Unsere PV-Anlage liefert zwar nur 3.6 kWp und die Stützbatterie speichert 2 kWh - und dennoch kann ich die Begeisterung von Andreas nachvollziehen. Auch gut zwei Jahre nach Inbetriebnahme beobachte ich auf der App fast täglich die gelieferte Leistung und freue mich, wenn wir mit Solarstrom (ab-)waschen können und auch abends noch etwas fürs Fernsehen beigesteuert wird. Die ganze Familie hat beim Aufbau der PV-Anlage geholfen und wir haben viel gelernt.
Habe meins seit einem Jahr, ich konnte bis jetzt ca. 75% der normalen Rechnung sparen. 10 kWp Solar und 10 kWh Batterie. Ich bin auch ganz glücklich darüber.
@@AndreasSpiess Hier das gleiche, sprich von 2 kWp in 2018 auf nun 16,5 kWp mit 8 kWh LFP Speicher sowie e-GOLF und Wärmepumpe fürs Warmwasser, nur das Heizen bleibt noch auf Öl bzw. wird reduziert durch Umstellung auf Klimaanalge zum Heizen der 3 wichtigsten Räume (sind schon 100 qm). Mit dem Holzofen als Heizungsunterstützung geht der Ölverbrauch runter auf unter 1000 Liter p.a.
I don't know if you intended to phrase it this way, but I burst out laughing when you said you left us before the summer with unconnected panels, a pregnant neighbour,.... 🤣
Happy to live in Latvia. We have waaaay less biurocracy and my 5kw system costed me around 5k€ and it produced energy for 2 winter months in one summer month. Fortunately, we still have neto tariff scheme where we use grid as storage.
@@AndreasSpiess you are 100% right there. Our wages differ about 3-5 times and sometimes more. Still, things like cars, computers and many things here cost the same. Even inverters are more or less the same price. Thanks you for kind words! Switzerland is also enormously beatiful, clean and tidy country with superb people.
You can change the currency on the company-level only. So if you have done the registration of your plant in FusionSolar completely by yourself (not involving an official installer) and therefore you had to register yourself as an installer as well, then you can set / change it on your own as well. You can find it in System --> Company Management --> Company info (in the FusionSolar WebUI). If the registration has been done by someone else (i.e. an official installer) then you may ask them to change the currency.
I looked into solar DIY myself. I have the technical skill, but the regulatory side is just a nightmare - it's all geared towards large professional installations for people who have training in how to get everything properly certified and code-compliant, and how to fill out the multiple pages of complicated forms you need to notify the grid operator. The cost of compliance and paperwork and getting it all signed off by someone with the appropriate certifications is an acceptable overhead when you're building a 10KW installation - but for my planned little 300W hobby-scale system, which is as many panels as my tiny house can fit, the cost of getting someone to sign off and do the paperwork would be more than the cost of all the components put together. UK electrical law is based upon the principle that home-owners should be kept far, far away from anything to do with the electrics, because most of them greatly overestimate their knowledge and shouldn't be trusted to hold a screwdriver. This is a good assumption - my dad and I certainly did some horrific bodgery in years past! But it's frustrating for me now as a hobbyist-engineer. I have the knowledge to make everything safe, but no way to legally prove I have that knowledge without spending piles of money on training and certification.
Would it be an easier option to use a hybrid inverter that does not export anything to the grid? Some are able to run without batteries and have the smarts to use the panels directly and augment from the grid if your load is more than available sun/solar, if at some point you can justify a battery, performance is improved again....i.e. you would have battery backup, which could be a valuable option this Winter for you....we in Australia seem to be going down the same toilet...i.e. shutting down our reliable power sources, although a year or two behind you guys. I don't consider which is cheaper anymore, instead, Do I want reliable power or not?
You can do it all yourself in the UK. I did my 1.28kw myself and registered it with the DNO. Which for me is Power Networks. Paper work is a pain but stay under 3.6kw and its not too bad. Look up a company called pluginsolar got my kit from them. But the install manuals can be dowloaded and it talks you through the DNO paper work. Just put in a inverter and battery my self that DNO paper work was more of a pain. Can offer advice if you need it. NOTE You wont have an MCS microgeneration compliance certificate so cannot be paid to feed back to grid. But if you are planning to use it all that should not be a problem. A lot cheaper as well.
I hope that these laws will be eased in the future because of the current situation. Here, Sebastian did the paperwork (it only took him a few hours because he does it all the time). But the installation towards the grid had to be done by a proper electrician (I also own an EE degree ;-)
Grid tie inverters are a waste of of money and useless. You need a hybrid inverter. With a hybrid inverter you can install it in such a way that the power company will never know that you have a solar system. The hybrid inverter only takes extra power from the grid as needed. I have an SMA grid tie inverter collecting dust in my Garage now for the last 4.5 years since I changed to a hybrid inverter. Also you need at least 30kW of batteries. preferably 60Kw or more. I have 30kW but for a USA house it is not enough.
Hi Andreas, and thank you for all your educational videos. I'm currently undertaking my own solar setup, and its nice to see that someone like you doesn't find it easy either. The government regulations, the paperwork, the shortcomings of grid tied inverters, etc. My panels have been installed for over a month with the inverter turned off, while I'm just waiting for the government. At least seeing your production graphs inspires me to battle on.
In the US, household is one phase 240v split to 120v. We are fortunate to have net metering (100% credit). Outback Skybox inverter with 14kWh batteries. When grid is down, batteries power house and no power fed to grid (for safety).
Net metering is cool. Like that you do not need a battery if you do not strive for autarky. Here we still have cheaper electricity during night. So net metering would easily be possible for the providers. However, I think this will change with the installation of many solar panels. Then electricity will be more valuable (expensive?) during night.
So convent that a neighbour and you have similar systems. It has, and will continue to offer A|B learning opportunities. This a very pragmatic and informative series. :)
A couple things to add... I worked for an inverter company over ten years ago. Another reason that the inverter needs to disconnect besides 2 reasons you said is that when inverter is connected to the grid, the AC currents which it produces follows the the grid. When the grids goes off, the inveter has to create a fake frequency like a UPS (all inveters have oscillators but they sync with the grid). When the grid comes back, if inverter isn't disconnected, there is an unknown phase shift between grid and inveter. Since the grid is very powerful, its current will burn you inverter and your wirings. Another thing to say is what is the optimum battery capacity which you need? Definitely you are buying more electricity in winter. You got locky to have your solar working in pick of summer with a lot of sun.
I agree with your remark on synchronization! We use between 10-15kWh a day (10 in summer). This is why I decided for a 10kW battery. It covered us till end of Cctober. Now we do not get enough sun to charge it fully. So a bigger battery does not make sense for me.
@@AndreasSpiess but does it make sense to buy the electricity after midnight when electricity is cheaper to charge your batteries and use the batteries when electricity is more expensive during the fall and winter?
@@bayareapianist The price difference is too small for me (I lose energy while charging and discharging the battery). And it would disturb my statistics ;-)
I am currently developing a completely new Inverter and after that a battery charger. I also got granted already a sponsorship for these two projects. The things which we should know beforehand, are many, and most are of simple entity. One is particularly important: even though batteries may have low charge, important appliances should be able to run nevertheless. Thus, I implement brown-out generation, which can be enabled manually, although not suggested. This feature can be life saving.
You are right. I tried to find out the consumption of all devices in our home to establish rules for a blackout. In addition, I purchased a USV for my PC and network which enables me to shut down the PC safely. The next thing is a display in our kitchen (the most frequent visited room in our home) to show the current situation (production, load, and battery level).
In VietNam, in high population areas, we have full featured meters controlled through WiFi controllers connected via the cell network to the grid operator. Your series is very thought-provoking. Some grid operators are penalising "home generators" by imposing grid fees for grid availability EVEN IF THERE IS NO GRID CONNECTION to the premises!!!!!
