home built battery with jk BMS. 32 eve cells. 1 BMS per group of 16. No canbus communication available. The BMS has a turn myself off feature if a single cell goes below a setpoint you program. This can prevent battery damage if you have a system set up say in a remote cabin with two weeks of snow and no solar to recharge the battery. I'm confident that the future turns the BMS off I just don't understand if the recovery is automatic or if once this feature shuts off the BMS manual intervention is required.

Hedges current higher V settings (50.6 and 50v ) still result in the battery going to 0% SOC. I don't understand how moving those parameters lower as you suggest can help? Am I missing something?

 

[12kw_2021]

Two questions
1.0 what battery empty or battery shut down voltage do people use to prevent the sol-ark from driving battery SOC to zero? I've set battery empty at 50 volts and battery shut down at 50.6 volts for my 16 cell battery. Should I invert those settings?
The inverter continues to draw current from the battery after the shutdown voltages and it drives the battery so low that the BMS needs to step in and disable discharge. Is there any way to prevent this? Of course this only happens with bad PV days which are common in the area that I live in


2 if I set the JK BMS turn off voltage to 2.5 volts and the BMS turns itself off does this then prevent the solar from recharging the the battery or even with the jk BMS off will it accept charge until it exceeds the low voltage and turn itself back on automatically.

Just an update , got feedback from Sol-ark on my issue, and the tech mentioned in passing that "IF" I was using the "time of day" feature to backfill load from the battery at night (I am) the low battery setting on that screen takes precedence over all other battery low/stop discharge settings. I had that at 49V for my 32 EVE cells with JK BMS and that was just too low. I reset that to 51.6V and now all is well, overnight, or on several days with zero PV available (common in my area this time of year).. the discharge of the battery terminates, and the BMS reports around 20% on each battery, which slowly drops due to the Sol-ark drawing a small amount of power at all times, and I stay away from BMS shutdown due to one cell low, and the Sol-Ark is in complete control of the battery. I still don't quite understand why two sets of identical cells purchased at the same time don't both reach 100%, one hits 100, the other 93%, but perhaps its just cycles , and I need more cycles on the most recently built battery.

So.. Hope this information helps others, Key point, if you are using the time of day feature on the Sol-ark, that low battery setting is the one in charge, and all the other low battery settings become irrelevant.

CPU

 

[Lt.Dan]

This is exactly why I switched to using the percentage instead of voltage for the Time of Day stats. Much more consistent.

As for your 100% and 93%, you have an imbalance of resistance to each pack. 1 Is charging faster than the other because the resistance to each pack is different. What voltage are you charging up to?

 

[12kw_2021]

This is exactly why I switched to using the percentage instead of voltage for the Time of Day stats. Much more consistent.

As for your 100% and 93%, you have an imbalance of resistance to each pack. 1 Is charging faster than the other because the resistance to each pack is different. What voltage are you charging up to?

Hello the Sol-arc battery full voltages are as follows:

Battery 1 96% 54.27v
Battery 2 93% 54.31v

Per BMS but Sol-ark reports 99-100%

How exactly do you select battery % in time of day. My experience is the the Sol-ark SOC is always at least 10-30% off when compared to the battery BMS.

As of know with full sun and >2000w charge going in

Battery BMS reporting as follows
Battery 1 53.7 volts 51% charged 61.7 amps input
Battery too 53.8 volts 42% charged 51.5 amps input

Solark reports 54.39

So it appears I have one battery 0.1 volts higher voltage but BMS thinks SOC is less than the initially installed battery.

Note that battery one has 22 cycles and battery two only has three cycles so I'm hoping as the cycles grow the matching and the percent state of charge gets better

 

[pnjunctionwhatsurfunction]

I know Generac doesn’t use 2 wire start but there is a workaround available. Engineer 775 on YouTube has done some Generac installs with the Sol Ark. One of his videos he completely eliminated the ATS and brought it in on the Gen leg. I have a Kohler 18k generator attached to my Sol Ark through an ATS on the grid leg.

In this configuration, I had a complete misunderstanding on how the Sol Ark works with the Generator and ATS. So the generator is completely isolated behind the ATS normally. Even if running it cannot pass power. The ATS is monitoring grid in an outage, the ATS will throw the contactor and now the gen is attached to the Sol Ark electrically. The Sol Ark will not immediately start the generator it will use solar and battery until they are exhausted to our setting of 30% SOC. At that time the Sol Ark will start the generator and charge the batteries and then shut down. About 1-1.5 hours for us. This cycle will repeat until power is restored and the ATS then reconnects to grid.

