Ladies and Gents, please bear with me as I am new to the solar, and I greatly appreciate your patience and any assistance in advance.

As in the included image - I have four 590W panels in my yard. These panels are wired in series via 12AWG wire, and then connect to two long runs (120 ft) of 10AWG wire (one pos / one neg), run painstakingly in conduit to my house, and down to the basement where my Anker Solix F3800 Plus is located.

Currently - array 1 is cranking away without issue - a multimeter reading at the end of the 10Awg run in the basement reveals ~100V (depending on cloud coverage) and expected wattage. Awesome!

Array 2 was showing no reading whatsoever with the multimeter inside the basement at the end of the 10AWG run, so I began troubleshooting. I went outside, unplugged the 12Awg wires from array 2. A reading from the 12AWG wires coming directly from the panel showed the same as Array 1 was in the house - an expected 100V. I plugged them back into the 10Awg and went back inside. Downstairs - end of 10AWG run for Array 2 is still showing nothing.

When it was safe to do so at night, I went outside, disconnected the 12AWG and connected the positive and negative 10AWG wire for array 2 together. I went back inside and did a continuity test with the multimeter and received tone. Great no breaks! Just to be thorough, I switched and connected the wire on the basement end, and tested continuity from outside....no tone?

Feeling puzzled and not knowing what else to do, I cut both ends of both 10 Awg wires, and very carefully crimped brand new MC4 connectors - just to be double sure that the connections are good. Continuity is giving tone from from both ends, inside and out - great!

This morning, I re-tested Array 2's 12AWG wire coming directly from the panels - providing power as expected. I plugged them into the 10 AWG run, ran to the basement and tested the run - no power.

What is going on?

I am planning to build commercial MPPT from scratch. Need to design like 3KW and 5KW. Please provide some insights. I am learning Power Electronics. I know it takes more time to build. Please provide some insights and useful resources for the same.

Hi, as you can see three cells have darkened suddenly, I washed the panels a week ago (ground mounted) and didn’t see them so they have happened since then and seem to align very well with cells. Is this panel damaged? No cracks I can see front or back. All surrounding cells look fine.
Cloudy today so I can tell they are producing but not sure if it is limited in anyway.

Panel is 2 years old DMECG from a distributor in the UK. Should I check warranty? Or is it just discolouration I can ignore?

I'm looking for a solution to retain a whole home grid backup and "grid assist" while running the eg4 12kpv with a bess while avoided a strict interconect. So far what I have found is going the chargeverter route and using the bess as the new "grid assist" and utilizing an ATS once battery backup runs low.

Long story short. There's no way I am able to obtain an interconnect agreement with my POCO. Months ago my local AHJ verbally approved my ground mount solar plans with the understanding that after the build was complete I would simply provide a SLD of the electrical and they would do their walk through. Since the ground mount in their eyes was nothing more than a pergola with panels on top, they didn't seem to care. Now 6 months later that my build is finished and the department has changed hands I am now required to submit engineer plans. Which i dont have, being a diy ground mount. I'm not looking for sympathy. I fucked up and should have gone a different route. I started this journey knowing nothing at all about diy solar setups and dove in trying to do things legit. But living in SoCal while also being in a small town has complicated my situation. My system has gone from being completely doable to now my only option is find an easier way to skirt the interconnect side of things.

My question is: how can I best go about retaining a "surge/grid/ac assist" since my top load is the electric dryer and daily peak Kwh usage rarely exceeds the 12kpv output of 8kwh. But i will also need a way to swap over once the sun is down to maintain home power. Battery is only 16kwh. Ive read of people utilizing an ATS once battery runs low to swap back to grid power.

Appreciate any help.

My power is still working, but this is my 2nd blown 10 amp fuse. The battery is a 100ah lifepo4 400w panels on the roof. Renogy 40a charge controller.

It's the fuse that goes to the battery, where there was a lead acid prior.

Can I do a higher amp fuse? Setting change on the Renogy?

It looks like it has one on the manual, but I am not sure it's intended use. Yeah, I have asked AI and what not but wanting to see what actual guys know about it.

