Solar options for home in 2022.

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Solar options for home in 2022.

1 | ... | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | ... | 98

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3100411 5-Jul-2023 20:33

After lots more calling round the recommendation I've had that doesn't involve SMA is a GoodWe 5000-EH mounted outdoors (under a roof) with HVDC batteries. The main reason for going with SMA, apart from the built-like-a-tank construction, was that almost everyone else does hybrids which causes problems with the fact that the PV inverter had to be some way away from the battery inverter which ruled out most hybrids, e.g. the Victrons use 48 or 57.6V for batteries which isn't going to work well over a longer cable run.

The SMA-based plan was for Pylontech batteries based on the lengthy ITP battery tests in Australia, but the recommendation here was for BYD HVM or HVS battery boxes, which certainly look a lot easier to deal with than the Pylontechs, they'll stack up nicely in the basement utility area while the Pylontechs needed rack mounting and complex wiring.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3100671 6-Jul-2023 16:45

neb: After lots more calling round the recommendation I've had that doesn't involve SMA is a GoodWe 5000-EH mounted outdoors (under a roof) with HVDC batteries. The main reason for going with SMA, apart from the built-like-a-tank construction, was that almost everyone else does hybrids which causes problems with the fact that the PV inverter had to be some way away from the battery inverter which ruled out most hybrids, e.g. the Victrons use 48 or 57.6V for batteries which isn't going to work well over a longer cable run. The SMA-based plan was for Pylontech batteries based on the lengthy ITP battery tests in Australia, but the recommendation here was for BYD HVM or HVS battery boxes, which certainly look a lot easier to deal with than the Pylontechs, they'll stack up nicely in the basement utility area while the Pylontechs needed rack mounting and complex wiring.

Be aware that battery location is not allowed to be in habitable buildings or on an exterior wall of same that doesn't have a degree of fire rating. This link was 6 years back so worth checking what applies now. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/95201430/proposed-new-rules-would-stop-solar-battery-packs-inside

Our potential installer previously worked in the Australian PV environment so is fairly proactive on such matters and the location restrictions were his advice.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3100814 6-Jul-2023 23:55

HarmLessSolutions:
Be aware that battery location is not allowed to be in habitable buildings or on an exterior wall of same that doesn't have a degree of fire rating. This link was 6 years back so worth checking what applies now. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/95201430/proposed-new-rules-would-stop-solar-battery-packs-inside

It's talking about proposed rules, and either common sense prevailed or every single solar battery install I've seen is non-compliant.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3105223 17-Jul-2023 20:27

Seems like every single installer you talk to has their own preferred solution, sigh. After getting the GoodWe-based setup planned out another installer, who spent more time than all the others combined going through all the details (good) recommended Enphase again, which means I've come full circle. Still only IQ7s not IQ8s though, so it'd be Sunpower panels with Enphase IQ7s built in, AC-coupled to Enphase IQ batteries (with IQ8s for once), and an Enphase IQ System Controller 3 to act as an ATS (transfer switch).

The argument for Enphase is that there'll be three groups of panels, one east- facing for morning sun, one west-facing for afternoon sun, and a small number north-facing for optimal sun but there's not much space available for those, so two MPPT strings won't really cut it. Having said that worst-case we could probably drop the east-facing few and rely on batteries + north-facing for the few morning hours when it makes a difference, the real providers will be the west-facing ones which get direct sun from around 11am till sunset.

Any thoughts on Enphase-everything vs. GoodWe + BYD batteries? The differences seem to be mostly theoretical, e.g. with the inverters in the panels there's more things to fail, but then with partial shading of some of the panels due to trees/the roof line there may possibly be a small advantage over string inverters and half-cut panels. I just don't like the idea of putting in previous-generation inverters, although from Enphase's advertising the only real difference between the 7 and the 8 is that the 8 allows limited off-grid operation while the 7 needs the System Controller to do this.

eonsim

398 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#3105720 18-Jul-2023 20:11

As far as I can tell with Enphase you generally pay more for a product with a longer warranty (25years?), and maybe 1-5% better performance with complex shade. But then you may loose that much power in summer if your panels are significantly higher spec than the inverters rate capability. If there isn't a significant cost difference Enphase would be tempting (the per panel stats make it easier to monitor the system over it's life time).

