Hi, I've got a GivEnergy battery system and I don't understand why I am currently drawing power from the grid even though I have battery power stored. I can't find any setting in the app to prevent importing. Has anyone come across a similar issue??

Does anybody have a recommended place to go learn about these two things in relation to solar?

I have set up my system which is quite small and I'm helping a buddy set up his system which is quite a bit larger.

I have other neighbors who are wanting me to set up much larger systems than mine or my immediate neighbors.

So far my system is not grounded and I do not have a fuse in between anything. If anyone has a great resource to learn about either or both of these subjects, I would be really appreciative.

I kind of didn't mind risking my system but I don't really want to blow up someone else's system or burn their house down because I don't know about the fuses and the grounding

I have a small 1200 sq ft row home with a bump out and I want to reduce my carbon footprint, what does reddit think of is the better move payoff wise:

32 SQ ft of collectors for solar thermal

https://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/DHWplusSpace/Main.htm

An air to water heat pump (mono block)

https://www.mbtek.com/collections/heat-pumps-air-to-water/products/apollo-heatpump-42k-btu

My climate is Baltimore, (Port City with a heat island)

HVAC is 26+ years old and natural gas, current plan is to do basic maintenance and run it until CO detectors go off on the regular.

By starting to switch to hydronic heating and cooling I'll prepare myself for the eventual failure of the old furnace and AC (hopefully il be starting early enough).

I currently use 4x 190w rated panels in parallel, a 60amp 720w at 12volts rated MPPT charge controller, 2x 150ah batteries in parallel, and a 1000w 12v inverter. At peak sun I get around 300 to 320 watts from my panels. Can the controller support more panels if their actual output is not over the rated it's capacity?

I installed the panels with appropriate orientation, tilt, and 10gage wire 15ft from panels to controller. Totally off grid.

I'm trying to put together an overall plan for a DIY system, but have learned that module-level shutdown requirements are now a thing.

The cheapest option I've seen cost ~$50, to go with each panel! Considering a new 500+ watt panel is currently going for <$175, that's an insane add-on cost purely for code compliance, when it wasn't needed a few years ago. That's without considering ongoing maint. cost...

I'm hoping that there is something that I've missed that is much more effective? What is the typical choice?

Hi, I installed 3.1kw consisting of 2 strings of grid tied panels on my garage roof myself in 2007. At the time they recommended just putting “L” brackets bolted into the trusses. I used caulk but it’s starting to seep in and stain the plywood and I need to replace them, pull the panels, racks, and remove “L” feet. I bought some QuickBOLTs with flashing to use.

Since I have to remove the old panels anyway and they are 17 years old, I was thinking about putting new panels on. Most of them are much larger, bigger capacity, more efficient and cheaper than when I bought mine. My rails are are spaced 27” apart. The larger ones (looking at Hyundai 410w ones) want them further part like 50+”. I don’t want to move the rails since I already have the holes and would have to deal with sealing them too. They would stick out from the rail about 2 ft on either end. The specs say between 10-16 inches from the edge. I guess using rails that are closer to the center would cause issues? Sagging on the ends? I could leave the one rail and just add one further down. I left 53” between the strings so there is room.

https://preview.redd.it/8n050dedlq1e1.png?width=1491&format=png&auto=webp&s=a98246e637e19751d758a21903990d29f793b57d

Looking to buy 10 REC Alpha Pure 2 Series panels in central Illinois. Can someone point me in the right direction?

Made a solar pergola. Ended up using center clamps to join panels but is there any trim I can use to fill the gap? To stop rain.

DC Coupled systems for adding storage to solar seem to be pretty straightforward. One system controls all the energy flow, and is linked to storage and panels via DC, to home, grid and backup panel via AC.

But in searching online for just how AC coupling works, all the articles are very basic. They go into pros and cons but don't speak as much to the how.

For somebody with a basic grid-tie inverter system (SolarEdge HD Wave) looking at adding a small amount of backup storage which would still make use of the solar during the day, it's not clear.

I know the grid-tie inverter is watching the AC bus to track voltage and frequency to detect if the grid goes down, so it can shut down. As such, an AC coupled storage system would need to generate a well formed AC signal back to the solar inverter to get it wake up. But when it does wake up, it's designed to always feed all its output to the AC out, knowing that anything not used by the home will be absorbed by the grid.

