The plan so far, thoughts and suggestions please

[ThaiTaffy]

Might want to consider mounting parallel to the ground to minimize wind load.

The tree line around us tends to make the wind very turbulent there's alot of crudely built tin roof structures around us held together with bamboo and rope and nothing has flown away in the 8 years of me being here as yet, not to say it won't happen but I'm hoping with a low declination and low heavy footprint I shouldn't have much of an issue.
When I say mobile ground mount I'll likely make it modular using heavy gauge box section and stand it on cast concrete plinths although I don't plan on each module being more than around 90lbs when it's all bolted together it's likely to be near 1800lbs, Then another 1000lbs of solar panels on top.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

So something has caught my eye

I know they're 15s and from my initial research seem like I could have issues with BMS communication but at the same time they're pretty much the same price as 15 DIY cells plus I would have a nice case. If the BMS issue is really an issue I'll just rip out the factory one and wire in a jbd or some other pylontech protocol BMS but I'm curious about how to spoof the battery type, maybe @SeaGal can point me towards some reference material as I know she's done something similar with her Solis.

 

[DIYrich]

I'm curious about how to spoof the battery type, maybe @SeaGal can point me towards some reference material as I know she's done something similar with her Solis.

Run in voltage mode. Multiply all the "normal" voltages by 15/16.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Sorry what I mean is of I wanted to connect the BMS to the inverter by swapping the Huawei BMS out for a jbd one what reference material would give me a better understanding of how it's done and would it even be possible with a 15s configuration, not sure how many parallel connections the jbd BMS allows but the default Huawei one seems to be max 24, no way I would go max but possibly 6-8

 

[OffGridForGood]

what reference material would give me a better understanding of how it's done

DIY Solar Forum - DIY batteries subforum

and would it even be possible with a 15s configuration,

Yes! many of the BMS's have a range of 8-24s and you can pick any number of cells you like - including 15s

not sure how many parallel connections the jbd BMS allows

As far as I know, no actual limit to parallel packs as long as each has it's own BMS

maybe you mean, how many parallel cells all in one pack with one BMS?
In that case, I recommend "Don't do it!" - I prefer each pack have its' own BMS and it's own fused connection to a main ESS bus (pos and neg) to allow control and safely removing one pack while others continue to supply the inverter.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

DIY Solar Forum - DIY batteries subforum

Yes! many of the BMS's have a range of 8-24s and you can pick any number of cells you like - including 15s

The Solis specifies certain batteries are supported not sure how much it would like having a 15s masquerading as one of its supported types.

As far as I know, no actual limit to parallel packs as long as each has it's own BMS

I've been reading there can be issues if the BMS's don't talk to each other but it was late last night and forgot what they were.
The Huawei can interconnect BMS's up to 24 and the jbd BMS I was looking at can also but I think it's 8max

maybe you mean, how many parallel cells all in one pack with one BMS?
In that case, I recommend "Don't do it!" - I prefer each pack have its' own BMS and it's own fused connection to a main ESS bus (pos and neg) to allow control and safely removing one pack while others continue to supply the inverter.

No no no I wouldn't parallel before a BMS I'm dumb but not that dumb without some advanced knowledge I can tell this wouldn't be a great idea.

 

[SeaGal]

First and foremost is the inverter, I was looking at the Deye SUN-5K-SG05LP-EU at first as this is on the approved list of on-grid inverters for Thailand but after reading posts and multiple comments I've seen by @SeaGal I looked at Solis and the S6-EH1P6K-L-PLUS took my eye this is also on the approved list.
Thailand has a max grid feed of 5kw so many of the higher KW models don't meet their approved list and the fact the Solis is 6kw would give me a tad more headroom, so here's my first question I'll likely only use 1 mppt on either inverter at first and stick to off-grid then get the system approved after installation then I can add the 2nd string at a later date to feed into the grid once the application goes through can I effectively use them off-grid/hybrid to begin with?

With regard to the Solis... yes, but only with battery. Solis won't provide anything on its AC-backup port unless there is a battery attached, even if you have PV input.

can anyone see any issues with either of these inverters? The Solis offers more connectivity without having to pay and it's a few $100 cheaper but then there's battery support.