If you want three facings with a string inverter you could look at installing Tigo optimisers on the problematic panel, but then the cost probably gets closer to the Enphase.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3105815 18-Jul-2023 22:12

The loss in summer is pretty minimal, the panel max rating is for midday on a perfect summers day, and with efficiency loss over the years even that will go away, so I'd rather pay for a better panel and not wring every bit of performance out of it for a small portion of the day in summer but then have extra headroom on less-than-perfect days. The main difference is the AC-coupling between panels and batteries rather than higher-voltage DC off the panels, so a single conversion DC-DC for charging the batteries rather than two (DC-AC-DC), but then again a lot of it will be self-consumption where it won't matter since I'll be using the AC off either a hybrid inverter or the Enphases.

Another disadvantage of the Enphases is that the batteries come in 5kWh towers rather the BYD modular units. OTOH with Enphase I can easily add extra panels later without having to exactly match what's already there, so it's easy expandability of battery storage vs. easy expandability of panels.

billgates

4705 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3106113 19-Jul-2023 20:37

Enphase IQ7A & 8A inverter warranty is 10 years in NZ & AU but the mandatory installation component Envoy (Gateway) warranty is only 5 years which is an expensive component to replace out of warranty and the system will not operate without the Envoy. IQ8/A is now available to pre-order in NZ & AU although for compliance approval wait time reasons, the daytime backup using solar without the needs for batteries feature of IQ8/A will not be available until mid or end of 2024 at latest. If you are going down the Enphase route, I would recommend the IQ8/A over IQ7 as that future daytime backup update will be nice to have.

I would not buy Enphase for shading as I do not believe it still has any advantage over SMA or Fronius shading fix features and multiple studies have been conducted in France & US now I think to verify this claim. I would buy Enphase for individual panel monitoring and AC wiring on roof rather than high powered DC wiring if these are a concern. Enphase will easily carry a 10% to 20% premium over string inverters. SMA will be releasing their hybrid inverter mid next year in NZ & AU but it will only work with high voltage batteries ranging from 80V ~ 500V like BYD HVS or HVM.

Is Sungrow not an option over Good-We? It's prob the most reliable Chinese inverter brand out there and support/RMA process is fairly good in NZ & AU.

Do whatever you want to do man.

billgates

4705 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3106130 19-Jul-2023 21:15

One of the limitations I was warned of beforehand by SMA support with a 2-phase power setup was that because I have SMA inverter connected to each phase which then both connect to 1 x Sunny Home Manager 2.0 connected to the grid meter which measures the consumption figures from grid, panels generation, and house loads, it shows this as total combined figure across both phases in the smartphone app and sunnyportal.com website as it's configured for net metering which ofcourse we do not have in NZ. Having a total combined figure of panel generation was not a big problem as I would just halve it since our PV array is split evenly and the sunnyportal.com website can show individual inverter's generation being unsurprisingly remarkably similar and only around 0.2% apart. But I was never able to see which phase was consuming the most house load or grid import from the smartphone app or sunnyportal.com website and how much power and amps was being consumed by the individual phase, but I had an idea of who the biggest culprit was at the time as its usually ducted aircon mostly and if induction cooktop, heat pump dryer or wall oven is powered ON, the figure would shoot up even more.

Earlier this week, I randomly decided to login into the inverters locally to explore more and behold, it reports the amps and power being used per phase on the inverter management page locally hehe. The inverter uses Sunny Home Manager 2.0 which then sends this data in real time back to the inverter which is awesome. I should now be able to set this up easily and get the data I need via home assistant.

I am still waiting for the ducted aircon to ramp right up when it starts to run at around full 6kW to 7kW if it's extremely cold outside so I can then look at how much amps and power draw is that phase using to get an good idea if I will need to install just a single or couple of Sunny Island's to support the peak load when I add battery inverter and batteries to both phases. The 1st phase should only need the 1 Sunny Island, but I suspect the 2nd phase which is what ducted aircon and laundry is connected to would require a bigger and smaller Sunny Island to combine their power output in case of a blackout.

SMA has also released a new firmware for Sunny Home Manager 2.0 which now supports using various Shelly devices so I can connect individual appliances like heatpump dryer, washing machine, dishwasher, wall oven etc to sunnyportal.com website and get accurate individual consumption data for these but more importantly, home manager will be able to control these devices and only start them during excess solar period. cc @Newtown

Below is the current snapshot of generation, consumption, and overall savings of $1622.92 at per unit price we would have otherwise purchased the electricity that solar provided for free and includes the solar buy back credit. The system's first day in operation was 13th December 2022 so I am hoping the savings add up to $3200 by this anniversary date and that would equate to 8.5 years ROI. I fully expect electricity prices to go up in 8.5 years so the ROI will drop accordingly as well over time.

Do whatever you want to do man.

