So my experience was in the southern US. My setup is in my signature and hasn't changed much since the build. However, it definitely will be beefed up after this winter blast. I had no power for 36ish hours and rolling blackouts for the remaining 3 days.
We ran generator power at night and solar during the day. TLDR
What worked.
- The MPP LV5048's performed flawlessly in providing clean power from my tesla modules.
- The MPP automatic grid switch over is awesome.
- The used 72 cell commercial poly panels held up to the snow and freeze fine. They also melted by mid day usually.
- The tesla Modules tolerated the cooler temps in my inverter shed room that is insulated.
- No ground faults detected after the freezing and expansion of the various metal components mounted outside.
- The DIY-Wooden ground mount held up to the winds and 6" of snow weight on the panels perfectly.
- Ran all my well pumps and had water this whole time.
What FAIIIILED or really what was missing.
1. MY BANK IS WAY WAY too small. Like way too small.
The 10kw of tesla modules just isn't enough to handle the load of electric heat. I upsized the solar array to run loads during the day and due to the snow coverage and ice, it was difficult to use solar direct/inverter heating. I had as little as 2kw of solar of the 10kw when the snow was partially on the panels and not melted. This barely enough to power 1 heater due to the snow and icing.
My battery bank will be upgraded immediately after this. I will be upgrading to a 42kw bank of 280AH LIFEPO cells.
2. MPP solar pickyness with my cheap generator.
Since my solar was not keeping up, i had a 4kw cheapo predator HF generator i've used at work for years. However, upon hooking it up to the input side of the MPP units, they did NOT like the constant frequency shifting of the generator when it was under load. It would disconnect and reconnect itself constantly when hooked into the input side.
I have since purchased a 7.5kw Inverter Generator that gaurentees a much more stable 60hz signal that the MPP solar units need and like.
3. Two is one, and One is None.
I had a generator that i didn't think about its performance for inverter and I ended up wiring that unit into my home breaker panel to run during the night directly. It wasn't clean power, and the lights kinda flickered under load but it ran the heaters for one room and kept us warm. During the daytime, the PV would melt and give me the full usage of its array.
Now am looking into either adding a 1500w wind turbine as an alt-power source incase my genset runs out of gas. (massive shortages of gas) The wind turbine will keep my batts charged and happy all day long when the cloudy and snowy days are producing little PV power.
Wind, PV and genset backup would be the ideal.
4. Little stuff
-Having a 12-ft tall ground mount without an extendable broom was a literal PITA to clean. I NEED a huge broom and it needs to be on a 15ft pole to clean the snow off of it.
-There is interlocks on some of my sub-panels and its a PITA to keep turning them on and off during the rolling blackouts. I might just put these on DIN rail ATS switches so it happens automatically.
-I did end up shutting off all dump loads and switched the operation of the MPP units to Utility first when the rolling blackouts came. This way the units could switch power for the hour or so that the grid went down and came back.
I learned alot of operational experience on my setup and I have to say there was quite a few holes in it. However, ill be updating my build thread with the additions and hope you all can learn from it.
stay safe.