Andreas, on my installation I use SUN2000 5KTL- L1 +PCS+ 5KWh Battery on each phase. (because Huawei 3ph inverter only could supply backup on 1ph) I add ATS to isolate my house and grid, and add relay to grid side to send GRID OFF signal (ground DI) to trigger inverter to go offgrid.
Thank you for your info. I hope to be capable to feed all three phases from the 1-phase outlet. But of course, only 240V, not 400V. The backup box showed in the video should do the timing for the DI input...
Welcome back Anreas. I trust your road trip was enjoyable, and that you come back rested. I'm following your experiences with PV with great interest, especially the leucocratic planning and utility issues as we have similar rules and requirements where I am. So far it does not look to be viable in my particular circumstances, even a small scale installation to power one small part of the house. I look forward to how you deal with the grid interruption problem as it seems to have been overlooked by many reviewers and advocates of home solar.
So far we were not concerned by grid-down situation in Europe. These discussions only started a few months ago. That is probably the reason for the low knowledge.
Answering your question, I have a GivEnergy system (UK) and it also seems to show a delay in switching with varying loads. Small amounts are imported from the grid when the battery is well charged, also small amounts are sometimes exported from the battery when house loads change (the load changes are well within the system's capacity when this happens). They are very small amounts and are negligible in cost terms but annoying from an engineer's point of view.
Thank you so much for this video, some true nuggets of revelation here, for me particularly about the inverters and that high voltage batteries exists. Before I make any decisions about my future solar installation I will eagerly await your findings of the winter months. But I can honestly say that this series is already a must watch for anyone thinking about solar.
You are right. A few months ago, nearly nobody in Switzerland would have spent a Swiss Franc for an off-grid feature. Now everybody talks about it. Still, I hope we will avoid a blackout.
Especially with the exorbitant price of those proprietary batteries, I imagine if/when grid power goes out there will be some very unhappy stakeholders in the building..
@@AndreasSpiess I started theoretical preparations in 2021. German Bundesrechnungshof caculated (and published Apri 2021) that Germany will get energy trouble starting in 2022. And after the last election, I started acting. Switzerland started early to prepare the population for controlled brownouts.
@@AndreasSpiess the blackout will be avoided, too many 2big2fails in CH (like axpo - what could have been done with the 4mrd francs. imagine the PV-setups build with that money, axpo'd become useless instantly)... BUT we'll have brownouts, Sommaruga already announced THAT (4h power, 4 hours not, 4 hours power), and all the PV-owners will ...have a very bad awakening...
I have Victron Multiplus-II and you can also set this "Grid Setpoint" which sets the watts pulled from grid, usually setting it to 50W to avoid undershooting and feeding power back into the grid.
what you need is an hybrid inverter. the grid is fed into it, and it decides where the energy goes. and let you use your solar energy even if the grid is down.
Very informative and clearly presented Andreas. Here in the UK I am on the most generous FIT scheme as my 3.6kW system was installed 10 years ago. The amounts increase by inflation each year. This year I get 60.23p per kWh generated but only 4.25p exported. The news today is that the government is discussing a scheme to pay people c50p kWh for using less energy in peak hours (how do they measure what is less!). I've been looking at battery storage (should have installed many years ago). Now prices have gone up 50% this year and there are major supply issues. Meanwhile I have built my own energy management system to divert excess energy to heat hot water. I decided not to fix clamps. Instead I have installed a consumption meter with S0 pulse output and changed the PV generation meter to a S0 output model. 1 pulse per 1W. The Smart meter already produces S0 purchase output (but not Export but I can calculate this). All pulses feed into an Arduino Nano and then the counts passed every x mins to a Raspberry Pi Zero. The Purchase pulses are relayed to a SolarLog that I had installed originally. The Pi controls the immersion element via MQTT and Zigbee. Stats are also sent via MQTT. I've plans to use InfluxDB & Grafana. Alert messages are sent by SMS/email/Telegram. I have built a web front end to monitor and adjust config values. It's taken a long time to build and develop. Maybe I should have bought an off-the-shelf system (OTSS) but at least it meets my requirements. Many OTSS are closed systems. The Zigbee immersion switch is on/off but I would like one that is variable by value but I've need seen such a device. Do you have any ideas?
I think you were early with your installation. Back then these integrated inverter/battery systems were not available. This is the usual way where an industry learns. But you were able to get decent monitoring anyway! Today it did not make sense to build the inverter/battery system myself, also because I wanted a high volt one and do not like to work with those voltages.
@@AndreasSpiess Just to be clear, I installed PV with SolarLog monitoring 10 years ago, not PV/battery. Now trying to do "catch up" with retrofitting batteries but supply issues and inflated costs.
I look forward to the MODBUS video. My small setup collects data via MODBUS from my charge controller using Tasmota firmware on an ESP8266. That sends the data out as MQTT to Home Assistant.
@@AndreasSpiess If I understand correctly it's a different transport layer but essentially the same beyond that. I bet your video will be interesting and useful!
Looking forward to the next video on NodeRed integration. I have the same inverter system and already run nodered but want to make sure my boiler doesn't turn on unless my inverter is producing enough power to supply it without using the grid. Boiler is connected via a Sonoff switch re-flashed with Tasmota, just using Tasmota timres for now.
Gratuliere Dir Andrés, perfektes timing fuer PV Anlage. Ich haber eine DIY Anlage seit 2008, aber ohne Rückspeisung, dafür ist die Bürokratie in Mexiko zu umständlich, seit neuem mit Lizium Batterien. Das öffentliche Netz fällt oft aus, aber der Inverter darf weiterlaufen, er ist ja autonom und so haben wir immer Strom. Problem #1 die Blitzeinschläge. Viel von meinem Knowhow habe ich von Ihren Videos, Dank sei dafür. Grüsse aus dem Süden von México
Das mit den Netzausfällen war bis jetzt in der Schweiz kein Thema. Nun scheint es zumindest hypothetisch wahr zu werden... Näher am Äquator ist der Sommer-Winter Unterschied kleiner und so eine Autarkie einfacher zu erreichen. Hier werden wir sicher während 2 Monaten zu wenig Strom generieren. Mal sehen wie wir durch den Winter kommen... Blitzschläge sind hier kein grosses Thema. In besiedeltem Gebiet hat er viele andere Möglichkeiten zum einschlagen ;-)
I recently learned that wind is too low on our latitude because it is only created by weather situations. In the north it seems that wind is generated by the rotation of the earth and therefore much steadier. So we use solar and the nothern people wind...
Great series, thanks! Unfortunately I do not currently own a house, so I'm currently planning to add solar power to my rented balcony. That's a bit simpler, but there are still some hurdles (inverter availability, drilling a hole in the house wall, mounting the solar panel somehow, etc)... I'm looking forward to be able to track production during a nice sunny day ☀, and learning a lot on the way there! Your video also added some information that I wasn't aware of before. Thanks!
Hey Andreas, the reason you are getting same output over all three phases is because Huawei makes symmetrical inverters thus they are not able to supply different power levels on each phase. Thats another limitation for using this inverter in back-up mode (off-grid) because with that it only powers one of that phases not all three and with only 3.6Kw max if I remember correctly.
Looking forward to the "hacking" video. We too have an inverter (SolarEdge) which which can handle a battery, but it is not off-grid capable. As of right now I could not find a solution for this problem (thinking along the lines of "grid transfer switches" + such).
Most of normal inverters are not off-grid capable. Recently, this was a topic in our radio and TV shows because most owners are disappointed when they learn about this fact... I will show how I will get independent from the grid. Maybe it helps in your case, too.
