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Sol-Ark 15K with 44x440W panels, Tigo Optimizers and Homegrid Stack'd 38.4kWh battery pack AMA

RainbowKraut said:
Greg and 2TrevorJ,

Did you install optimizers on every panel, or just the ones that subjected to shade? Or, can you even do that, just put them on some panels?
Click to expand...

If you have parallel strings going to the same MPPT you need optimizers on every panel otherwise the voltages can't balance out between the parallel strings.

You can install optimizers on "some" panels if you choose to if you just have a single string in series. Since rapid shutdown is a requirement for me the difference would have been marginal between optimizers and rapid shutdown modules so I have optimizers on every panel.

The benefit as far as optimization goes on panels that never see shade is marginal at best but I think the monitoring ability which includes alarms and warnings if panels start underperforming are worth it.
 
RainbowKraut said:
Greg and 2TrevorJ,

Did you install optimizers on every panel, or just the ones that subjected to shade? Or, can you even do that, just put them on some panels?
Click to expand...
What Greg said for the reasons Greg said. ? Optimizers on every panel here. Cost was marginal over Rapid Shutdown only and it's killer to have panel level diagnostics (peace of mind) and an additional redundant data stream. Tigo's software is pretty cool...you can see how the sun progresses across your array/strings as the day progresses and if/when individual panels are being shaded.
 
2TrevorJ said:
What Greg said for the reasons Greg said. ? Optimizers on every panel here. Cost was marginal over Rapid Shutdown only and it's killer to have panel level diagnostics (peace of mind) and an additional redundant data stream. Tigo's software is pretty cool...you can see how the sun progresses across your array/strings as the day progresses and if/when individual panels are being shaded.
Click to expand...
Thank you. The Tigo price point is such that installing them on each panel won't break the bank.
 
RainbowKraut said:
Thank you. The Tigo price point is such that installing them on each panel won't break the bank.
Click to expand...
In 3 months of use I have reclaimed about 277 kWh which is about $27 in electricity at $0.10/kWh. That's roughly the difference between a rapid shutdown module and an optimizer. So on my 44 panels it'll take 11 years at this rate to break even on the optimizers. Since they have a 25 year warranty and expected lifespan they're a net positive even from a pure economic perspective.

With time I assume they will actually be more beneficial as my panels start to diverge from their nominal rating and production.
 
Chiming in as a few months behind you two on a Sol-Ark 15k install in TX as follows:

1) 31x410W Panels over 7 arrays--honestly I realize now I have a very difficult roof for the installers.
2) Tigo Optimizers. I'm actually not sure how many TAP's, installer hasn't enabled my account yet.
3) Hot Texas summers and 2 central HVAC's that give me the privilege of hitting 20kw draw.

My install started in October with racking, and then I was unpleasantly surprised by my installer who informed me that they wouldn't continue because the Tigo CCA's were on backorder. That was remedied this month in 2023, so after sitting with bare racking on my roof for 4 months, the panels were finally installed and I'm waiting for PTO from Entergy and also waiting for the installer to configure the Tigo system. By the meter (which disagrees with the Sol-Ark display), it looks like I'm "donating" / selling back to the grid right now since I don't have an interconnect agreement and the installer didn't appear to configure the Sol-Ark not to sell. Odd.

No batteries yet, but have an order in from Docan for 16s 304Ah EVE's. I struggled with going hard DIY versus Homegrid or something like it. Time will tell. If the first DIY batt goes well, I'd like to be up in the 50kwh capacity range like you, TBD. I'm somewhat jealous of you de-regulated types who get to choose your Retail Electric Provider. I'm stuck with Entergy, who has poor sellback at their avoided generation cost (couple cents?). They do have a time-of-use plan I can opt in to, but I don't think anyone does this. If the batteries work well, I might be well served to opt in since load shifting to off-peak times may yield some savings.

Also want to play around with supplementing my batteries with a portable genset that I have ready to plug in to the Sol-Ark for the next natural disaster--be it tropical or frozen.
 
2TrevorJ said:
I integrated the Tigo CCA's rapid shutdown the same exact way with a relay driven off master 15K's 12V output. Works like a champ.

Also, once I found out from Sol-Ark that there are some rare failure modes where you may not have pass-through power we added a GE bypass switch to the mix. You may have to drop by sometime and check out the install.
Click to expand...

@2TrevorJ , @GregTR

I recently was approved for my interconnection agreement. I have a similar install as both you with Tigo optimizers, TAP and CCA. I was curious if you can clarify a few things with wiring of the Tigo CCA and Sol-ark.