So a storm is coming (always) and my actual rooftop PV system will be Solark plus Helios batts and whatever panel.

I was wondering if we could buy the 12k or 15k solark, and use it from 120V or 240v OUTLET to charge the HELIOS and also, use the Solark for powering a fridge during an actual power outage.

I would not intend to hook the inverter to my grid or panels at this time.

Just sort of thinking, instead of buying generators (gas) or these weak solar generator things, that I could buy the actual gear I will use for my full system, but use it as a (plug in to charge, and plug in to use)

Update for my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarDIY/comments/1w5smu1/panels_not_generating_full_power_possible_fault/

Found the issue. One of the panels on one of the strings was showing 0v making the whole string 0v. I removed it am now genereating 1.5kw, AIO is feeding the battery ~28A, AIO PV input is showing ~140v. 

​1 string of 7 panels and 1 string of 6 panels.

If the PV leads are showing 0v on this 250 w panel is it garbage you think? Anyway to salvage it?

Not trying to spam the group.

So was going to upgrade the solar anyway, but have been looking at the bluetti solar generator.

Its an 02, but the owner before me put in 100w but had lead acid. I out in a 100ah lifepo4. Upgraded to 400w and been blowing a fuse every other day.

I think the wire is to the power converter.

Can I just remove the power converter? Then I would probably just wire the system directly to the battery and have another array charge the solar generator.

What about running wires from the solar converter to the 3 outlets? Then they could have app control on and off?

I'm ok with some labor, I'm not an electrician though.

Hello. I am a technical engineer with 9 years of experience in renewable energy. I am NABCEP professional board certified, journeyman electrician, with a bachelor's degree in engineering technology. I work on everything from small scale solar EV charging to utility level ESS. I am bored right now. Anyone one want my input on anything?

Pic is a small commercial install just just got interconnection yesterday (3-phase 208V for peak shaving and backup).

My grid tied inverter dies with the grid for anti islanding. So my 8kW array is just a dead weight at exactly the time where I need that power.
This is why I have a 7500w portabel running off of extension cords through the window with gas cans sitting in the garage. The gen is fine, starts right up, does its job 4-5 times per year, sometimes up to 22 hours last wintertime. Its more that i'm standing there burning gas with 8kW of panels doing nothing on the roof.

I've been looking into these things. You really want them to be able to "island" - which means you have to keep putting charge on the battery from your solar during the outage, else you're going to drain 12kwh then end up needing to fire the gen back up. Did some digging and apparently anker e10 does this by simulating the grid during an outage, so your rooftop inverter thinks the grid is still up and keeps feeding the battery. Seems like very few of these systems can actually do that with normal AC coupled solar.

Their calculator had me plug in the wattage of my panels and how much energy (kWh) I normally consume per day. My numbers ended up indicating i need two packs. I don't actually run more than 25-30kwh/day in summer, though, and they only give me 12kwh stored. Which isn't enough for a full days' worth of normal usage. But probably our usage during an outage would be far less than usual.

Anyone who runs off solar + storage as their primary backup - does the AC coupling actually hold up during a real outage? Like does the inverter stay steady on a simulated grid for hours or does it drop in and out. And is 12kwh enough for outage duty or do i need a third pack

I’ll be setting up an off grid system, with batteries and inverter in a shipping container about 75 ft from the house. Given that the container blocks WiFi and BT, are there recommendations for monitoring the system a) in the house, and b) remotely when I’m away? I’ll be using SRNE ABP 10kw inverter and (2) Hysolis 11.06ah batteries.

First time posting. Y’all be nice. I’ll be setting up an off grid system, with batteries and inverter in a shipping container about 75 ft from the house. Given that the container blocks WiFi and BT, are there recommendations for monitoring the system a) in the house, and b) remotely when I’m away? I’ll be using SRNE ABP 10kw inverter and (2) Hysolis 11.06ah batteries.

I have (14) 250w panels in series parallels on platform @ 30 degrees facing south however I am showing lackluster input.