Sehr spannend! Ich mache momentan Kleinversuche mit meiner Amateurfunk-Station mit PV. Ich bin Funkmässg total autark. Nun mache ich mir Gedanken, wie ich am besten meine PC USV mit Solar Strom beteiben kann (IT -> TN Netz) / Notstrom. Das macht richtig Spass! 73 aus Kloten!
Den Shack könnte ich grösstenteils mit 12 Volt betreiben. Für das Labor habe ich mich für ein 220 Volt System entschieden weil es sonst zu kompliziert ist weil ich verschiedene Spannungen brauche. Die USV kannst du vermutlich mit einem einfachen 220V Inverter betreiben. Der muss nicht mal Sinus machen weil die meisten USVs im Notbetrieb ja auch kein Sinussignal erzeugen und die PCs gut damit zurechtkommen. Für den (solarbetriebenen) Shack würde ich aber mit einem 19V Laptop mit Batterien gehen...
Thank you for your videos, it brings very sensitive points of view. Just point out the possibility of devices for derivation of surpluses such as the (Diy) Freeds project. It is striking to me that the option of Huawey does not allow to be "offgrider" as many others do that even allow to swap "ongrid" and offgrid.
Most of the inverters used here do not allow off-grid operation. But most people do not know it. Recently, this fact was even mentioned in TV and radio. Many owners feel cheated...
You can add an inverter to the battery bank to provide a backup mains supply for some equipment on a separate set of sockets. 18 panels and battery bank being installed in next ten days. Have you looked at using spare power to heat water. No point selling power to the UK grid as I will only get 10% of what I buy it for.
I hope they will realize that it is stupid to pay you much less than they have to pay others for the same and let you "burn" electricity for heat. Here such discussions already started...
@@AndreasSpiess I'm going to fit a device to monitor out going power and if it exceeds 100Ws feed that amount into the hot water tank. So I will only export when batteries are fully charged and hot water tank is at max temperature. You can pwm the water heater easy its just resistive load.
Could you isolate your home from the grid in the event of a power outage? So if the grid goes below a certain voltage, instead of a complete shutdown, could it go completely off grid in that situation and reconnect to the grid when the grid voltage stabilises?
For a PV System there are different options Pv Pv with single phase backup Pv with 3 phase backup Pv with 3 phase backup and cold start. If you have shadows you can optimize the system with optimizers. The cost efficiency of the system drops with the cold start variants massively. But if money was not an issue that would be my goto
Sehr gute Info, danke. Bitte im zukünftigen Video über die Backup Box auf die nicht zu vernachlässigende Umschaltzeit von 1 bis 3 Sek eingehen - Konsequenzen, Lösungen und so… danke.
On your question about the inverter behaviour when interacting with the grid: All grid tied distributed generation inverters, whether residential or utility scale size, meet certain protection criteria when interfacing with the grid. One of the most important fratures is to disconnect from the grid in a very specific timeframe when the grid goes down, in other words the voltage at their output need to fall immediately to safe levels and then to zero and stay there until the grid voltage is back on for a certain amount of time. This is to protect the workers on the grid. There is a plethora of other reasons behind the settings that these inverters have and they mostly have to do with maintaining grid stability. These settings differ from country to country (your friend can see them using his FusionSolar app). I believe that the inverters use the PLL method to synchronise with the grid so if the grid goes down, they synch fails and they stop immediately. Now of you have a battery and work in island mode, I guess there will be provision to work without the grid signal but there should be an internal controlled switchover relay that will only connect back to the grid when the island's voltage and grid voltage are synchronised.
@@AndreasSpiess dont forget to add an earthing rod or otherwise address the local earthing during island operation, i guess this will depend on the local grid/code of practice!
Ich arbeite auch gerade an einer kleinen PV Anlage mit Backup Möglichkeiten. Wichtig ist es zuerst mal die Stromkreise zusammen zu fassen die bei Netzunterbrechung funktionieren sollen ( Kühlgeräte, Raumlicht, IT, Heizungssteuerung und Pumpen für Fernwärme...) Man braucht auch einen eigenen FI dafür. Dann kann man messen was der typische Stromverbrauch ( Leistung und Energie) ist und was man abdecken muss. Da ich Zugang zu gebrauchten aber guten Bleigelakkus habe ich eine ebenfalls gratis APC UPS umgebaut. Die UPC funktioniert recht gut mit externen Akkus. Man muss ein Relais ( Solid state) einbauen und einen Timer um die UPC mit 24V Batteriespannung zu starten. Die UPS erwartet einen Tastendruck während Beep um einen Kaltstart ohne Netzspannung zu machen.Leider ist der Ladestrom nur 2.5 A also geht das nur für Blackout protection und nicht für Power time shift. Für letzteres würde man ein externes Ladegerät brauchen. Meine UPS aus dem Schrott braucht leider ca 30W in Standby. Man kann aber die Akkus nur laden wenn die Spannung unter ca 26V gefallen ist. Bei Ali gibt es da sehr preiswerte Batterieüberwachungsschalzungen Neuere scheinen da besser zu sein ( 3W). Es gibt bei Aliexpress automatische Grid Switcher die ich verwenden möchte. Es bleibt spannend aber ist viel Arbeit
Schöne Anlage! Ich plane einen andern Weg zu gehen. Ich möchte meine Verkabelung belassen und nicht in verschiedene Zonen einteilen. So kann ich entscheiden was wertvoll ist und es einschalten oder nicht…
That is not good behavior of monopoly companies. I hope governments will change the laws. At least in Europe we have such discussions now. But it needed a horrible war :-(
Good work. I use multiple SDM630 to see where my energey travles, To grid, house or any of my other buildings. I also have an proper manual and automatic switch (ATS). And my inverter can run in off-grid mode :) So will be nice to see how you do it later. I have run my system for 5+ years now and is specially made by me. Also have full monitoring and system that will sell excess energy when the price is high and buy back when its low if needed :)
These SDM630s are nice! My problem is the crowded fuse box which was not made for such additional meters :-( Here we have regulations if the device is connected to the grid. So I decided to go "commercial" for that part. But I still have to find the electrician for installation.
@@AndreasSpiess yeah thats True. I installed a other box just for all The ats gear and The sdms. Then i had an electrician to approve my work :) use an esp8266 to poll all 4 of them.
Optimzers are not only for mitigating shadows. They also help to get the maximum out of every panel. Our panels have differences of around 15% between the worst and best panels, without any shadows. Without optimizers, the whol string would only produce as much as the worst panel. So we gain around 10% at least with optimizers behind each panel. And we see exactly which one panel has a problem if it gets damaged.
@@AndreasSpiess we would lose a lot of power if all panels on a string would limit themselves to the weakest panel. See the attached screenshot from today. Optimizers make a lot of sense. And they make the whole installation and system a LOT safer, as no high voltage can be present when the inverter is not connected. Especially for self-builders without expensive test and measuring equipment I would always recommend to use inverters. You can install a damaged panel and never know about it and just have bad performance for 30 years. ibb.co/mJdjGSW
Great Video as usual Andreas! Now my comments: 1- Getting 50% price for the energy sold to the grid is actually not bad ... I've seen contracts with Zero pay and all "payments" made with energy credits ..that is some grid operators do not offer money but electricity ... imagine you sold say 10KWH of energy to the grid ... some grid operators say , now you can use 10KWH from our energy ... specially at night ..when there is no solar ... 2- Allowing the batteries to go down to 10% is actually a big Mistake ... minimum value should be 20% and Preferably 35% ! You will kill your batteries Much sooner no matter what the battery told you if they go down to 10% charge ...