But once isolated by a transfer switch, how is its power output controlled? One wants it to be enough to power the home, plus whatever the battery can take, but no more. If the battery is full, you want it to provide enough for the home and nothing else. Sometimes the battery's inverter will be putting out energy to supplement the solar inverter, sometimes the battery's inverter will put out nothing while the charging controller takes AC power in (from the same power bus) to charge the batteries. But the battery's inverter can't put out nothing, as it must put out a 60hz wave to keep the solar inverter going.

So how is this negotiated? Does the solar inverter naturally back off when there is not enough demand for its output? What keeps the solar inverter on when the battery is charging?

And what are some good DIY AC coupled inverter/chargers that I might install in such a system with a nice battery pack. I mean you can go buy a Powerwall if you want to spend way too much money. I know what I need to do for DC Coupling, making some switch to switch the DC from the panels into an off-grid inverter/charger. More complex, but I can do it. Or is there a better way with AC coupling?

I purchased a couple mc4 to dc8mm connectors to go from the dc8mm jackery panel connectors to the Pecron mc4 connectors but I am not getting a charge from this set up.

I have been considering the Anker F3800 system for a while now. I'm in a low cost electricity state ($.12) so I'm just looking to reduce the cost of electricity with a small solar installation. From what I can gather, the F3800 would be perfect for a project like this and a DIY system would cost even more for a comparable system spec (portability, inverter, automatic transfer switch, 3.8kw battery, simplicity, upgradability, etc).

I'm planning to install the system with 2.4kw of solar (non-anker panels to reduce cost) which should reduce my electric bill by about $40-$50/month.

Can anyone chime in and let me know if this is a good option or if there is a cheaper alternative to start with solar?

Pros w/ F3800

• UPS mode to protect critical loads (computers, wifi, refrigerator, lights in short grid down scenarios for less than 1 hours)
• Incorporate solar to shave electrical cost per month
• Safety with UL tested products
• Ability to add another F3800 to increase inverter,, battery and solar capacity
• Install interlock and generator input at the mains
• 11kw generator for long outages
• Not looking for a "hobby" ( already spent too much time on research and will need to build a raised garden bed with solar panels roof)

i got this email from NAZ solar (https://www.solar-electric.com/) over the weekend. sharing in case it'll benefit anyone else....

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The best equipment for you, all at 9% off! Use code RALPHIE9 in checkout.

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Found these on FB Market Place. It’s about a 3 hour drive for me, worth it?

https://www.facebook.com/share/17vFD94EP3/?mibextid=79PoIi

Anyone have experience running lithium phosphate in extreme cold.

Our temperatures are hovering around 0 Fahrenheit in the morning the now but will get colder most likely.

Curious if anyone has run any like this?

I should prob build an insulated box for my setup

Or less than 100'. Cabin is covered by trees for cooling in Summer and has a 4" pvc pipe for a floor level air inlet. Sunny area starts about 40' from cabin. Looking for a way to solar heat air and push it into the cabin.

Hey!

I‘m pretty sure I know the answer, but as I see every manual telling me to connect the single cell cables to the plus pole of each cell, I‘m quite confused:

I have 8 Eve LF280 in series, would it not be the same to connect the cell monitoring cables to either the plus pole of the cell or the minus of the next cell? As these are connected anyway.

Thanks for any input! Not sure if it‘s clear, Solar relevant english is not one of my strengths lol

Have multiple unopened brand new Enphase IQ8+ micro inverters. Message me if interested

Hi everyone. I am currently trying to live some what off grid here in EU. I have 2x Ecoflow delta pro also 2x bluetti 2000w, am using around 4kw solar panels to charge those devices. During the summer i have plenty of power and by around 12am all my power bank are full. My question is : i wanted to have more power reserve but dont want to buy another ecoflow as its quite expensive, would it be possible to get a 200ah lipo4 battery and using eco flow to charge it up during the day and reverse charging the Ecoflow using lipo4 battery at night to skip me from buying new inverter / MPPT ?
Thanks

Took down my panels but left the tigos on the rails during helene. Oops. I did tape off the vent, but still lost too tigos. Oh well, you live and you learn.

Hello colleagues, let's see if someone can help me with this.

I have mounted 15 500w panels, a Growatt 10KTl3-XH inverter, with 6 batteries of 2.5 KWH each, an Eastron TPM-CT-E meter, and a Growatt SYIN -100-XH-30 backup box.

