Grid-tied solar

[houstonscott]

Exactly. The batteries are not designed for everyday discharge/charge cycle. But as emergency supply they are OK. Generator is cheaper but it is noisy and requires fuel. So depending on circumstances the battery might be even cheaper to operate.

Yeah, I'm undecided on how to do emergency or standby power. Might go pto driven generator. Tractor engine is already here, well maintained and always ready, along with fuel. HS

 

[AaronS]

We have grid tied solar and have a 20,000 kW Generac plumbed into our LP tank for emergencies. It does a self test every Monday afternoon. We never have to think about it.

 

[Carl_NH]

Congratulations HS!

Looks just like ours - we put in 21 LG300 and SE system 6KW inverter on our garage in December - wasn't real happy with the first two months production with the 9' of snow from late Jan to early March but March we made 770KWH, April 850 and May 1042. The total in 5 months production 3240KWH and we consume 9000KWH annually so expect to hit 7500 or about 80% of our usage.

Our array is 211 Deg southeast at 38 degree declination. The only concern I had was in March when the sun angle for the panels was perfect the 6kW inverter was maxing out (clipping) for 3-4 hours a day so with 6KW inverter the max wattage is 6000 - whereas all the other SE inverters have a 10% or so overage capability. Now with the higher sun angle it barely hits 6K and on good days we generate over 40 KWH - so its only probably March and September/October we will see any clipping.

Overall we are happy with the choice - did you go for the 6KW or 7.6KW inverter?

Carl

 

[houstonscott]

Congratulations HS! Looks just like ours - we put in 21 LG300 and SE system 6KW inverter on our garage in December - wasn't real happy with the first two months production with the 9' of snow from late Jan to early March but March we made 770KWH, April 850 and May 1042. The total in 5 months production 3240KWH and we consume 9000KWH annually so expect to hit 7500 or about 80% of our usage. Our array is 211 Deg southeast at 38 degree declination. The only concern I had was in March when the sun angle for the panels was perfect the 6kW inverter was maxing out (clipping) for 3-4 hours a day so with 6KW inverter the max wattage is 6000 - whereas all the other SE inverters have a 10% or so overage capability. Now with the higher sun angle it barely hits 6K and on good days we generate over 40 KWH - so its only probably March and September/October we will see any clipping. Overall we are happy with the choice - did you go for the 6KW or 7.6KW inverter? Carl

We went with the 6kw inverter, because they are the most efficient operating up towards max, so you want to be there most of the time. Electrician finishes up tomorrow, I can hardly wait to see it work. Did you get monitoring system and how has that worked. HS

 

[AaronS]

We have grid tied solar and have a 20,000 kW Generac plumbed into our LP tank for emergencies. It does a self test every Monday afternoon. We never have to think about it.

Oops, that's 20 kW, not 20,000.

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, I'm undecided on how to do emergency or standby power. Might go pto driven generator. Tractor engine is already here, well maintained and always ready, along with fuel. HS

That's one of the few attachments I'd not want for my tractor. I'd want stand-alone. The reason being, 99% of the time we have a power outage its due to storm damage or heavy snow. I need the tractor free for those tasks.

 

[Redneck in training]

We went with the 6kw inverter, because they are the most efficient operating up towards max, so you want to be there most of the time. Electrician finishes up tomorrow, I can hardly wait to see it work. Did you get monitoring system and how has that worked. HS

The contractor should set up monitoring for you. Since you also have optimizers your system should be able to monitor each panel individually. The monitoring web site should have ability to issue a API key that can be used to port your data to other sites. My favorite is PVOutput based in Australia. It will give you additional insight about performance of your system and whole host of useful statistical functions. Your contractor should be able to configure it for you. Here is my system House in Medora 24.000kW | Live Output

 

[Redneck in training]

Yeah, I'm undecided on how to do emergency or standby power. Might go pto driven generator. Tractor engine is already here, well maintained and always ready, along with fuel. HS

I agree with you.It is statistical problem taking into account timing, frequency and duration of outages. There is a timing difference between hurricane and ice storm I suppose. We can be out of power for a week every few years but it is always caused by ice storm in the winter. So having power for a fridge is not as imperative. We just shove our food in a cooler, put it on the porch and turn on two propane fireplace to keep the house warm. Cooking is done on a propane grill on the porch. I guess we should buy at least small portable geny to have internet and charged phones. Stationary geny would be nice and convenient but considering the frequency and timing of outages rather overkill.