1. Energy credits are not a bad thing per se (particularly for small houses). It removes the business case for a battery. But it limits the number of solar panels mounted on roofs, which is stupid these days. 2. Huawei gave us a 10-year warranty on the battery. So I assume their 0% is not 0% of the batteries ;-)
Here in Brazil, if you have a grid tie PV system, you are not allowed (by law enforcement) to sell your excess power for money. This excess power is injected in the grid and becomes credit for future use (net metering system). Batteries for self storage in a hybrid PV system are now starting to become common, so you can charge the batteries instead of exporting power to the grid. Starting in 2023, all new grid tie PV systems will have to pay the distribution company for the use of the grid as a "virtual battery" to store the excess power exported to the grid.
@@Fernando_S That is insanely retarded. It is clearly the play of the big power producers to try to make No One to sell energy to the grid. Could you tell us something Fernando, that regulation is at the National Level or is it particular to some States or Grid operators?
@@AndreasSpiess 1- Agree. In any case it is a shame not having the possibility to have Both types of contracts so that users could have batteries or not. 2- I don't care what Huawei or any other producer "gave" you as warranty ... any Lithium based (in your case I think it is LiFePO4) battery will have at best 1000 Cycles if those cycles are from 100% to 0% ... and that is already very very optimistic in optimum discharge conditions and temperature and so on... In reality if you cycle the batteries from 100% to say 10% you will get the 1000 cycles at Best ... In actual real life conditions with temperature fluctuations, non-uniform power peaks and the like the Real number of deep cycle discharges without affecting battery capacity and performance are Less then 1000x ... and can be Much much less than that depending on usage ... Any battery producer will play with Statistics and with the fact that most users will not "push" the 1000x Deep cycles (100% to 0%) in 10 years. They count on everyday residual charge of maybe more then 40% ... so the total number of cycles expands Way more then 10 years ... away from the dreaded 10 year "warranty". So They will claim on the cases of less then 10 year battery burnout the usual ... ..warranty Void because is Battery misuse ... Again Strong advice: make that Lower charge limit be at least 20% ... better to invest in more battery capacity storage then to regret having the batteries exhausted in a very short amount of years.
@@John_Smith__ Question: On what do you base that? I looked into that and have found different numbers. There are datasheets out for different battery suppliers. For example Evium describes on one of the data sheets they get > 3500 full cycles 2.5-3.65V and back at 25°C until capacity drops to 80%. At 45° they guarantee > 1800 cycles. If you run a full cycle for 250 days a year that means you would be good for 14 years. Referenced datasheet: batteryfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EVE-280Ah-Lithium-Iron-PhosphateLiFePO4-LFP-Battery-Cell-Product-Specification.pdf There are other batteries from evlithium-com, that claim to endure 9000 cycles if you use 80% per cycle. The EVE Batteries are well respected on different forums, but you really have to double check that you get genuine cells, not fake ones. I wonder which battery systems make it possible to add self-made batteries, that are cheaper if no error ocurs.
Can't you use your Shelly 3em in your DB along with Solid State relays to limit the load on your inverter. Switch off fridges/heating when you are cooking. Or switch off the fridges when the battery level is low and it is a cold day. You could even use it to warn you if you forget a stove plate on.
I could use relays for that purpose. Fortunately, this is not needed because our battery momentarily supplies the needed electricity when we do not have enough sun. We only have to decide if we start the washing machine today or shift it to tomorrow...
Hi Andreas, nice video. I have the same battery and inverter. We do have an"off-grid" option installed so if the grid goes down it immediately disconnects from the grid and continues to feed one circuit (kitchen, computer room etc).
@@AndreasSpiess I also have the backup-box. I installed a new circuits in the house for 'critical loads' and a new row of switches and protection devices in the distribution board and a UPS for the CCTV and Computers on the Critical Load so that they do not turn off when the backup box disconnects the solar from the grid.
Andreas! Great video as always. Can you make a video on the battery life of such solar systems? Every time I talk with people in general, they say "you need to change the batteries every 5-7 years" scaring a lot of enthusiasts like me.
Most such batteries come with a 10-year warranty. So I assume they will last for at least this time. With current prices, a battery is an expense, no investment. But this might change if we believe the current energy prices...
It depends on how you cycle them. For lithium, if you use say 4kWh/day when there is no sun, and install a 5kWh pack, it probably won't even reach 5 years. In same scenario a 15kWh pack limited to cycle between 30% and 90% will have a much higher chance of reaching 10 years or more. Some battery manufacturers give actual kWh of the cells, some give a slightly limited kWh value for longer life. Some battery allow changing parameters to limit depth of charge/discharge, some are changing over the life of the pack by firmware or updates from "the cloud"..
it depends on the battery-type. Li-Ion is rather shortlived, while LiFePo4 can do much longer; also there are "DIY-solutions" (rather adventerous ones) with old forklift batteries, which are within the volt-range of the professional batteries; these led-batteries just need regular water-fillings and will do a long time for personal use... BUT - at the moment, due to everyone upgrading in the hope to circumvent the brownouts announced by swiss federal counse, costs are immensly high...
@@michaelkeller5008 I don't think li-ion is necessarily short-lived compared to lifepo, just more energy dense.. In applications where density matters (small portable devices) they are usually cycled heavily and therefore may seem short-lived. Where density and size isn't a factor, lifepo4 is the go-to, even in vehicles. Less maintenance and higher charge/discharge rates and efficiency than lead or nickel iron. Lifepo4 is getting cheaper like the panels, cells at 150-200$ per kWh but branded 48v packs with cheap BMS are 600$/kWh, which is about the same as lead. Maybe in very cold situations lead is better, or if it's free. Used lead batteries are almost always junk and no amount of tinkering will bring them back
@@michaelkeller5008 I found a flaw in lifepo4 if your upgrading from say 24v to 48v inverter and don’t check the resistance of each cell you end up with bloating batteries and maybe a shorted cell. Better to buy more cells and sell off what you have as 24v packs. Also, you cannot replace 1 bad cell unless the resistance is really really close or the new cell will fail and show as a short. Then the whole bank charges up to whatever voltage your using if your BMS is crap. BMS can’t resistance unless you spent good money. These fails were pointed out to me when I inquired to the factory where i purchased the batteries. I never had noticed there were red barcodes on the bottoms until I replaced a cell and suspected they sold me reject batteries as I never felt like I was getting the full ah worth. They always blamed my solar. I got on Skype to the CEO which took a lot of doing and he was like what???? Sent pics of each barcode and 6 weeks later new batteries. Boom! Fired employees. 32 sort of 200ah battery rejects. That would be china! Be careful.
Interesting video with similar experience to our solar setup + battery and backup gateway. I’m interested to see how you get on optimising the purchase of electricity in winter months when you cannot generate enough solar power. I’m still trying to optimise based on short range weather forecasts so that we buy enough cheap electricity overnight without buying too much and ending up sending solar generation to the grid.
Interesting! So far I have no such plans. I will have to go through winter to learn our pattern. I added a few more panels in direction south and very steep optimized for winter. Like that I hope that I do not have to buy too much electricity. Only for bad weather situations where optimization through forecasting probably also will not be interesting. But we will see. Maybe I am wrong.
Good information, great video. Surprised to learn that Switzerland has three-phase power for residential service. Here in US three-phase service is generally only used for commercial or industrial service.
I live in Brazil and here your connection to the grid depends on your power demand. It doesn't matter if it is a home or business. Up to 12-15 kW you are serviced by 1 phase, from 12-15 kW up to 25 kW you are serviced by 2 phases, and from 25 kW up to 75 kW you are serviced by 3 phases, always in low voltage, depending where you live it may be 127/220 V or 220/380 V (phase to neutral / phase to phase voltage). From 75 kW and up, you are serviced by the high power distribution grid (13,8 kV) and you must install your own transformer to step down the voltage. Also note that the high power grid operates with 3 phases in delta configuration without neutral wire, and your transformer will step down the voltage and the low voltage side is wired in star configuration with 3 phases plus neutral, and the neutral wire must be earthed. When you are serviced by 1, 2 or 3 phases in low voltage, you are always serviced by the corresponding phases plus the neutral wire in a star configuration. The earthing scheme is almost always TN-S, the neutral from the grid must be earthed upon arrival in your home.