The point is the generator is going to be used in small increments to keep your batteries charged. It is not used primarily to power your loads as you are used to. This provides a significant reduction in fuel usage. During daylight, your solar will perform this so the generator will primarily be used at night when your batteries drop below 30% SOC.

It works well and saves us a lot of fuel usage instead of running 24/7 during a grid outage.

In this setup the Sol Ark uses a CT to monitor the grid leg and it can tell if the power coming down the grid leg is generator or utility power. When grid is restored the Sol Ark will see it and act accordingly.

I'm getting the advice that is' better to use the ATS on the grid-input as opposed to the generator input in the Sol-Ark. For the two-wire start, did you have to run that between the ATS and the Sol Ark, or did it go all the way back to the generator directly?

 

[RayofSunshine]

I don't know if this helps, but Sol-Ark just uploaded the following YT video on gen linking & battery charging for the 15K...
Sol-Ark 15K gen connection & battery charging

 

[629658]

I'm getting the advice that is' better to use the ATS on the grid-input as opposed to the generator input in the Sol-Ark. For the two-wire start, did you have to run that between the ATS and the Sol Ark, or did it go all the way back to the generator directly?

You can grab the two wire start at either place. I cut mine in the ATS and left them hanging on the ATS side and then brought them into the Sol Ark.

 

[robby]

I heard the latest firmware allows 14KW to be produced from the battery vs 12KW.

 

[cmack]

I heard the latest firmware allows 14KW to be produced from the battery vs 12KW.

Where'd you hear this? I spoke with support who could not confirm.

I find it very annoying that they will not publish any sort of changelog for their firmware updates.

 

[robby]

Where'd you hear this? I spoke with support who could not confirm.

I find it very annoying that they will not publish any sort of changelog for their firmware updates.

I heard it from a Tech. Yes it is very annoying that they won't publish it. I have asked until I am blue in the face and Nada.

 

[niktak11]

Maxing out the 15kW inverter limit:

It seems to be a hard limit right at 15,000W, at least in Limited to Home mode. As the load fluctuated, the draw from the grid was always within 0.01kW of the load power minus 15kW.

 

[niktak11]

For some reason I thought that each MPPT was limited to 6500W but it looks like that can be exceeded

 

[Spunky]

For some reason I thought that each MPPT was limited to 6500W but it looks like that can be exceeded

Or so you would think, 6400w*3MPPTs=19.2Kw (full rated PV output)
On my MPPT2, I have 7S2P 460w BlueSun bi-facials totaling 6440w. Except that they were doing almost 20% over in single digit weather (Fahrenheit).

 

[niktak11]

Or so you would think, 6400w*3MPPTs=19.2Kw (full rated PV output)
On my MPPT2, I have 7S2P 460w BlueSun bi-facials totaling 6440w. Except that they were doing almost 20% over in single digit weather (Fahrenheit).
View attachment 134311

I hit over 8800W on a single MPPT last week so there must not be a wattage limit for individual inputs (other than the implied limit based on the voltage and amp limits).

 

[Spunky]

I hit over 8800W on a single MPPT last week so there must not be a wattage limit for individual inputs (other than the implied limit based on the voltage and amp limits).

Yeah, I had my new array unhooked while adding two more panels and seen some big numbers from the 1st array 8S4P on MPPTs 1&3 (32x375w, 16 on each) during a cold snap.
I was running the battery in closed-loop again and seen a steady 275A charge, so I can't blame the BMS for anything now.

I wonder why that 15kw to the batteries isn't bidirectional instead of only 13kw back(not that most people could supply that for very long)?

 

[niktak11]

Yeah, I had my new array unhooked while adding two more panels and seen some big numbers from the 1st array 8S4P on MPPTs 1&3 (32x375w, 16 on each) during a cold snap.
I was running the battery in closed-loop again and seen a steady 275A charge, so I can't blame the BMS for anything now.

I wonder why that 15kw to the batteries isn't bidirectional instead of only 13kw back(not that most people could supply that for very long)?

View attachment 136278
View attachment 136279

I see that you're above 15kW solar input too. I wonder if that means it'll let you go all the way up to 19.5kW.