Below is schematic from sol-arks manual. I'm going to install PV kill switch next to the disconnect outside. I'll run the PV kill switch to Pin 11 & 12.

My question is where do you connect in Pins 15 and 16?

Do you connect these to the DC power on the tigo CCA? or the auxillary switch input on the tigo CCA?

How do you power your CCA?

Thanks in advance

1679502801202.png

1679502603692.png
 
rossmoesis said:
My question is where do you connect in Pins 15 and 16?

Do you connect these to the DC power on the tigo CCA? or the auxillary switch input on the tigo CCA?

How do you power your CCA?

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
I used 15 & 16 to drive this relay...

...and connected the AUX input on the Tigo CCA to the relay's normally closed circuit. When you smack the rapid shutdown button which closes pins 11 & 12 both of my 15K's die, power dies to the relay closing the NC circuit, the CCA's AUX circuit closes which initiates panel level rapid shutdown. A bit convoluted but it works as designed.

Part of the reason I went through this bit of gymnastics is my CCA is powered by the battery via a DC-DC converter. Just killing the AC output from the inverter(s) will not kill my CCA/panels.
 
Last edited:
My setup is essentially the same, I used a different relay, DIN mounted, in the same box as the Tigo CCA and my CCA is powered from an A/C circuit on the load side of the Sol-Ark.

My Sol-Ark rapid shutdown initially wasn't working correctly, I needed a new module for it to work as expected, now everything shuts down if the button is pushed.
 
GregTR said:
My setup is essentially the same, I used a different relay, DIN mounted, in the same box as the Tigo CCA and my CCA is powered from an A/C circuit on the load side of the Sol-Ark.

My Sol-Ark rapid shutdown initially wasn't working correctly, I needed a new module for it to work as expected, now everything shuts down if the button is pushed.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Greatly appreciate the response. Can you send a link to the relay you used? I'm still trying to figure out how I want mine setup. thanks
 
GregTR said:
My setup is essentially the same, I used a different relay, DIN mounted, in the same box as the Tigo CCA and my CCA is powered from an A/C circuit on the load side of the Sol-Ark.

My Sol-Ark rapid shutdown initially wasn't working correctly, I needed a new module for it to work as expected, now everything shuts down if the button is pushed.
Click to expand...
Is it necessary to have the relay if the CCA is powered on the load side of the inverter? if you close pins 11 and 12 and the Inverter shuts down that would turn off the CCA and shut down the modules, correct?
 
lasuti said:
Is it necessary to have the relay if the CCA is powered on the load side of the inverter? if you close pins 11 and 12 and the Inverter shuts down that would turn off the CCA and shut down the modules, correct?
Click to expand...
Fair question. My understanding was that closing pins 11 and 12 would not shut down the inverter in its entirety, it would just turn off PV, you could still have grid bypass and battery power. And incidentally with my first main board that is how it worked except it also failed to generate the warning in the log and the two pins to the relay would occasionally come back and produce 12V for a second or two at a time. This was when I reached out to Sol-Ark and asked what was wrong with my system as I thought the rapid shutodwn was not working as intended. They sent me a new main board and that one I believe is shutting down all AC out from the inverter if the rapid shutdown button is pressed.

So my setup was done long before the Sol-Ark worked like you're asking if it worked that way. I haven't used the button in quite some time so I might be wrong on this, but based on what I remember, the ACC could very well run off a regular AC plug that would get shut down if you short the rapid shutdown pins.

The only time I think it could be different is if you're suing the Sol-Ark in a scenario where you have grid side breakers and the ACC is powered from one of those lines rather than from the load side of the Sol-Ark. With my Sol-Ark 15K I have nothing on the grid side and I have nothing on the load side that could power the AC plug other than the Sol-Ark.
 
(11 B, 12 B) Emergency Stop: Short these pins to initiate emergency stop. This will shut down AC output from the inverter and initiate rapid shutdown of the PV.
 
GregTR said:
Panel stringing is:
East: 8s2p on 48 degree incline
South: 8s2p on 30 degree incline
West: 6s2p on 48 degree incline, except two panels are on 45 degree incline

Shading issues:
East side: some panels get shade from neighbor house in the early morning and there are some drain vent pipes that do some partial shading in the early morning. (A6,7,8_
South side: I have a chimney surrounded by panels that causes some shading (D8,C8)
East Side: Dormer causes several panels to be in the shade for good amount of times during the day (E5,6, F5,6)
Click to expand...
Greg,

I am looking at a very similar system 44x410w panels with a Sol-Ark 15k. I am wondering how your strings are doing, when you add several panels at different angles. I have just 2 roof surfaces that 42 panels will be setup, but i am contemplating adding another 2 panels that would be at a better angle to the sun. I am not sure if the optimizers will account for them creating more power than the other panels.

