Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

[200sols]

We all got to start somewhere……. Im a start small and build on to it kind of guy when the money is available. If it aint available, you cant have it.

one of the key things for me this year, is to see how the new panels perform during peak season. Only fitted them end of october, so not had much out of them yet….just under 100kwhs so far, they unusable for 3 mths of the year…..they will prob start producing again early to mid february.

Then once they got moved onto the new roof of the man cave they still be out of use dec/jan each year…

Soon VAT free, so for this cost you should be able to get the 5kw inverter, its actually no more expensive than the 3.6kw inverter.

e.g same battery with 5kw inverter = £2567 including VAT right now which leaves you a decent chunk to find an electrician to fit it.

Midsummer Wholesale

midsummerwholesale.co.uk

Growatt ML33RTA 3.3kWh LFP Battery

3.3kWh LiFePO4 battery that can be paralleled up to 6 units up to a maximum capacity of 19.8kWh.

midsummerwholesale.co.uk

 

[Ron-ski]

For twice the price of that battery you can get 15kWh battery, actually you can get a 15kWh battery for 50% more. If I was building my system again, I would certainly be using these Gobel Power prebuilt batteries, Andy's off grid garage Youtube channel ranks them highly.

SEPLOS Mason L 280 and x16 Grade B EVE LF280K Battery Bundle

Our Seplos Mason battery bundle contains everything you will need to create a DIY 48V 14.3kWh battery. As part of this bundle you’ll receive a SEPLOS Mason L 280 (vertical) kit and 16 Grade B LF280K EVE LiFePO4 cells with the SEPLOS Grade B Busbars.

www.fogstar.co.uk

or even better ready assembled with decent balancer for £2500 after discount.

Choose Your Battery Gobel Power GP-SR1-PC200 Standard 51.2V 280Ah 15kWh LiFePO4 Server Rack Battery

Gobel Power GP-SR1-PC200 Server Rack LiFePO4 Lithium Battery Application Scenarios * Home energy storage * FTTB, FTTH, RRU, BBU and other small mobile communication fields * Suitable for communication base stations, central computer rooms and other communication energy storage scenarios...

www.gobelpower.com

Or even cheaper at £1532

Gobel Power GP-SR1-PC200 Basic 51.2V 280Ah LiFePO4 Battery

Gobel Power GP-SR1-HC280-RN Server Rack LiFePO4 Lithium Battery Application Scenarios * Home energy storage * FTTB, FTTH, RRU, BBU and other small mobile communication fields * Suitable for communication base stations, central computer rooms and other communication energy storage scenarios...

www.gobelpower.com

 

[Ron-ski]

Here's Andy's video.

 

[Welshman]

Soon VAT free, so for this cost you should be able to get the 5kw inverter, its actually no more expensive than the 3.6kw inverter.

e.g same battery with 5kw inverter = £2567 including VAT right now which leaves you a decent chunk to find an electrician to fit it.

Midsummer Wholesale

midsummerwholesale.co.uk

Growatt ML33RTA 3.3kWh LFP Battery

3.3kWh LiFePO4 battery that can be paralleled up to 6 units up to a maximum capacity of 19.8kWh.

midsummerwholesale.co.uk

Thats the inverter ive been looking at….all the cabling is the same as my current inverter, so its a straight swap. I can fit that myself…so i can buy the inverter, fit it and add the batteries at a later date.

 

[Ron-ski]

@Welshman If swapping to 5kW make sure you check the size of the cable that runs back to the consumer unit, hopefully they run it in with 4mm (or bigger) not 2.5mm. At 5kW 2.5mm would be at its limit, or even above it if derating applies.

 

[Welshman]

@Welshman If swapping to 5kW make sure you check the size of the cable that runs back to the consumer unit, hopefully they run it in with 4mm (or bigger) not 2.5mm. At 5kW 2.5mm would be at its limit, or even above it if derating applies.

I believe it was 4mm….will check the paperwork.

 

[Ron-ski]

I believe it was 4mm….will check the paperwork.

Check the cable, only way to be really sure.

 

[Welshman]

Check the cable, only way to be really sure.

Will do…..that means i can get inverter and the 4 additional panels to match existing for 1.5k.

maybe i will be nice to one of the many company electricians and they will come fit it for me for a coffee and a doughnut lol

 

[KompuKare]

Noticed something.
Pytes have this image to help with telling version of their battery apart:

and over on the DIY Solar forum, someone posted a more detailed version: https://diysolarforum.com/threads/dlg-e-box-48100r-testing-and-tinkering.37556/post-716317

Anyway, the BMS on ours says:
Device address : 1
Manufacturer : PYTES
Device name : E-BOX-48100R-C
Board version : SQBMSV15
Main Soft version : SPBMS16SRP2203V1.5.17.C8
Soft version : V1.5
Boot version : V1.9
Comm version : V2.0
Release Date : 22-12-12
Yet our batteries look like this:

So that is the power gauge label, the RJ45 ports, etc. all look like a version B according to Pytes' chart.
However, the DIP switches are 6 like on the version C whereas version B should only have 4 DIP switches.