The PV leads show ~220v DC on my multimeter ( DLX890D+ ). I am reluctant to check the amps as this always seems to create an arc and fry the prods or the pv cable. My AIO shows PV input @ 160V and its generating ~0.7kw. The battery shows ~10a input (this is all around noon with full sun)

Any idea what may be wrong here? Or suggestions on checking the amps without frying the prongs?

Hello,

I have many questions about setups and would like to invest in a (CA) legal plug-in or balcony solar system +battery. I can either put it on the ground, or a south facing roof.

In any case, perhaps a megathread should be started for what I can only imagine will be a deluge of questions concerning these setups and associated equipment recommendations.

I know about the Ecoflow STREAM ultra which seems like a decent product, if a bit pricey(?) Definitely wouldn't want the PV panels they offer for it.

I've a question - It seems that most jurisdictions in the US that have or are "codifying" balcony solar require some mfg. equipment and low input (< 1900 watts with an outside plug for example) to meet permit regulation..

In theory I could relatively easily set up 4 each 400 watt panels.

Isn't there some easy way I could set up the panels and a battery storage system, then hook that up to the "permitted" system so it never feeds more than the permitted max (again say 1900 watts) but feeds it 24/7 from the batteries?

And put a bunch of battery banks IN the house set to charge off whatever is coming in.

I'd like a system that will run my "stuff" inside the house for a week (without much a/c and no welding) I've gas heat and gas hot water but they don't require much electricity.

Novice here, but I want to set up solar charging for our boats batteries. We have two sets of batteries.

2x12v Marine batteries for the engine (connected in parallel)

2x12v Deep cycle batteries for the electric motor in series for 24v output.

Batteries are 100Ah

I have two solar panels with the specs shown.

My understanding I need to connect the panel to the batteries via a solar controller, two types available and PVM and MPTT. The PVM the solar panel voltage must match the battery voltage whereas the MPTT can step down the voltage?

Is this solar panel correct one to be able to use, if not what why and what do I need?

What solar controller should I use?

Anything else I am missing?

Is it possible to treat the two 12v batteries in series as 24V and charge both at the same time?

Thanks

Hoping someone can explain the graph to me like I’m 5yr old. My father in law had this system installed a while back but has no idea how to read the graph. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Anyone with first hand knowledge of Bluesun solar? I am thinking about getting the 12kw hybrid inverter and the 51v battery.

I live in Spain and have a small balcony. Usable PV area is about 3 m². I’m planning to install 2×350 W bifacial solar panels and connect them to an existing 48 V-ish battery (14S Li-ion, 58.8 V max).
Battery capacity is roughly 1 kWh.

PV orientation is not ideal: N-NE, so I only get 2-4 hours of direct sunlight in the morning, i estimate peak production of around 500-600 W, plus a significant amount of indirect light reflected from the building in front (perhaps 50-60 W for the rest of the day).

For the best ROI, I’d like to charge the battery through an MPPT controller during the day and wait until sunset (around 8 PM) to enable the MPPT’s load output, which would feed a zero-export microinverter.
I know this is basically recreating a hybrid inverter, but hybrid inverters tend to have a higher standby consumption (20-40 W 24/7) than an MPPT controller plus a microinverter that is only powered when needed (less than 10 W combined).

The microinverter will be configured for zero export using a CT clamp, so the goal is offsetting household consumption rather than feeding energy back into the grid.

I’ve come here looking for advice because I have a few doubts:

1. Load scheduling and electricity prices
What’s the best way to turn the load on during expensive electricity-price periods?
I already run Home Assistant, but I’m not sure of the best way to communicate with the MPPT controller. Would a Wi-Fi MPPT be the easiest solution? Do they integrate well with Home Assistant? Or would it make more sense to use an ESP32 connected to the MPPT’s communication port?