 

[Carl_NH]

HS,

Yes the Solar Edge web monitoring comes with it - it's pretty decent as you can drill into each panel detail- it updates every 15 minutes and they just released a new app for portable devices that gives a bit more information too.

The upside the monitoring is free, the downside you can't customize it (the installing contractor does it) and they would not give me access to configure things.

 

[dave1949]

Congratulations HS!

Looks just like ours - we put in 21 LG300 and SE system 6KW inverter on our garage in December - wasn't real happy with the first two months production with the 9' of snow from late Jan to early March but March we made 770KWH, April 850 and May 1042. The total in 5 months production 3240KWH and we consume 9000KWH annually so expect to hit 7500 or about 80% of our usage.

Our array is 211 Deg southeast at 38 degree declination. The only concern I had was in March when the sun angle for the panels was perfect the 6kW inverter was maxing out (clipping) for 3-4 hours a day so with 6KW inverter the max wattage is 6000 - whereas all the other SE inverters have a 10% or so overage capability. Now with the higher sun angle it barely hits 6K and on good days we generate over 40 KWH - so its only probably March and September/October we will see any clipping.

Overall we are happy with the choice - did you go for the 6KW or 7.6KW inverter?

Carl

Sounds like your system is doing a good job. How close is your output running compared to the PVWatts model?

The 4 kW inverter for our 4.3 kW system clips on sunny January days around mid-day. Now is my low output season due to my panel mounting angle. Knock on wood, I haven't had even a hiccup from my system since it was installed. It just runs day in, day out. All I've done is dust the spider webs off the inverter.

 

[ultrarunner]

The neighbor I've posted about with his hill side 3 array system made a simple hinge to seasonally adjust his panels... he does it twice each year... Spring and Fall and notices it makes the system more efficient.

 

[houstonscott]

Well I'm up and running. Producing 4.8kws at 3:30 local time and running meter backwards. Wifi connection and account still in progress. HS

 

[KiwiBro]

How's this for grid scale storage? It could dovetail with the hyperloop work quite nicely and if anyone could wangle more taxpayer subsidies from officialdom, Musk could.


https://www.ecn.nl/news/item/floating-train-at-2000-kmh-set-to-store-10-of-dutch-electricity/

 

[dave1949]

How's this for grid scale storage? It could dovetail with the hyperloop work quite nicely and if anyone could wangle more taxpayer subsidies from officialdom, Musk could.


https://www.ecn.nl/news/item/floating-train-at-2000-kmh-set-to-store-10-of-dutch-electricity/

That's cool. Thanks for posting. A flywheel of another sort.

Necessity is the mother of invention: "Difficult situations inspire ingenious solutions."
Necessity is the mother of invention - meaning and origin.

 

[KiwiBro]

You're welcome. Who knows what storage technologies will be commonplace in a decade or two.

On the matter of flywheels, it is probably anyone's guess when Velkess' two products will be released, but I think the put up or shut up date on that option is approaching pretty soon. They are taking reservations on their flywheel units. For those unaware, theirs is not the usual high power/fast discharge flywheel UPS only good for smoothing spikes or buying 30 seconds until generators kick in. Instead, they are supposed to be drop-in replacements for more traditional batteries. Products | Velkess

 

[dave1949]

In theory at least, a mechanical or Maglev flywheel would never wear out due to discharge cycles and should be immune to the discharge depth issues common to some batteries.

It will be interesting to see if it becomes a real product.

 

[MossRoad]

Maglev flywheel for power storage.... now we're finally getting into science fiction comes to life. The good stuff we imagined as kids. Where's the flying cars? I keep seeing them prototyping, but my dad was supposed to be wearing a suit and tie and coming home at 5:15 in one back in the '60s.

 

[houstonscott]

Making about 38kwh's per day since its been up. HS

 

[houstonscott]

Maglev flywheel for power storage.... now we're finally getting into science fiction comes to life. The good stuff we imagined as kids. Where's the flying cars? I keep seeing them prototyping, but my dad was supposed to be wearing a suit and tie and coming home at 5:15 in one back in the '60s.

I think someone who died in 1958 and was brought back to life would be surprised at just how little things have changed. HS

 

[ultrarunner]

Making about 38kwh's per day since its been up. HS

That would be more than enough to cover my 12 kWh per day year in and year out... actually 3 times what I use!