Which makes me extra reluctant to try and update to the latest version of the firmware.

I did once again email Pytes to see if they could answer the far simpler question of given my serial numbers, can they tell me which version of the battery we have?

But total silence from them. Have to say that I would never buy their batteries with that kind of support. But it does also highlight just how poor the HIES's agents advice of "the manufacturer not the installer is responsible" really was.

Anyway, back in February my installer sent their electrician to update the firmware (this was when "everybody's batteries stopped charging" as their electrician let slip), and I now wonder if they maybe did something wrong there?

Is it possible that since February, our batteries have been running some beta firmware or a firmware for the wrong version of the battery?

Pytes don't do changelogs for their firmware but the latest for C is V1.5.24.C8 while if we actually have version then it would be V1.3.23. Both from the end of February whereas the installer's electrician updated mid February (to v.1.5.17.C8 which numerically seems many revisions ago).

Someone on the DIY solar forum replied to me with their voltages when the battery was empty:

• whole battery at 49.3V versus ours at 53.7V
• cells at 3.025V vs ours at 3.365V.

To me that shows our battery thinks it is empty far too early.
And of course these figures are from the Pytes BMS so the inverter should not have anything to do with this.
If the batteries and their BMS think they are empty far too early, then might this explain why my calculated capacity figures (all the recent ones are now with the overnight charging and the battery there always starts out at 10-11% as empties the previous day) vary so much?

 

[Ron-ski]

@KompuKare that certainly is a tricky one, as to what's empty depends entirely on what cells they are using. The video I just watched looks like they use pretty standard cell batteries, and their voltage is normally 2.5v to 3.65v but you wouldn't use the full range, usually about 3 to 3.5v roughly.

 

[KompuKare]

@KompuKare that certainly is a tricky one, as to what's empty depends entirely on what cells they are using. The video I just watched looks like they use pretty standard cell batteries, and their voltage is normally 2.5v to 3.65v but you wouldn't use the full range, usually about 3 to 3.5v roughly.

Pytes' website mentions them having their own cell factory but I would imagine their chemistry must be fairly standard LiFePO4, so I wouldn't expect totally difference voltages.

That user in DIY Solar forums has one each of version A and version B, and their "discharged" cell readings are 3.0 while ours are closer to 3.36V. Which is closer to what we might expect from Lith-ion rather than LiFePO4.

Wonder if version C has totally different cells? Seems unlikely, so maybe our firmware, V1.5.17.C8, was some beta thing?

Pytes totally refuse to engage with end users and answer a simple question to tell us from the serial numbers which version do we have?

 

[Ron-ski]

@KompuKare your best course of action may be to find a helpful dealer, there are some on YouTube advertising how good they are, perhaps email them and see if they can help information wise. Other avenue is if Pytes have Facebook or Twitter pages start kicking off on there, bad press often gets attention.

Not sure how much storage you've got, or which inverter you have, but worse case you could replace the batteries with something better, plenty of options available now at reasonable prices

 

[tres]

Hi chaps, does the below look like a reasonable deal?

Solar Panels
Jinko Solar Co., Ltd.
4.35 kW Total Solar Power
10 x 435 Watt Panels (JKM435N-54HL4R-B)
2,824 kWh per year

Inverter
Lux Power Technology Co., Ltd
3.6 kW Total Inverter Rating
1 x LXP 3.6K Hybrid

Battery
Hanchu ESS
6.4 kWh Total Battery Storage
2 x HOME ESS LV-3.2K

Pigeon Protection Proofing
1 x Pigeon Proof

25 Years Performance Warranty,
All Black Solar Panels
10 Years Inverter Warranty,
10 Years Battery Warranty,
10 Years Insurance Backed Workmanship Warranty,
MCS Certification & DNO Approval (Required for SEG Application)

£8300

would appreciate your advice

 

[b0rn2sk8]

It doesn’t look unreasonable.

I take it your your panels are not south facing?

 

[tres]

It doesn’t look unreasonable.

I take it your your panels are not south facing?

Thanks. Panels are directly south facing

 

[Ron-ski]

Thanks. Panels are directly south facing

In that case you should be generating over 4000 kWh a year, unless there is serious shading issues.

Is 10 the maximum amount of panels you can fit?

 

[tres]

Zero shade! Perhaps their 'app' didn't work it out properly.

Unfortunately so based on triangle-window-sticky-outy-bits

 

[b0rn2sk8]

What @Ron-ski said, the generation amount is way too low for south facing, that's why I asked.

 

[thewanted]

Zero shade! Perhaps their 'app' didn't work it out properly.

Unfortunately so based on triangle-window-sticky-outy-bits

“triangle-window-sticky-outy-bits” prevented me from putting an extra 4 panels on our roof, so I feel your pain

 

[tres]

What @Ron-ski said, the generation amount is way too low for south facing, that's why I asked.

I'm in the North East but I'd be surprised/hope it isn't that much of a reduction compared to the balmy south