I thought most grid-connected PV systems had a "grid-disconnect" function the disconnected from the grid when the grid goes down, and may need manual intervention to restore connection to the grid (may be automated...) At least that's how I understood the situation.
They do not disconnect. Just switch down for safety. And at least mine restarts automatically if the grid comes back. Only a few inverters offer "island" operation. But you are not alone. Most people are astonished when they learn this fact...
My setup, maybe you can duplicate: 3 phase install from energy company Shelly 3EM monitoring the connection to the energy company Shelly EM monitoring solar production All feeding Home Assistant, so I can clearly see how much I have produced and how much I have send/received to/from the grid. You can also monitor your battery from their. Very useful. I don't have a battery, but, I monitor a lot of single loads with smart plugs...
After the installation of the inverter, it provides all numbers in one interface. So I do no longer need the Shelly and I can repurpose it. Unfortunately, the space in the fuse box does not allow to mount the sensors at the wires to the load. So I have to measure at the outlets using other means.
I'd say in climates like yours heating and heat storage is far more important . So funding all sources of waste heat and collecting them and storing them for later is fundamental. You can use data to decide when to store heat and use heat. Heating costs would be double your electricity costs.. so heat pumps would be essential.
You are right. Heat is very energy intensive. Fortunately, we get heat from a collaborative wood heating plant. If not, a heat pump would be the way to go.
There is a kit available that stops your house from delivering power to the grid. Ford has electric F-150 pickup trucks with huge batteries. The truck can be used to power your house if the power is down. The kit costs somewhere around $2500 US. My ex-boyfriend moved into an older neighborhood with big old trees and overhead wires. The power went out every time there was a crack of thunder. He build a backup system using gel-cell batteries, the ones used in handicapped scooters. It was pretty funny. The entire neighborhood would be dark. He had lights and was watching TV using an antenna. He wasn't connected to the grid. He just kept the batteries charged.
Good job Andreas as well! I’m very curious to see next episode to hack the inverter when the grid goes off. Also here in Switzerland we’ll expect a lot of blackout during next seasons…
if I understand correctly about the design, that if the grid goes down, you also have 0 electricity in the house even though you have the backup battery charged full and panels producing, this seems trivial to fix with the existing inverter, since it senses grid being down and shuts itself off, why not install a relay between the grid and the house then - this would be controlled by the inverter, as soon as it senses grid going down, it opens the relay and your house is no longer connected to the grid and the inverter can feed the house, and the grid servicemen are safe to do whatever they need on the street with no risk from your panels since the house is not connected to the grid any more in the current state - having the battery seems quite pointless (without going into details of course)
@@AndreasSpiess I'm not sure where the difficulty lies (probably some sort of design limitation of the inverter I'd guess), but that is the basic setup of how it is done with 2x 100kW diesel generators we have at the facility, there is no complication whatsoever, no mysterious backup boxes, just a disconnect from the grid which allows to run the building on generators immediately, in fact, the generators start up as soon as they sense the grid down, then the input to the building is switched from grid to generators the only "complication" I can see is switching it back on to the grid and syncing the inverter, but even that is no more complicated than turning the inverter on for the first time with the grid connected automating it completely could be a bit problematic, not knowing what sort of loads there are in the house, maybe there are some induction motors switching on or something (a fridge + some sort of water pump perhaps), that the inverter might have trouble with, but then it is as simple as turning them all off (even manually) and back on 1 by 1 so not to overload the inverter when you want it to power the house and I'm assuming the inverter has the current capacity to run the house from batteries
Hello Andreas, Long time viewer here. I love your videos and the way of explaining. Thank you! I wanted to ask if there was a particular reason you stopped numbering your videos with # in the beginning of the video name? It was quite easy to search or follow a video for future references, or also to search for follow up videos from a certain point.
The main thing people "forget" is the average 24h power delivery compared to the peak wattage: in winter it's between 5 and 10% of Wc and between 25 and 35% of Wc in summer. Why? Because of low production in the morning and end of the day and because of the night (there's not a lot of sunny hours in winter). Also if you really want to exploit that in winter you need a lot of batteries to compensate for a few consecutive days of bad weather. The biggest problem is that the price you pay electricity is much higher than the price you sell it. So you really have to consume your production yourself otherwise the system will never pay for itself.
I agree with your analysis for wintertime. This is why our systems are grid-systems. I added (and will add more) panels pointed towards south and steep, optimized for winter to get more energy during the good winter days. Adding more battery capacity does not help for the bad days (unless you are a millionaire). In most cases we would not be able to charge them fully during the short days. The biggest problem in my eyes is the cheap prices for (valuable) electricity. I hope the bad behavior of monopoly electricity companies will be forbidden by governments. At least there are discussions now. Still, we will not get 100% back because only a part of our bill is for energy. Ther rest is for the usage of the grid and taxes. BTW: With the current situation our payback period shrinks like snow in the sun :-)
Nice video. Thanks Andreas. Because your utility company only pays you 50%, have you considered storing some of the excess electricity you generate in the form of hot water (in large insulated water tanks) to use for things like showering, bathing, laundry, washing dishes, and (perhaps) radiant heating? I'm imagining after your battery is fully charged your system would then "fully heat" water in large insulated water tanks, prior to selling the electricity back to your utility company.
@Andreas Spiess I see. I wasn't thinking about renewable energy; I was thinking about you spending less money for power. Selling electricity for 50% of what you pay for it made me think that it would be more cost-effective for you to heat water and then store it in hot water tanks rather than sell that electricity to your electric company. If you get heat (I guess, perhaps, in the form of hot water) at a price that is 75% or less of what you pay for electricity, the it's probably more sensible to sell your excess electricity back to your electric company. To me, renewable energy is a boring topic because wind and solar are so cheap-and projected to keep becoming significantly cheaper- that no other form of energy seems likely to be able to generally compete with them. The incumbent power producers are scrambling to stay in business for as long as they can. Here in California, our terrible governor and state legislature just handed a huge "subsidy" (gift) to Diablo Canyon Power Plant of 1 billion US dollars so that it could operate for up to another 20 years. It’s absurd, but it's the way politics work in the USA: companies pay what are tantamount to “legal bribes” to obtain favorable legislation. Here’s an “article” that looks like it was written by nuclear power interests… Diablo Canyon extension and renewables investment is a win for climate action and a win for California www.catf.us/2022/09/diablo-canyon-extension-win-climate-action-win-california/ You were just on Route 66. Perhaps, just maybe, you noticed that here in the Southwest (I live in Los Angeles, California) we have this thing called a d-e-s-e-r-t. We also currently import electricity from many other states including as far away as Wyoming which has some excellent areas for wind generators. We obviously don’t need nuclear power. But the executives at Diablo Canyon Power Plant are probably very reluctant to, for example, get jobs flipping hamburgers at McDonalds. Therefore, I suppose they are probably spending money like drunken sailors: not on women, but on politicians.