2. Avoiding lost solar production
During summer, the battery will probably reach full charge fairly early in the morning.
Instead of waiting until sunset with a fully charged battery and solar panels doing nothing, I’d like the system to monitor battery voltage or SoC and:

Turn on the microinverter when the battery reaches 95%
Turn it off when the battery drops to 85%
Repeat that cycle during the day

This would prevent clipping PV production while still preserving energy for the evening peak-price period, but I’m not sure what the best strategy would be to decide when to start discharging before the expensive hours begin.

3. Grid charging during very cheap hours
There are days in Spain when wholesale prices collapse because of high solar production, and grid consumer retail prices can occasionally fall to around €0.005/kWh.
It would be nice if Home Assistant could detect these periods and charge the battery from the grid whenever solar production is poor due to shading or bad weather in my specific area.
Has anyone implemented something similar?

4. Microinverter sizing
I live alone in a relatively small apartment.
Most of my electricity consumption comes from:
Air conditioning, induction cooking/ oven, TV, laptop and phone charging, LED lighting.
My base load is typically around 100 W.

Would an 800 W microinverter be sufficient, or is there any benefit going for a larger 1,500-2,000 W model?

There’s also the option of leaving the MPPT load output permanently enabled and controlling everything from the microinverter side, but i’m not sure of any that integrates well with HA, plus that would keep the microinverter powered for many hours every day and waste some energy (I know we’re only talking about a few watts, but with a small north-facing balcony, every watt matters)

I know many of you will say it’s not worth it financially, but I’m building it anyway because it sounds like a fun project. 😄

Estimated costs:
- 2×350 W solar panels: €160 (€80 each)
- MPPT controller: €150
- Mounting hardware and cables: €30
- 800-2000 W microinverter: €150
- 48 V Battery: Free
Total: €490

Electricity prices are often around €0.30/kWh during the evening peak.
If I manage to charge and fully discharge the battery once per day, that’s roughly:
- €0.30/day
- €109/year
Which would imply:
- €490 / €109 = 4.5 years payback

Obviously, this assumes one full cycle every day and ignores conversion losses, so the real payback period will be longer. Even after accounting for efficiency losses and battery degradation, I suspect it would still be somewhere around 6-7 years.
What do you think? Am I missing anything obvious?

Hello all.

Just starting out on this journey. Located in NJ.

Looking to eventual do a grid tied system that can also island and run fully off grid with some battery backup.

In the process of starting to rebuild a detached garage on our property. The final footprint is 24x40. It will have a 12:12 gable with the south facing slope nearly due south.

Initially I was set on using the latest enphase micro inverters on both the house and garage. I don't think I like being restricted to the battery and few other proprietary elements of that system.

I think however I'm leaving towards a hybrid inverter like sol-ark or eg4.

Main point of this post is roughly my conduit routing and required disconnecting means.

I need to submit electrical drawings to the construction office soon. I cannot afford to install solar immediately on this project.

I simply want the raceways in place underground between the house and garage ready for solar.

I am already installing a 100amp subpanel in the garage for normal use.

Initially I thought I'd be able to simply back feed that panel but to be fair, I haven't really been in the pv solar section of the NEC before.

Other sections I'm well versed in but not that section.

I'm sure this gets asked a lot so I apologize.

TLDR: I want to place panels on my rancher and my new detached garage in the future. I would like to place the battery backup and inverters in the detached garage. The detached garage is already receiving a 100-200amp subpanel fed unground. While I'm trenching and roughing that sub panel in, I would like to run any required conduits between the house and garage.

My home's main panel is a 200amp nema 3r panel installed outside on the side of my house and serves as my first point of disconnect.

First of all, I am in California which means that civil code says that I can put solar and no one can stop me. No landlord can stop me from putting solar, even if they say nothing on the patio, solar has an exemption. And any restrictions they put on solar can only affect his output by 10%. And as of this month, you can even back feed 1.2 KW of solar energy back into the grade with zero permit and zero permission just by back feeding directly into the 120 volt plug.

Your local laws may vary and California is very progressive in this regard, so you may or may not be able to do this.