Garage roof has 16 panels, which are 8x2 all wired to MPPT3. when i use the Sol-Ark string calculator, it says that i am 60w over the threshold (6560w), but my garage is pointing to the North East, so not as ideal. I am guessing (and wondering your input), if the panels will produce less than MAX output and therefore will not be able to overload the MPPT by 60w.

Regards,

Dan
 
Arcticathlon said:
Greg,

I am looking at a very similar system 44x410w panels with a Sol-Ark 15k. I am wondering how your strings are doing, when you add several panels at different angles. I have just 2 roof surfaces that 42 panels will be setup, but i am contemplating adding another 2 panels that would be at a better angle to the sun. I am not sure if the optimizers will account for them creating more power than the other panels.

Garage roof has 16 panels, which are 8x2 all wired to MPPT3. when i use the Sol-Ark string calculator, it says that i am 60w over the threshold (6560w), but my garage is pointing to the North East, so not as ideal. I am guessing (and wondering your input), if the panels will produce less than MAX output and therefore will not be able to overload the MPPT by 60w.

Regards,

Dan
Click to expand...
6560W per string is fine. I have 8000W on one input and haven't had any issues. I've seen around 8800W on a single input with some cloud edge effect.
 
Figured I'd ask this in a SolArk / Tigo thread. I'm getting very intermittent arc fault errors (like 3 to 4 weeks in between) on my 15K and my installer is blaming the optimizers.

SolArk says I can disable arc fault detection, but that doesn't seem to be a great solution since my understanding of the NEC requires arc fault shutdown for rooftop panels. Installer says they've rechecked all connections and see no evidence of an arc fault. Installer says they'll switch me out for RSD modules but I do like the panel monitoring and optimization since I'm partially shaded a lot of the time.

Is anyone seeing anything similar?
 
HTownMicroGridder said:
Figured I'd ask this in a SolArk / Tigo thread. I'm getting very intermittent arc fault errors (like 3 to 4 weeks in between) on my 15K and my installer is blaming the optimizers.

SolArk says I can disable arc fault detection, but that doesn't seem to be a great solution since my understanding of the NEC requires arc fault shutdown for rooftop panels. Installer says they've rechecked all connections and see no evidence of an arc fault. Installer says they'll switch me out for RSD modules but I do like the panel monitoring and optimization since I'm partially shaded a lot of the time.

Is anyone seeing anything similar?
Click to expand...
If you decide to do a swap-out, you now have this alternative to consider:
www.sol-ark.com

Residential

Sol-Ark® residential energy storage solutions are the most powerful hybrid inverters that are NEM 3.0 ready, battery agnostic, and scalable. Learn more.
www.sol-ark.com www.sol-ark.com

A little spendy, but you'll retain monitoring and optimization as well as RS integrated with your 15K, and you'll have only one throat you'll need to choke if you run into any issues.
 
Raising a zombie thread. Powered up my SolArk 15k (20 kW of panels and 30 kWh of EG4 LL batteries) with TIGO RSD/optimizers in late December. It worked fine until a couple of weeks ago when I started getting random arc faults. Any solutions since you've been dealing with it for 6 months?
 
I didn’t opt for the switch out to RSD modules but just disabled arc fault detection on the SolArk…I never did engage with Tigo tech support but the fixes that solark pushed never did anything as far as I could tell. Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear.
 
This problem is exacerbated by switching noise from the inverter and also keep alive signals from the RSD going down the line.

I'm surprised though that the system has worked for this amount of time. Maybe because the PV is doing more because of the longer days and less clouds ? Are you getting more sun now than you did before ?

All this communications on the PV lines and then the arc fault detector trying to ignore those extra noises on the PV line.

A filter of some sort is probably the answer but that design will more than likely depend on the different combinations of products "talking" on the PV wires.

boB
 
teal95 said:
Raising a zombie thread. Powered up my SolArk 15k (20 kW of panels and 30 kWh of EG4 LL batteries) with TIGO RSD/optimizers in late December. It worked fine until a couple of weeks ago when I started getting random arc faults. Any solutions since you've been dealing with it for 6 months?
Click to expand...
My system with TIGO optimizers went live in November. I'm also experiencing random arc faults. Sol-Ark replied "must be a wiring fault". I'm sure it's not. If it's a cloudless day, when the optimizers have nothing to do, I don't get arc faults. On a cloudy day, I turn arc fault off as soon as I get an alarm. I've seen this complaint from SolarEdge owners also. IMO, it's the optimizers doing their thing that triggers the fault.
 
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