another project... here in the uk stuart pittaway (creator of diybms) has embarked on a journey to connect his solar pv system to uk grid. and make his own battery.i think it is another helpful example in a diversity of solar pv systems. if interested please also check out his new video series here on youtube. many thanks interestingly he decided not to go with the huweii (although technically a good option) because... it seems to require also buying into the proprietary huweii ecosystem with a matching battery. and he very much wants to construct his own battery. for connected on grid under the lower power 16a (3kw) category. which is less regulated / easier to certify for on grid over here in our country. so therefore i am also looking forwards to seeing what extent anybody is able hack the drm on those new huweii systems protocoll. if it is merely only for data collection. or if it can be anything more than that, to the level of impersonating (or simulating) a real huweii battery pack. kindda interesting subject. it also reminds me of the proprietary nature of certain other systems too. like for the enphase stuff etc. not sure how much that matters in specific circumstances. just being curious
Mein lieber Andreas, leider ist meine Angst eines Blitzes bereits eingetreten, gestern hat es geknallt und 2 Panels sind ausgestiegen die am Rand, ja die Tropen sind eben unberechenbar. Zum Glück blieb der Inverter verschont. GRÜSSE THOMAS
There are some Hybrid inverters that people use in Brasil (from EPEVER, MUST, etc) they switch to battery automatically and disconnect from the grid, but I think they do not send energy back to the grid. It would be good if there was a way to switch the solar panels energy in a ON-GRID system to this hybrid Inverter-controller, this way in a grid power down the panels would be in like in a OFF-GRID system the big issue would be switching 800V, it is a ""big men"" job. That what I used to hear when I studied Electronic and there was also an Electrotecnic (High Power) course, the difference of the two is: The Electronic receive many electric shocks in his work, the Electrician only receives ONE!
Victron has a product line that does that. even double relais for failsafe separation. I have 2 concerns and thus I look for someone to tell me what to do: - Regulations: I don't know them and if I don't follow them I get trouble. I dont want to make experiments and then face an inspector of my power company telling me that I must throw everything out. - Safety If I don't change my Fuse box I fear to get in problems. All normal LS Line safety switches in it need 5x the rated current to instantly brake the connection. No reasonable Inverter can provide such grade of short circuit current. That may or may not be a problem. Again fear of an inspector telling me to throw out everything.
Looking fwd to the hunting down what is adding up to 12KWh (or is it KWd, d as in day) during summertime. I am doing that at the moment. It is frustrating to know that we, a family of 3, use like 9KW per day. 22 year old Liebherr fridge, 1.3KW, other Zanussi freezer 1KW, .... . It keeps adding up. Still hunting down like 3KW somewhere :-( . To measure I use these Tuya smartswitches with power metering, but you can't reset the values on the app to start from scratch. Luckily I also have them in home assistant so I can see what happens. So very interested on how you will measure and what values you get. Still very interested what will happen during the not so nice days. Here in the Benelux we had kind of a fantastic couple of solar months. Yesterday was our first crappy rain and no sun day. I measured the 140 Watt worth of panels to be outputting like 3 Watt.
I will do a video on how I hunt the "ratholes". So far my finding is that the word "and" (many different devices) uses most of energy. This will limit the savings without losing too much comfort, I fear. We already had two days where we had to buy electricity. But I am curious how it will behave during winter. I already added 4 panels direction south with a steep angle for winter...
You're right to think hard about where those kWh are going. Our 2-person family uses 6kWh per day. We are at home all day. Changing the 20 year old fridge/freezer saved us lots of energy.
Hi Andreas! There is a company in Australia that has had the ability to print solar panels for 15 years now and we still do not see this technology. I was thinking... Perovskite is .25 cents per square foot and 267% more efficient than regular silicon based panels. If we were to get an older printer where you can still refill the cartridges and create a circuitry diagram that activates each color (red,blue,green,black) using the hexidecimal colors in a program like paintbrush then inject the chemicals for the panel and print them onto the perovskite sheets we could make high efficiency solar panels very easily and then give away the plans to end the energy crisis.You would only need the list of chemicals to inject into the printer cartridges or connect tubes to them from a larger container and you could automate the printing of solar panels using an old printer. Also if you needed a layer of carbon you could use possibly carbon paper... if you needed to make the ink be conductive perhaps dry out some nanosilver chemical and mix it or something of that sort then laminate it at first to test and use some copper strips to connect? Do you think this if it was made public would help end the energy crisis and help the environment? I was hoping you might find it interesting that the australian technology they have not been widely distributing for useage uses ink to print the chemicals. The perovskite sheets recently somehow were able to be more efficient over long periods of time giving them a higher lifetime. I am not certain of the 267% efficiency increase but a video I recently watched has that as the thumbnail. Anyway, regardless of whether it is perovskite used, I proposed this idea as a hacking idea for the next defcon conference in case they would find it interesting to let the little hacker kids try to figure it out but since you are a master electrical engineer I was thinking you might find it fun so the world doesnt have to wait another year (defcon recently ended and they never replied to my email)... and since you already have the grid figured out, if you figured out how to print your own panels in the most efficient way and shared it, you could be a hero if you made it reasonable for normal people to accomplish. I am not saying you are not normal. I am saying you are a master of what you do and most people cannot accomplish what you can. Thank you if you would please consider my idea. Please reply and let me know what you think of it. I am trying to help the world with the idea but I am not good at electronics. I am also sorry I do not know the lifetime of perovskite sheets or whether merely laminating the cells with plastic would work etc but I thought you might find it a great idea to help humanity with the energy crisis. By the way, I have not commented for a long time as I shut down my channel and stopped using youtube for a long time. Would you be willing to take a donation to attempt to create the plans for making a regular printer to print the solar panels ? I would not be earning anything from it, I want to help to make the plans public.
Perovskite is a well-known alternative to silicone (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell ). There is hope it will replace the current technology. But not all problems are solved, particularly as you state, the lifespan. Quote: "As of 2021 there is a little manufacturing in Poland and China,[215] but large-scale deployment is held back by the instability and shorter lifespan". A similar invention is the "Grätzel Cell" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell ) which was very promising but so far did not make it to mass production. Inventing something and bringing it to mass-production seem to be different things. So let's hope we get good news from the Perovskite front in the near future.
@@AndreasSpiess what about repurposing old printers to print regular silicon versions as I think there are only a few chemicals involved...? do you think it is a feasible idea for a bunch of hacker kids to try it or anyone to try? Even low efficiency solar cells being able to be printed might be useful
Could you maybe share a little bit about the administrative process? For example, did you connect the inverter to the grid yourself, or did someone 'official' have to do this and/or did you have to wait for approval before connecting? I'm in Basel-Land too and wondering whether to DIY a PV system because the waiting times are so long for companies to come and do it.
All installations to the grid have to be done by a certified electrician (as usual). And a specialist had to come and approve the overall installation. All was managed by Sebastian. He had to fill out a lengthy form...
Nice video Andreas, as always. One more thing to underline. Your inverter is producing the same amount of power on all phases because it is unable to close the current of unbalanced loads over neutral. I am using the same inverter and I found this. Even the connection is 3 phases 4 wires on neutral it is not drawing any current. All unbalanced loads has to be closed by the grid neutral connection. Even you have the back-up box you should know that in island mode it will became an single phase inverter able to power only some single phase loads. We can discuss more about this issue that is not open declared but this inverter as many transformer less inverters are not able to close unbalanced currents over neutral because they are using only three switching bridges . I am using the new version of Shelly 3EM software with neutral current transducer and any current goes on inverter neutral.
Interesting aspect about neutral! I know that my inverter only provides one Phase backup. But I hope to connect this line to all three phases in parallel. Most of our loads are single phase. With this trick I hope to get all lights on in off-grid. Needs an additional automatic switch.