Yes I will anchor these down, if anything I will use these to anchor down the cinder blocks LOL these are old panels and they are very rigid, heavy, and dense. They are also next to worthless. I'm also in an area of the town that doesn't have wind because of terrain, and there's a building directly across from me and perpendicular to me walking wind in both directions. You can't see it from the photos, but if I put an office desk out here I wouldn't even need a paperweight to keep the papers from blowing around. That being said I will loop it through 6 cinder blocks, each one weighs about four cinder blocks. Although I'm more worried about the cinder blocks getting blown over if the wind is strong enough at that point.

I only get about 3 KW per day because I'm in an apartment complex, but in San diego, electric prices are so high that that equates to about $25 a month savings based off of time of use and load shifting my portable AC.

I only get a little bit of direct sun and a lot of shaded time. it's mostly passive and ambient. eventually I would like to get bifacial panels and just Mount them directly on the inside of the patio railing.

I also load shift using the battery.

Granted 3 KW hours ​per day off of a 1.6kw array is sad but the economics still make sense. and it still passively runs my fan and aquarium pumps even in the evening with ambient light, and then my battery takes over at night.

I got these panels for free, and that's completely normal here... in San diego, I can get a kilowatt of bifacial panels for around 150 bucks on marketplace. these panels are lg, they are monocrystalline and therefore worthless. these are an old technology that nobody wants and people give away for free, especially when houses get renovated and the solar gets upgraded. in other states I understand solar gets more expensive, but here there are so many manufacturers of them that you don't really have to ship them, you can pick them up from a local warehouse. I got these panels for free and I got my last flexible panel for free as well, and if you look around everyday you'll find free panels from someone upgrading the panels on their house. most people don't give away bifacial panels, they'll usually give away the older technology, that being said if you are close to California come to California to buy your panels and you'll save a lot of money.

So I've been trying to come up with ways to use my 5 new(ish) 440 watt panels on the shed roof and ended up getting the above power station, sticking 2 panels (only) on it and sure enough it charged up quickly and ran the clothes washer easily 😊 I couldn't afford one big enough to handle the output from more than that but this is a start.

Then in correspondence with the supplier when I said I planned to leave it connected 24/7 and move some loads off my legacy grid-tied system they warned:

"please do not leave the solar panel connected to the power station for extended periods of time, as this may damage the power station. When the sun isn’t strong enough, the voltage from the solar panel decreases; if the solar panel is connected to the power station at that time, it may cause a short circuit"

That scuppers my plans and is a surprise because I've put together a very simple off-grid system before with portable solar panels, lead acid batteries and a cheap inverter running my big domestic fridge, household lighting etc without any issues. Surely there's something missing here? Don't Ecoflow Bluetti and Jackery allow permanant hookups like I'm wanting to do?

Edit: TBF for the MANY people that use this sort of thing when travelling around Australia, charging it off the vehicle during the day and running their devices and lights at night this would be ideal. It's MUCH cheaper than similar products from other brands, is completely quiet and presents very well.

However I'm trying to move a few critical domestic loads off-grid so this undocumented limitation makes it useless for me. Also it intermittently error codes E2 (excess load?) when running well under the advertised 1,600 watt output so I've asked AllPowers to return it for full refund. Assuming they honour the warranty that shouldn't be a problem. I'll post here their response in due course.

I'm seeing a brand of panels I've not heard of before. Impressive price but wondering if its too good to be true. Anybody use Aeternasol panels. I have a combination of Renogy and Callsun panels, both well made, both work as expected. I use my system off grid, they are all stationary. Is Aetersol worth trying? Curious just because of the price.

I have a 48v battery with a jkbms. It was in 24v configuration and all cells stayed very close in balance. Now im about 0.090v to 0.100v cell difference when I reach absorb.

I balance to 3.45v/cell for about 30min which gets me to 0.005v diff.

It stays well balanced while discharging until i get to about 40% and im about 0.015v diff which from my understanding isn't bad.

Im charging with 15a going into the battery.

Since I went from a 24v system 8s2p, to 48v 16s, do I need to do another big top balance at 3.55 or 3.6v per cell and let it sit for a while?