Solar powered homelab

[anonlakr]

Hi forum,

Right now I have 5 x 120 watt solar panels connected in serial.

I previously had a Ecoflow Delta Pro Max that I would connect the panels to and then use the AC output for the UPS in the homelab.
I sold the Ecoflow Delta Pro Max - mostly because I was tired of wheeling it around and because I wanted something rack mounted.

Now I would love to be able to have the solar panels charge up the UPS and when the sun is not out (or night) it will charge with AC from the wall/grid.

I guess I have to options:
1 - get a solar inverter that will have an AC output and then get a load balancer that can accept 2 sources (solar panels and AC), there must be a degree of programming so I can make it prioritize the solar input somehow. This loadbalancer will then charge the UPS.
2 - Get a rack mounted battery (5KW capacity) and a solar charge controller, a solar charge controller (also with dual input) to connect the solar panels to, finally an inverter that will charge the new battery - then sell the current UPS and use the new battery as a UPS.

Is this even possible with out burning the house down?
Looking forward to your responses!

 

[hwy17]

I would keep the UPS and get a 5kw battery and your preferred hybrid inverter or component based hybrid solar system.

UPS are good for dealing with momentary outages.

Solar inverter systems are good for dealing with hybrid power mixing, but they are bad at keeping equipment online during some switching events.

I would not try to combine the two as you are thinking. Solar systems generally make bad UPS systems unless you get into a painstaking double conversion system design. And UPS systems generally make bad solar systems, requiring lots of weird hacks to make them mix grid and solar power.

 

[anonlakr]

Could you link to some of these hybrid inverters or component based hybrid solar systems?