@@AndreasSpiess I am thinking to do the same but I am not sure that the power output will be the same but reduced to on third. In island mode it is connecting L2 to neutral and earth. That is why it is becoming a single phase inverter with two switching bridges. And the bridge for L3 will not be used anymore. So maybe the power is reduced. Somewhere in the answer is said that for on/off grid in Germany only Victron inverter are allowed . That is because the Victron are with triangle/star transformer and able to use unbalanced loads. It looks that we are working in the same direction ;). Also I am interested in hacking the modbus of the inverter battery network and making a new kind of back-up box. BTW other way to close neutral currents is by two capacitors in series providing a AC half voltage divider on the DC connection of the bridges. And the DC bus bar is accessible on the battery connection of the inverter where are 620VDC.
@@paullacatus8975 My inverter outputs 3.3kVA (one-third as you mentioned) in backup operation. Which is way too much for such a situation where we do not cook or bake... We looked at the Backup box. It seems to have only needed parts. Modbus is unnecessary for the backup mode; only one digital input switches the inverter into backup mode. The backup box does the timing for that. It also has a double breaker to make sure the grid really is off. I will make a video about how I read the Modbus using node-red
@@AndreasSpiess You are using Modbus RTU or Modbus TCP ? You can also write some registers to apply some settings as power limit or reactive power control ? It will be interesting to show a schematic diagram as shown inside of back-up box and the timings. For me the back-up box looks to expensive for what it contains and can not power back all three phases as you said. I think to design another back-up box.
@@paullacatus8975 I use ModbusTCP.. The Backup Box is quite expensive. But you cannot reduce a lot of parts because it has many functions. Its quality is quite good. Also the switches. I hope to add one automatic switch to connect the single-phase backup power to all three phases. I would be interested if you can create one which is considerably cheaper.
A further improvement in self-consumption can be achieved if, when using a heat pump for heating and hot water preparation, surplus energy is used to charge the hot water boiler. With heat pumps the temperature is often around 55°C and with surplus energy it can be heated up to around 80°C. This means that the heat pump has to be charged at night. This means that the heat pump has to reheat less often during the night. In Switzerland this can make sense, because the yield per kWh with about 6.5 cents differs massively compared to 30 cents with the purchase. The market offers various components to integrate this correctly or to integrate a (bidirectional?) car charging station. Andreas: In your situation with wood related heating system it still may make sense as wood is in these days getting more and more expensive 🤪
I agree, heating pumps are efficient. With solar, energy at night is precious, though. You are right with the increasing prices for wood. But we have a remote heating plant, and I got the pricing for next year: it increases around 3cents/kWh. Wood is just one part of the pricing.
Andreas, I have learned so many things from you and I will continue learning. Thank you so much! Two questions A) is it possible with a proper change in the inverters wiring to make it work off grid? For example, if you could disconnect it off the grid and feed its ac input by a small ups to cheat its protection mechanism. Would that work ? (For moments of blackout, when you need to use some power ) B) I didn’t understand the wiring at around 11:15. Is the blue line also connected at the frame of each panel or it just pass along each panel?
1. You must not hamper with the inverter. It is illegal in most countries. But I will show how I solved the problem. 2. The blue line is only connected to the last panel.
Thank you for the great video! I'm also planning a pv for my house in east switzerland with huawei sun2000 and luna2000 but the supply chain issues are really frustrating. I already have the inverter, power meter and the battery modules. But the optimizers, the backup box and the battery control module are not coming soon. Maybe you know a good supplier? Did you know that you are not able to load the battery if you have optimizers? It's not a bug, it's a feature. The optimizers cut the voltage to zero if the inverter has no mains. If your house is on fire and the firefighers cut the mains power it's exactly what you want but in the off grid mode this means you can only use the remaining power of the battery even if the sun is shining.
I did not know about the optimizers. Currently I experiment with a few of them (I got them on ebay) and I prepared a video about them. In most cases they are not very useful and with your information they become more and more a pain in the a... My backup box also came late and still is not connected.
It may be interesting to know if the Shelly would be able to deliver all nine (or 18) values for current power (L1-L3), energy delivery integral (L1-L3) and consumption integral (L1-L3), (and then the same for reactive power) not only total power and energy. I have one here but not installed yet. Also Tasmota does not seem to be available for it (yet). If Tasmota did not do it it would be just one feature request away ;)
My problem is the place of the current sensors. They are now at the wrong place (towards the grid, as I have shown in the drawing). If moved to the load side, they would show precise values. But this is mechanically hard in my crowded fuse box :-(
Interesting that you're not allowed to have backup power, I guess it's because of the 3 phases requiring the grid to balance? In Belgium you can have it continue supplying power to your home. I assume they put an electric breaker to prevent feeding back to the grid in those cases?
Es scheint, die ganze Welt freut sich, daß ANDREAS endlich dieses so wichtige und wunderbare Thema aufnimmt. Ich war so gefesselt von dem Video, daß ich vergessen hatte , meinen FIAT500E an die WALLBOX anzuschließen - ist jetzt aber nachgeholt. Das war für mich die tollste Erfahrung - meine eigene Tankstelle auf dem Dach. In Zeiten, wo die Spritpreise unkontrolliert explodieren ist das E-Auto ein unverzichtbarer Bestandteil der SOLAR-Anlage . In Deutschland zahlen wir 32 Cent pro kWh und bekommen nur 8 Cent vom EVU für den eingespeisten Strom - also 25 % . (Stand letztes Jahr ) . Also gilt - möglichst viel Strom selbst verbrauchen . Die stationären Batterien der Solaranlage sind - wenn die Sonne es gut meint - um 10h bereits auf 100 % und somit freut sich das EVU auf den günstigen Strom, den es mit 300 % Aufschlag weiterverkaufen kann. Mit dem E-Auto kann man den ganzen Tagesüberschuss aufnehmen .( rollende Batterie ) . Aber nicht vergessen - bei aller Begeisterung im Sommer - in unseren Breiten nutzt die SOLARENERGIE im Winter so gut , wie nichts . Es ist, als hättest du nichts auf dem Dach !!!! Leider wird dieser doch so einfache Zusammenhang von Kinderbuchautoren und Trampolinspringer:innen offenbar nicht verstanden.
Das Thema wurde erst in den letzten Monaten wirklich interessant :-( Ich hatte lange gewartet weil ich fürchtete dass wir das Flachdach beschädigen würden. Bis jetzt ist es immer noch dicht... Betreffend e-Autos: Gut wird deines tagsüber geladen. Die meisten kaufen sich eine Wallbox damit sie ihr Auto nachts laden können. Nicht sehr intelligent... Ich bin ebenfalls auf den Winter gespannt. Einstweilen habe ich zusätzlich 4 Panels Richtung Süden in steilem Winkel montiert. Die sollten wenigstens in den guten Tagen Energie liefern. Und dann bin ich am Messen was wieviel Strom braucht. Für mich war der finanzielle Aspekt nie sehr wichtig weil ich damit rechne dass Strom über die nächsten Jahre teurer wird. Im Moment schmilzt unsere Payback Periode wie Schnee in der Sonne. Auch wenn wir nur e-Bikes laden ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess Über 15k Aufrufe jetzt schon am Montag morgen - du hast das richtige Thema zur richtigen Zeit gebracht. Was mich als Ingenieur an unserer SOLARANLAGE besonders reizt ist die OPTIMIERUNGSAUFGABE und das Erweitern der Systemgrenze - dafür sind wir ausgebildet . Glücklicherweise haben wir ein vernünftig gedämmtes Haus mit Fußbodenheizung, sodaß mit einem simplen HEIZSTAB im Schichtspeicher auch eine Menge Heizenergie ( zumindest Warmwasser ) vom Dach zugesteuert werden kann . Die Ereignisse überschlagen sich ja zur Zeit - Die Gefahr eines BLACKOUT war vor einem Jahr noch nicht wirklich gegeben - für den schlimmen Fall "WARMOUT" ( schlicht kein Gas mehr ) gibt es noch nicht mal ein Wort . Die notwendigen Veränderungen und Nachrüstungen müssen gut durchdacht sein - im Moment ist mein Favorit ein kleines Diesel-Notstromaggregat ( Drehstrom ), welches auch für einige Tage die Stromversorgung des Hauses übernehmen kann und über den Heizstab zwar nicht das Haus bei Wintertemperaturen heizen kann - was aber verhindert, dass das Wassersystem einfriert und die komplette Heizung zerstört. Falls du interessiert bist , an einem persönlichen Ideenaustausch hier meine Adresse bs.fortdefrance@gmail.com Vor allem würde ich dir gerne Beispiele aus unseren Grafiken schicken, die ausgezeichnet die gesamten Verhältnisse und das Zusammenwirken von Stromerzeugung, Speicherung und Verbrauch aufzeigen. An der Statistik von gestern konnte man schon den Winter vorwegnehmen : Die Anlage mit peak 6,6 kW brachte bei Sonnenschein über 5,5 kW , wenn jedoch Wolken aufzogen und der Regen einsetzte waren es noch 700 Watt. .