Very happy with my Solises, as you know. The only issue is that they are not designed for parallel operation of AC-backup if in the future you want more than one inverter. Whereas I _think_ the Deye/Sunsynk has that capability .

Don't get me wrong the grass under the Aptos I laid down is dying...

... with panels so cheap now doesn't make sense to go with trackers unless space is critical weed control fabric

I know they're 15s and from my initial research seem like I could have issues with BMS communication but at the same time they're pretty much the same price as 15 DIY cells plus I would have a nice case. If the BMS issue is really an issue I'll just rip out the factory one and wire in a jbd or some other pylontech protocol BMS but I'm curious about how to spoof the battery type, maybe @SeaGal can point me towards some reference material as I know she's done something similar with her Solis.

Sure... interfaced my JBD to the Solis using an ESP32 and CANBus adapter and some custom code. The CANBus/Solis specific part of that code derived from the project discussed in this thread...

DIY Battery via Smart shunt to inverter integration (Solis etc)

Hi All, I've taken some code that handles Victron's VE.Direct protocol (Smart Shunt) and added in CAN Bus / PylonTech protocol connections, this allows the State of Charge, Voltage, Amps etc all be sent to the inverter - any one that supports the PylonTech protocol. The Victron implementation...

diysolarforum.com

Setting the Solis to the generic 'user defined' protocol works well.

The Solis specifies certain batteries are supported not sure how much it would like having a 15s masquerading as one of its supported types.

It won't care - the BMS will tell the Solis what charge voltage to use. After all, Pylontech, fob users off with only giving them 15 cells in each battery pack.

However, the gotcha with only having 15 cells is that your battery voltage will be lower and the Solis (and I suspect other brands) will not be able to deliver as much power than having a higher voltage. The 5kW discharge rate of the Solis EH1P is only sustained when battery voltage is over 50V, due to the 100A discharge limit.

FYI I listed 5 reasons why I don't recommend Pylontech / 15 cells batteries in this posting...

Pylontech 5000 batteries GOOD or BAD??

Well planning on installing a battery system and met a few clowns one today was rather upsetting. So here is what I have and what I want to do I HAVE 3.75Kw of solar 15 250W panels with Solar Edge Optimisers and a Solar Edge HD Wave inverter. (that was a TFU installation by total cowboys the...

diysolarforum.com

 

[SeaGal]

P.S. The CANBus data needed to be sent to the Solis is the following:-

Message ID and contents..
0x351: Charge and Discharge parameters
= (max charge voltage, charge current, discharge current, discharge voltage (the latter is not used by Solis))
0x355: SOC & SOH
0x356: Current measurement of Battery Voltage, Current & Temp
0x359: Protection & Alarm flags
0x35C: Battery charge request flags (which I heard are ignored by Solis; I don't use them)

If you have set the Solis to Pylontech protocol it will also require...
0x35E: Manufacturer name ("PYLON ") = ASCII "PYLON" followed by 3 spaces.

 

[Citlalatonac]

So the issue is the perimeter of the paddy fields is covered in endangered trees species' so I can't cut them down there's one spot near the center of the 5 fields that gets continuous light throughout the day but here's the big but. During the summer equinox the sun rises north east and sets north west so with fixed panels pointing south I miss out alot on the morning and evening energy also bear in mind a full tracking system will likely cost me less than $200 to support all 16 panels

If you haven't looked at PVWatts yet, it could be helpful for you. It's a US government site, but works just as well with other countries. Taking into account sun angles, timing, and average weather. You can run through different scenarios of Bifacial vs Single, Fixed vs 1 axis tracking vs 2 axis tracking. Check different Fixed tilt angles.

It will give you monthly average outputs and you can tweak if there are significant months for you to maximize production. It also has the option to download an hour by hour full year scenario if you want to tweak at that granular of a level.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

With regard to the Solis... yes, but only with battery. Solis won't provide anything on its AC-backup port unless there is a battery attached, even if you have PV input.