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3106137 19-Jul-2023 21:57

My first choice would have been SMA but getting an installer for that in Auckland appears to be impossible, thus the fallback GoodWe and now Enphase. I wouldn't use the IQ8's backup capabilities but instead the IQ System Controller which appears to be an ATS (unlike other vendors their technical detail is somewhat minimal) and has a 15-year warranty, there's no Envoy involved.

From what I've been able to find out the IQ8 is more or less identical to the IQ7 except for the backup operation (again, lack of technical info from Enphase), but it's also been permanently 12 months away from approval in Aus/NZ since it was first released several years ago so I have no confidence in it becoming available at any point.

Shindig

1585 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#3112032 5-Aug-2023 11:00

How come it appears to be difficult to get an Auckland installer to install SMA?

The little things make the biggest difference.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3119181 22-Aug-2023 22:16

We completed the upgrade of our PV system a week ago and have been learning what it's capable of and how best to utilise it. Basically it's 9kW of panels into an 8.2kW Fronius inverter which feeds our home and buildings including a Paladin diverter, Evnex E2 EV charger (set to use PV only) and another 7kW EV charger (for our Leaf).

Our first fine day since the installation was completed today. Left to right: Leaf charged from midnight - ~3am (off peak), generation from ~8am until about 1pm with Polestar charged, HWC up to max temp (Paladin) and then grid voltage kept droping below 230V until about 3:30pm during which time the inverter repeatedly tripped out and on again. grey peak after is export for remainder of the day. Disappointing waste of a sunny day due to Powerco's infrastructure failing to perform and our installer has approached Powerco for the okay to widen out the inverter's grid voltage acceptance parameters. Apparently at least 3 other PV installations in our area are currently experiencing the same issue with this being a hot topic for next month's SEANZ conference.

Apart from the issue today (and on the odd occasion during the past week) we're very impressed on how the system is performing. The monitoring being done by the Paladin and Evnex are doing a very good job of matching our consumption to generation with most days seeing a 'spillage' of less than 10% of our generation.

For anybody in the Taranaki area I totally recommend Solar One for their technical expertise, honest advice and timely service.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3119187 22-Aug-2023 22:26

Interesting to see someone running a Paladin. How did you manage the wiring for that, given that it needs a feed to both the distribution board and the HWC? There are Paladin alternatives that are controllable via Modbus, haven't looked at this too closely yet but in our case it looks like the least awful solution would be to mount a diverter next to the HWC and feed it solar power info via Modbus.

HarmLessSolutions

969 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

#3119192 22-Aug-2023 22:39

neb: Interesting to see someone running a Paladin. How did you manage the wiring for that, given that it needs a feed to both the distribution board and the HWC? There are Paladin alternatives that are controllable via Modbus, haven't looked at this too closely yet but in our case it looks like the least awful solution would be to mount a diverter next to the HWC and feed it solar power info via Modbus.

The Paladin is in the HWC cupboard with a comms cable running to the meter board (5-6m away) with a CT clamp on the main below the MB. I'm very impressed with the responsiveness of the Paladin with seldom any more than 100W difference between generation and consumption (while available generation is within the 3kW of the HWC). By comparison the Evnex has around a 90 second lag so not unusual to see 'spillage' of a few 100Ws or more, particularly in partly cloudy weather.

Incidentally our installer suggested a Fronius EV charger which may have been less laggy but we chose to stay with a NZ made Evnex.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

PolicyGuy

1726 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#3119501 23-Aug-2023 17:51

HarmLessSolutions:

... grid voltage kept droping below 230V until about 3:30pm during which time the inverter repeatedly tripped out and on again. grey peak after is export for remainder of the day. Disappointing waste of a sunny day due to Powerco's infrastructure failing to perform and our installer has approached Powerco for the okay to widen out the inverter's grid voltage acceptance parameters.

Interesting

Powerco is also my Lines Company, in suburban Whanganui.
I just looked in my UPS log file for the last week:

[That's a screen snap of the 11 lowest voltage 5-minute intervals in the last 7 days]
It's a bit worrying

I also had two multi-hour outages in three months, in each case one phase (the one my house is on, of course!) dropping out and taking hours to fix.
I've made an official 'insufficiently reliable supply' complaint about that, it will be interesting to see what they say.

If you want to, you can make a complaint here: https://www.powerco.co.nz/contact/complaints

neb

11294 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3119505 23-Aug-2023 17:55

PolicyGuy:
I've made an official 'insufficiently reliable supply' complaint about that, it will be interesting to see what they say.

You may want to check into other possible causes if you've got the means, e.g. neutral becoming disconnected, which happened to a neighbour a few houses along, causing the effective voltage in his house to drop to 180V or so.

1 | ... | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | ... | 98