 

[Spunky]

I've hit 18kw, not sure if I lack enough panels or it's their cap keeping me from 19.2kw

 

[Danke]

I've hit 18kw, not sure if I lack enough panels or it's their cap keeping me from 19.2kw
View attachment 136299
View attachment 136300

So that picture you’re charging your batteries and you have a load? Once the batteries are full, do you think the inverter would produce more than 15 K?

 

[Spunky]

So that picture you’re charging your batteries and you have a load? Once the batteries are full, do you think the inverter would produce more than 15 K?

I don't have enough AC load to test that and I'm disconnected from the grid at my old generator switch, so no sell-back contract either.

That load is mostly the extra waterheater. Smartload starts at 99% charge (running open-loop with lower absorption voltages doesn't always trigger 100% charge).

 

[Tulex]

Can get the recommended fusible disconnect for significantly cheaper from this site.

SQUARE D D224NRB 200A-240V RT SW | Gordon Electric Supply, Inc.

SqD D224NRB General Duty 200A 240V 2-pole 3-wire Fusible Safety Switch. Nema 3R enclosure.

www.gordonelectricsupply.com

These things are HUGE! Is there any reason a 200 amp breaker box can't be used? Why fused, the panel box I would be taking it out of is a breaker.

 

[ncsolarelectric]

These things are HUGE! Is there any reason a 200 amp breaker box can't be used? Why fused, the panel box I would be taking it out of is a breaker.

Depends on your local utility requirements, but typically a line side tap requires a fault rating over 10kA, and a non-fused switch doesn't meet that spec. A breaker rated 40-100 kA would work, but some utilities require a "visible open" switch.

 

[Tulex]

Depends on your local utility requirements, but typically a line side tap requires a fault rating over 10kA, and a non-fused switch doesn't meet that spec. A breaker rated 40-100 kA would work, but some utilities require a "visible open" switch.

Thanks for the info. I'm not all that concerned with the local utility requirements, just the safety aspect. Both the boxes below meet the requirements for kA, Siemens at 22kA, Eaton at 10kA if you meant 10kA or above. It's actually cheaper to get the fused disconnect on Amazon, I'm just really limited on wall space where this is going.

https://www.amazon.com/Siemens-W0202MB1200CU-Outdoor-Circuit-Enclosure/dp/B0052MFWM2/ref=sr_1_7_mod_primary_new?crid=25K9BLUOJ1Y3L&keywords=200%2Bamp%2Bbreaker%2Bbox&qid=1680528287&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=200%2Bamp%2Bbreaker%2Bbox%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-7&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/EATON-CORPORATION-ECCVH200R-Industries-Breaker/dp/B00YQNUIAE/ref=sr_1_55_mod_primary_new?crid=25K9BLUOJ1Y3L&keywords=200+amp+breaker+box&qid=1680529419&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=200+amp+breaker+box%2Caps%2C109&sr=8-55

 

[Hedges]

A breaker will work for OCP and disconnect. I bought one for $185, to use as service entrance.
The question is whether your utility requires visible blade disconnect. If not required, they reserve the option to remove your meter in order to isolate.

Typically 22kA required for service disconnect, 10kA downstream of that. Most 200A main breakers are 22kA.

You may also prefer a fast fuse, which has a chance to protect parts of the inverter. Could also protect main breaker, so it is good for more than just one or two shorts.



Yes, non-fused would serve as disconnect too, if you find one that is available and reasonable. Typically similar price.
The fuse could provide faster over-current protection.

Here's what I bought, half the price of your links. This will be my service disconnect. Followed by 100A switch because my inverters don't have the 200A pass-through of yours.

Square D QO 200 Amp 2-Pole Outdoor Circuit Breaker Enclosure with QOM2200VH Breaker QOM2E2200NRB - The Home Depot

The Square D by Schneider Electric QO 200 Amp Outdoor Circuit Breaker Enclosure includes a two-pole QOM2 frame sizes circuit breakers 100-225 amp capacity for use as an exterior disconnect. This breaker

www.homedepot.com

 

[Danke]

You may also prefer a fast fuse, which has a chance to protect parts of the inverter. Could also protect main breaker, so it is good for more than just one or two shorts.

Yes, non-fused would serve as disconnect too, if you find one that is available and reasonable. Typically similar price.
The fuse could provide faster over-current protection.

Yep, Sol-Ark wants a fused disconnect before inverters.

Since they sell both, what are the advantages of a 3-pole vs. a 2-pole disconnect. Do utilities sometimes require neutral to be disconnected too? Backfeed? Although the old method of just pulling the meter doesn’t disconect neutral, does it? But now with inverters it could?