Solar options for home in 2022.

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#3038329 17-Feb-2023 19:34

HarmLessSolutions:

[snip] These are the same people who will bleat loudest when the power supply goes down, because they can't plug their home appliances into their vehicle like their neighbours with these 'glorified shopping carts' can. Welcome to the future Mr V8!

There may be a subset, but as a lifetime motorsport enthusiast who just bought an EV, both sides have some pretty awful people doing huge damage to the perception of their groups and the level of smug from the EV FB groups I joined has led me to almost immediately snooze those groups for 30 days.

A lot of car enthusiasts just want the best car. For some people that's now an EV, but for others, they just aren't as capable as a petrol/diesel choice yet.

Personally, I got an EV because I no longer have to pay $13 petrol to go and pick up takeaways.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are from my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3038362 17-Feb-2023 21:41

billgates:

@HarmLessSolutions

1. Which model is your current EVSE? Is it a solar smart EVSE?

2. You mentioned currently that the shed (where panels and inverter is located) only has a single phase running to it from your home. I take it, two phases in your home are using grid power all the time and the third phase connected to solar pv in shed is your critical loads back home like fridge, lights, internet router etc?

1. Our EV charger is a JuicePoint 7kW unit. No smart capabilities whatsoever.

2. I've just assumed that we have 3 phase as the previous owner here had woodworking machinery downstairs and I have discussed multiple phases with our sparky in the past in regard to allotting circuits to the 2 phases on the fuseboard. I've requested clarification from my sparky (2 or 3?) but he has yet to reply on this.The link from the fuseboard to the sheds which house the EV charger and PV is from the same phase that powers the house water pump, HWC (via Paladin), kitchen bench (espresso machine & grinder, toaster, jug and food processors) fridge and both chest freezers. The total amperage of the circuits is well in excess of the 63A main breaker but as the EV charger and HWC are both mostly fed from PV the import limit is not likely to be breached and hasn't caused any issues to date.

Our routers are on the other phase as they aren't considered essential as a power outage would knock out our local rural wireless broadband so the router would be redundant in such an event.

The addition of extra PV capacity and battery storage would entail a rethink of the apportionment of our circuits in order to gain the priority required to get best use from the battery I guess.

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

neb

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#3038382 17-Feb-2023 23:23

Given what I found out today about the northern GXP and how close we came to losing it, I might reanimate my plan to put in solar panels with Enphase IQ8s, mostly deferred by the nonavailability of IQ8s in Australia and NZ. Does anyone know if they're finally available here, or is it still hurry up and wait?

billgates

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#3038386 18-Feb-2023 00:21

@neb the IQ8 will likely not be available until early 2024. The IQ batteries are only coming to NZ in Q3 2023 and IQ8 will launch only after this. What is your plan for backup power at night without batteries let’s say if you go with IQ8 when it launches during a power outage? The new Fronius Gen 24+ can provide up to 3kW backup power as well without battery storage during daytime and it is available to purchase now in NZ as an alternative to IQ8 if shading is not an issue.

Do whatever you want to do man.

neb

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#3038387 18-Feb-2023 00:35

Sheesh, the IQ8 was introduced in, what, 2019? So we're five years behind the rest of the world... any idea why Aus/NZ is so far behind? I need microinverters because there's shade from trees that would move across the panels so can't really use a standard MPPT -based system, and in particular the sole panel location that's not shaded doesn't really get sun until the afternoon so it's not really worthwhile.

Power at night wouldn't be an issue, we'll just have to minimise opening the fridge during the night which will save putting in $x0,000 of batteries for that, and the UPS will keep basic networking running overnight.

billgates

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#3038388 18-Feb-2023 00:44

Emphases currently only has the 110V 60Hz IQ8 model available for sale. From what I have read the 240V 50Hz for ROW is being tested and going through compliance work with various countries.

Do whatever you want to do man.

neb

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#3038390 18-Feb-2023 01:04

billgates:
Emphases currently only has the 110V 60Hz IQ8 model available for sale. From what I have read the 240V 50Hz for ROW is being tested and going through compliance work with various countries.

Ah, that explains it, thanks. All I could find was lots of complaining about unavailability in Aus and NZ.

Worst-case I could get the Fronius and pair it with the LiFePO4 battery pack they recommend, only put panels on the less-shaded parts of the house where the MPPT will work OK, and use the batteries in the mornings when the panels are shaded. The fact that no-one wants to give a price for that in NZ isn't encouraging, although European prices are around the EUR 5,000 mark for 5kWh.

Another issue with solar panels is that the trees that do the shading also drop a ton of leaves on the roof, anyone have any experience with what that would do? The concern is that we end up with 20kg of compost trapped underneath each panel.

eonsim

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#3038419 18-Feb-2023 08:55

neb: Sheesh, the IQ8 was introduced in, what, 2019? So we're five years behind the rest of the world... any idea why Aus/NZ is so far behind? I need microinverters because there's shade from trees that would move across the panels so can't really use a standard MPPT -based system, and in particular the sole panel location that's not shaded doesn't really get sun until the afternoon so it's not really worthwhile. Power at night wouldn't be an issue, we'll just have to minimise opening the fridge during the night which will save putting in $x0,000 of batteries for that, and the UPS will keep basic networking running overnight.