Don't quite understand this but I'll be running with a battery so don't think it applies

Very happy with my Solises, as you know. The only issue is that they are not designed for parallel operation of AC-backup if in the future you want more than one inverter. Whereas I _think_ the Deye/Sunsynk has that capability .

Does this apply to the S6? the manual shows as below, I doubt I will parallel as 5kw is the maximum grid tie were allowed here but it's worth considering who knows what the future may bring.

Sure... interfaced my JBD to the Solis using an ESP32 and CANBus adapter and some custom code. The CANBus/Solis specific part of that code derived from the project discussed in this thread...

DIY Battery via Smart shunt to inverter integration (Solis etc)

Hi All, I've taken some code that handles Victron's VE.Direct protocol (Smart Shunt) and added in CAN Bus / PylonTech protocol connections, this allows the State of Charge, Voltage, Amps etc all be sent to the inverter - any one that supports the PylonTech protocol. The Victron implementation...

diysolarforum.com

Setting the Solis to the generic 'user defined' protocol works well.

It won't care - the BMS will tell the Solis what charge voltage to use. After all, Pylontech, fob users off with only giving them 15 cells in each battery pack.

However, the gotcha with only having 15 cells is that your battery voltage will be lower and the Solis (and I suspect other brands) will not be able to deliver as much power than having a higher voltage. The 5kW discharge rate of the Solis EH1P is only sustained when battery voltage is over 50V, due to the 100A discharge limit.

FYI I listed 5 reasons why I don't recommend Pylontech / 15 cells batteries in this posting...

Pylontech 5000 batteries GOOD or BAD??

Well planning on installing a battery system and met a few clowns one today was rather upsetting. So here is what I have and what I want to do I HAVE 3.75Kw of solar 15 250W panels with Solar Edge Optimisers and a Solar Edge HD Wave inverter. (that was a TFU installation by total cowboys the...

diysolarforum.com

The Huawei batteries had some weird thing that kept the batteries at 54v no matter what the cell charge was according to my research. They also had issues with charging without the branded Huawei controller (none available here) which is weird as I saw a few people were apparently using them here on the forums when I did a search, so I've gone of that idea unless someone can persuade me otherwise.
I'm leaning towards pre fabricated GSL ENERGY batteries ATM the price isn't bad for their none UL listed ones (don't think it's needed here but will double check) these batteries are likely supported by Solis so I shouldn't have any issues.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

If you haven't looked at PVWatts yet, it could be helpful for you. It's a US government site, but works just as well with other countries. Taking into account sun angles, timing, and average weather. You can run through different scenarios of Bifacial vs Single, Fixed vs 1 axis tracking vs 2 axis tracking. Check different Fixed tilt angles.

It will give you monthly average outputs and you can tweak if there are significant months for you to maximize production. It also has the option to download an hour by hour full year scenario if you want to tweak at that granular of a level.

Ty I'll take a look but data here is really quite bad as I don't think they have any reference data. So far my 760w ups has produced double any predicted forecasts daily.

 

[Brucey]

Ty I'll take a look but data here is really quite bad as I don't think they have any reference data. So far my 760w ups has produced double any predicted forecasts daily.

We have so many satellites up there we might as well do something with them

 

[ThaiTaffy]

We have so many satellites up there we might as well do something with them

Likely they are watching more volatile countries than Thailand.

 

[Brucey]

Likely they are watching more volatile countries than Thailand.

sure for military but the weather sats are prob more free to watch "friendly" nations.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

I'm looking at £600/$760 per 280ah 16s battery but that doesn't include 7% import tax and the shipping cost, but it doesn't seem bad for a supported battery, I've saved the data but I won't bother talking to them until I've done more research and come up with a full plan for everything as my current plan is nearing $500 just for the PV cable to run the two strings.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

sure for military but the weather sats are prob more free to watch "friendly" nations.

Even weather isn't that volatile here, hot, really hot or wet

 

[SeaGal]

Does this apply to the S6?

No. I have S5's. S6-EH1P supports parallel operation.