The problem is that I can't get the backup to work, I have done all the steps in the manual, but it doesn't work, the backup sheet symbol keeps flashing red. If anyone has set up this system or knows what may be happening, I would appreciate your help.

I am noticing that you can get significantly discounted solar panels(likely Amazon returns). They are so cheap in some cases in unopened boxes.

Can these be cobbled together to make a whole house system? I am guessing you can, just cut off all the connectors they come with and just go with standard parts. Put together a bunch of them for 10% of the cost of a typical system.

Has anyone done this?

So, I have most of my hardware figured out. likely going with 36Qcells 415 panels, the new eg4 system, and one eg4 outdoor battery. Mounting hardware decisions are killing me!

Railless- I was set on using a flashed setup, but looking at the install time, I have a hard time picturing these being less work than putting in rails, because there are more protrusions and flashing with railless. Does seem to be cheapest, but longest to install since I need to do alot of flashing. It also seems like you wont always be able to hit a rafter unless you have the perfect width panels. (Easy to find parts for DIYer though)

Snapnrack Topspeed- This seemed like my next choice, until I thought about the fact that id need 96 of these things or more so that is ~400 holes in my roof. The other thing is that what if I have to reroof in 10 years or so? The way these seal seem like you wont be able to use them again, but maybe im wrong. (also easy to find)

Rail Systems- The Snapnrack with Quickbolt2 or the Pegasus with instaflash2 both seem like great easy to use products, but im having a hard time sourcing these in Denver here for a DIYer. If someone has tips on how I can go about ordering these, I think this is the route id like to go since there will be the least amount of holes in the roof.

It's me again. Still putting in a Sol-Ark 15k. I'm wondering if there's any reason for me to jump up to 200A components for bypass, disconnect, etc. Here's the scenario:

I've got 200A off the meter into a detached barn. That feeds my house sub panel ~150 feet away with 100A underground through conduit that *will not* fit 4/0 (or really anything bigger than what it's got now). I will be placing the Sol-Ark, Batteries, etc, in the basement of the house with the house subpanels.

I had thought at some point in the future I might want to upgrade the house to 200A, but it seems like that's going to be incredibly expensive as i'd need to excavate the existing conduit, which runs under the driveway, run 150ft 3x4/0 (sure slightly smaller ground probably), new conduit, new house panel, etc. Likely > $5k and that's probably optimistic.

The main driver for wanting to upgrade would be to get off of my boiler mate water heater and become fully electrified (already switched to heat pumps last year). I don't think that with a well pump, two heat pump condensors, electric dryer/washer/oven, that i'd really be able to fit in a HPWH without upgrading my service in the basement. Moving to electric here would be a convenience, and with solar, could probably save ~$600/year. The economics for that seem upside down considering 5k before paying for the water heater + installation.

So since there isn't really a good economical driver, can any of you think of other reasons that I might want to use 200A components inside my 100A basement. Seems like I'll save a TON even just on the transfer switch (700 vs 200) and I haven't even looked into how much I'd save on the wiring to and from the subpanels, inverter, other components.

I think I *may* have a route to still put in a heat pump water heater since I have two subpanels in the basement, I might be able to use solar + batteries + solark + grid to power > 100 total amps to the combined set of sub panels.

Thanks so much! Getting ready to build my shopping list and you're inputs are hugely valuable to me!

The roof panel install has all the enphase 8 micro inverters mounted upside down with the bracket down instead of up on top. How big of a deal is that. Will it cause problems? The inverters are not touching the backside of the panel above them as the panel wires are in-between the panel and the inverter casing.

Thoughts?

Looking to get in on solar before the tariffs hit. This means I need to get on this project sooner than I was anticipating. That said I'm somewhat wet behind the ears when it comes to whole house solar and not sure where to start and what brands to focus on. I'm looking to pair the solar with a battery array that'll keep an AC, well, septic, lights and water heater going during outages. We have an EV as well so keeping that going would be nice. Given that, I'm seeking guidance around what I should be looking at in terms of number of 400 watt panels and any other equipment to make that dream happen? What brands should I look towards or what brands should I steer clear from? TIA

Used solar rails

Is there any value in used Solar panel rails and hooks We have 18 panels on the roof and tomorrow They are all being removed as we are having a new roof New roof will have the GSE system fitted So the rails and hooks will be obsolete Is there any to them value like putting them on ebay or should they just go in the skip ? Less than 24 months old