The sales pitch around Microinverters providing significantly more power than high-quality String inverters appears to be substantially over stated these days. Most of the string inverters MPPT's have algorithms designed to optimise power use around shade. Modern solar panels also tend to have a split design where the top and bottom half are independent of each other, so even if you block half the panel you'll still get substantial power off the panels, this combined with 3 or more diverter diodes. The combination of these two factors mean the performance is often very similar to what you can get from microinverters. Also most string inverters have at least 2 MPPT controllers allowing different orientations and a properly designed layout for the panels (mixing serial and parallel wiring) can allow a system to operate with more than two directions. If you only have a few problematic panels there is also the option to put optimisers behind just those panels to further off-set any potential issues at an additional cost of a hundred or so $ per added optimiser (these can introduce their own issues though).

Have a look at the video below for some practical testing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ9Szhl1ceQ

neb

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#3038743 18-Feb-2023 18:47

eonsim:
Have a look at the video below for some practical testing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ9Szhl1ceQ

Ah, thanks for that! I'd seen a few articles and possibly videos on that but every one of them was by people selling solar power systems, and typically ones with an emphasis on either micro or string inverters depending on the sales pitch, so it was hard to tell how much of it was just sales pitch. This guy actually did some serious testing rather than just quoting the sales literature.

Being able to use a string inverter rather than continuing to wait for IQ8s to appear here (given their track record I'm not expecting them in 2024 either) would make things a lot easier, and solves the dilemma of whether to put panels in the shade-prone area which is also where the most leaves build up. So panels outside the shade- and leaf-prone area combined with a Fronius + 5kWh battery to ride through any shading (and provide power at night) sounds like a good solution.

eonsim

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#3038834 18-Feb-2023 22:09

neb: Ah, thanks for that! I'd seen a few articles and possibly videos on that but every one of them was by people selling solar power systems, and typically ones with an emphasis on either micro or string inverters depending on the sales pitch, so it was hard to tell how much of it was just sales pitch. This guy actually did some serious testing rather than just quoting the sales literature. Being able to use a string inverter rather than continuing to wait for IQ8s to appear here (given their track record I'm not expecting them in 2024 either) would make things a lot easier, and solves the dilemma of whether to put panels in the shade-prone area which is also where the most leaves build up. So panels outside the shade- and leaf-prone area combined with a Fronius + 5kWh battery to ride through any shading (and provide power at night) sounds like a good solution.

It should work you will lose some power to the shading, but it seems it doesn't make a huge difference at the end of the day if you get a string inverter and invest the savings into the battery system, rather than waiting for micro-inverters. My system has a reasonable bit of shading from a chimney (and trees in winter) and it still preforms reasonably.

shim99

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#3038840 18-Feb-2023 22:13

I’ve found this thread really helpful for getting my head into solar.

We are looking at pushing go on a grid tied system and thinking of going with SMA ( sunny boy) inverter over the standard Huawei. Recent events have me thinking about the option of a generator in emergencies and it looks like the addition of the sunny island has that option.

However I’m getting conflicting views on whether you can have a grid tied system with the sunny island with generator input in the case of power failure.

It seems most people may have battery back for grid tied or, a generator for off grid but not a generator for grid tied. The SMA documentation also has some conflicting information on this.

Is anyone able to shed so light on this?

Thx.

billgates

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#3038853 18-Feb-2023 23:10

@shim99 you can contact SMA support to confirm but yes you can have a generator with Sunny Island on grid ties setup with Sunny Boy. The Sunny Island will isolate your home from grid in event of a power outage so having the home powered by generator or battery doesn’t matters.

Do whatever you want to do man.

neb

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#3038870 19-Feb-2023 04:07

billgates:
Reading the specs of the Gen 24+, the cutover time from a blackout to restore power is under 90 seconds so it' not a UPS and will take 1.5 minutes to bring back power.

Just checked the Gen24+ spec and it quotes the switchover time for "Output data Full Backup" (battery) as < 20s and "Output data PV Point" (PV only) as < 35s. Still not a UPS but a lot less than 1 1/2 minutes.

shim99

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#3038906 19-Feb-2023 09:50

billgates:
@shim99 you can contact SMA support to confirm but yes you can have a generator with Sunny Island on grid ties setup with Sunny Boy. The Sunny Island will isolate your home from grid in event of a power outage so having the home powered by generator or battery doesn’t matters.

Thanks @billgates, I’ll contact SMA.

billgates

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#3038911 19-Feb-2023 10:15

neb: Just checked the Gen24+ spec and it quotes the switchover time for "Output data Full Backup" (battery) as < 20s and "Output data PV Point" (PV only) as < 35s. Still not a UPS but a lot less than 1 1/2 minutes.

Ah, Looks like a recent firmware update has reduced the cutover time from 90 seconds to 20 seconds. I found the old cached specs sheet online and some blogs mentioning realistic cutover time of 40 seconds instead of 90 seconds from 2021 articles. It is good news that Fronius has made improvements. IIRC the best cutover time and a true UPS like feature only exists on the Victron MultiPlusII and Quattro units but the biggest certified MultiPlusII you can have grid connected is 5kW. I am after minimum 6kW continuous although you can join multiple units together but it takes up more wall space. SMA Sunny Island 8.0H model it will be for me when we add batteries on both phases.

I agree with @eonsim that shading is not an issue with SMA or Fronius inverters at least. SMA wrote a detailed white paper explaining how there shading tech works and the fact new panels are divided into multiple cells really helps. Enphase is still quality and will give you individual level panel monitoring but if you really want that you can pair Tigo optimisers with Fronius or SMA to achieve individual panel monitoring. String inverters like SMA and Fronius are so much simpler in design and thus less components to fail

https://files.sma.de/downloads/SHADEFIX_WHITEPAPER-eu_200417.pdf

Do whatever you want to do man.

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