 

[SeaGal]

I'm looking at £600/$760 per 280ah 16s battery but that doesn't include 7% import tax and the shipping cost, but it doesn't seem bad for a supported battery,

Wow! £600 sounds very cheap for a 14.3kWh battery. In the UK the equivalent is about £2000 + 20% VAT.

That works out at less than $48 for a 280Ah cell, with a free BMS and case thrown in!!

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Wow! £600 sounds very cheap for a 14.3kWh battery. In the UK the equivalent is about £2000 + 20% VAT.

That works out at less than $48 for a 280Ah cell, with a free BMS and case thrown in!!

I just randomly searched Solis supported batteries on ali and they popped up they seem to guarantee 6500+cycles so they cells must be reasonably new but at 130kg give or take I doubt shipping will be cheap I'm aiming for 2 in parallel at that price which should give me 36hours going off the farm`s usage which isn't great but we've never had the grid down for longer than 8 so it should cover us.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Wow! £600 sounds very cheap for a 14.3kWh battery. In the UK the equivalent is about £2000 + 20% VAT.

That works out at less than $48 for a 280Ah cell, with a free BMS and case thrown in!!

Spoke to the company this morning and got a realistic price of $1200/£1000 per unit which is still very good for a 14.3kwh premade but not the stupid bargain I thought it was, they will get back to me with shipping costs later so I can consider that with my price.
Thailand only really has 1 or 2 good branded batteries and the pricing on them is similar to us/UK other than that the market is flooded with 3rd rate brands and grade b/c cells claiming to be A+.
I did find one seller claiming Seplos battery kits 304ah for around the same price as above but apparently they were shipping from Poland for less than $1 so I'm inclined to believe the ;sitting was fake.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

So it's a complete shambles it seems I was thinking the price wasn't that different compared to DIY but after speaking with the supplier the price kept going up and up. It works out at £2000 per unit not including tax which is crazy for the Asian market so I think I'll scrap that idea and either look for something in the domestic market and save myself the headache of Thai customs or consider the DIY route again.
My brother in law works for the Thai EPA in a highly industrialized area so he might even deal with a cell manufacturer here I might be able to grab some new cells from.

 

[OffGridForGood]

or consider the DIY route again.

Hope you can find a source for good cells, everything else is easy after that step.

 

[DIYrich]

Can you buy from china? Some people here have had good luck with Amy, and I think the company is Luyuan on Alibaba.

 

[ThaiTaffy]

Can you buy from china? Some people here have had good luck with Amy, and I think the company is Luyuan on Alibaba.

I can but the domestic market is so much cheaper I'm currently looking at lvtopsun 16s 234ah batteries they come in at 55,000 baht which is equivalent to $1500/£1200.
I've also noticed Deye 10kw single phase inverters are on the Thai approved inverter list, double the price of the 5kw and 6kw Solis but the only thing that was holding me back on choosing the Deye before was I kinda wanted more than 5kw.
I'm now edging towards the 10 and start off with a single 5kw string with the potential to add more later if all the approval goes through with PEA(Poco).

I need to come up with a solid plan before I get the funds and end up buying something i regret

 

[ThaiTaffy]

So I've changed my mind again....
Current plan:

-Deye sun-5kw inverter
It has better support for my use case (esphome) compared to the solis and at half the price of the 10kw I can run two in parallel if one isn't enough.

-Longi 375w mono panels x16
Two strings of 8 brings me to 6kw total 500w short of max on the deye, voc and amperage is within range would have preferred bi-facial but all the available ones here produce more amperage than what Deye suggests and the voc would be lower at only 6 panels per string(I'm not 100% if I can go over with the amps but I'd rather keep it in specs to prevent any issues with warranty though from what I understand it might be nonexistent but my wife is a charmer and can be pretty persuasive so who knows)

-Chinese battery similar to lvtopsun cases with jk bms and 234ah capacity x2
Price is reasonable and it's available on the domestic market so no shipping or duties this should get me started and I can look at other batteries/DIY down the road.

Anything jump out on this list as a bad idea or I could do better please let me know, shopping and trying to make a decision is stressing me out.