Hi andreas probably you already know but the solardedge inverters provide a fast tcp-modbus interface if you want to read all the interesting data for some projects.
I have a transfer switch between grid and inverter. My inverter is not Grid tie but has an AC input for charging battery from the grid. When I switch from grid to inverter there is a physical barrier to the grid and the house And inverter. Inverter is wired on the normal power side so it stays switched over as long as the inverter is on. Batteries go down it switched auto to the grid. I tried making a switch with some SSR switches but they don’t really hold back the grid when switched off then kablewy went my inverter. Powerjack fixed it for free. Sent me a big box of parts.
As showed in the video I have a backup box that should include all needed relays to switch off the grid when it is down. They use standard relays, not SSRs...
@@AndreasSpiess I abandoned the SSR idea permanently some time ago. Which is better? 36 volt panels in series double for 72 volts or triple for 108 volts. I went with 108 volts. Any higher would have pushed my controller into hyper Voc.
Good work Andreas. If you want to access to Huawey Cloud data, data in and out the grid, using the API instead of using motbus, I can share a shell script to do so.
I found this video really useful and very interesting Andreas. Thank you so much. I’m sure you have documented it somewhere, but can please remind me how many sq metres of solar panels you have on your roof?
Hallo Andreas, formerly from Basel region too, I have installed the Huawei SUN2000-10-KTL-M1 with Luna 2000 at 15kWh. Battery on a 9.75kWp rooftop system in Bangkok in January. For normal operation I am very happy but the 3ph backup system only allows for 2.5kW backup power whereas the batteries could provide 5kW. Would I have known/ realized this earlier I would have bought 2 single phase 5kW units connected on only 2 out of the 3 phases because those 5kW /1 ph inverters can feed 5kW in backup mode. With the energy meter, the battery / grid feed in mode could be managed as well as with the 3ph. Inverter.. keen to see on how you further pull data / interconnect into a nice power management with UPS etc..
I knew about the backup power limitation. I anyway will not cook or bake in an off-grid situation (to preserve my battery). So it is more than enough power. But it might be different in your situation.
@@AndreasSpiess I wonder how would solar water heaters fare at your location. They should work fairly well if you have any sun light. There might be an issue with finding room to place them... maybe behind the chimneys?
@@ИванСнежков-з9й You are right. My father had such a heater for nearly 30 years. 2 square meters produced the needed hot water during the extended summer.
I have heard that some brands of optimizers make a lot of RF noise . Did you have a chance to notice any before you removed it ? Nice job on the setup and monitoring. I am all off grid here and this spring got 15 kwh worth of lithium to replace lead acid. In late winter I did my record solar production of making 30 kwh but I had to run electric heat , heat water, and do a lot of electric cooking to use up that much power. At that time of year the PV was cold making them more efficient , the sun more bright with less humidity, and the PV on my ground mount was at perfect angle to the sun to maximize everything. I also use grafana that gets data from my solar controller and some inexpensive PZEM-016 for AC and PZEM 017 for DC running into tasmoda esp32 which supports the pzem without any extra tinkering. Can't you put some AC monitor on different parts of your wiring and then use Grafana to subtract or add to get the different power consumptions from load or to grid ?
We had trouble with Solaredge optimizers here in Switzerland. So far I did not see RF issues with my installation. But I have a high noise level anyway. Yes, I could shift the current sensors. But unfortunately, I do not have a lot of space in my crowded fuse box...
Victron Energy inverters have the ability to act as a UPS - they have input for grid, output for your house and input for PV. If the grid goes down, they keep working - downside, you need one per phase to my knowledge, there is not 3-phase victron energy inverter
I heard about these inverters but did not check it out. When I planned my system, off grid was no needed option. Only with the recent situation in Europe it became more important :-(
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Unsere PV-Anlage liefert zwar nur 3.6 kWp und die Stützbatterie speichert 2 kWh - und dennoch kann ich die Begeisterung von Andreas nachvollziehen. Auch gut zwei Jahre nach Inbetriebnahme beobachte ich auf der App fast täglich die gelieferte Leistung und freue mich, wenn wir mit Solarstrom (ab-)waschen können und auch abends noch etwas fürs Fernsehen beigesteuert wird.
Die ganze Familie hat beim Aufbau der PV-Anlage geholfen und wir haben viel gelernt.
Danke für diesen Kommentar. Ja, es begeistert schon, eine solche Anlage. Und es beruhigt ein wenig wenn man die News hört...
Habe meins seit einem Jahr, ich konnte bis jetzt ca. 75% der normalen Rechnung sparen. 10 kWp Solar und 10 kWh Batterie. Ich bin auch ganz glücklich darüber.
@@AndreasSpiess Hier das gleiche, sprich von 2 kWp in 2018 auf nun 16,5 kWp mit 8 kWh LFP Speicher sowie e-GOLF und Wärmepumpe fürs Warmwasser, nur das Heizen bleibt noch auf Öl bzw. wird reduziert durch Umstellung auf Klimaanalge zum Heizen der 3 wichtigsten Räume (sind schon 100 qm).
Mit dem Holzofen als Heizungsunterstützung geht der Ölverbrauch runter auf unter 1000 Liter p.a.
Schön zu sehen, daß du, wie es sich gehört, mit dem Wichtigsten anfängst und uns informierst, daß eure Community gesunden Zuwachs bekommen hat.
Genau. First things first!
I don't know if you intended to phrase it this way, but I burst out laughing when you said you left us before the summer with unconnected panels, a pregnant neighbour,.... 🤣
hahah me too
No intention. Just a foreign language...
Absolut, es klang so als wäre die schwangere Nachbarin eine Folge eures Arbeitstages 🤣
Happy to live in Latvia. We have waaaay less biurocracy and my 5kw system costed me around 5k€ and it produced energy for 2 winter months in one summer month. Fortunately, we still have neto tariff scheme where we use grid as storage.
Maybe your wages are also lower ;-) At least that is what I thought when I visited your beautiful country.
@@AndreasSpiess you are 100% right there. Our wages differ about 3-5 times and sometimes more. Still, things like cars, computers and many things here cost the same. Even inverters are more or less the same price. Thanks you for kind words! Switzerland is also enormously beatiful, clean and tidy country with superb people.
You can change the currency on the company-level only. So if you have done the registration of your plant in FusionSolar completely by yourself (not involving an official installer) and therefore you had to register yourself as an installer as well, then you can set / change it on your own as well. You can find it in System --> Company Management --> Company info (in the FusionSolar WebUI). If the registration has been done by someone else (i.e. an official installer) then you may ask them to change the currency.
Worked. Thank you for the hint!
Great work, Andreas. Your neighbors are lucky to have you living there.
And I was glad they joined the effort ;-)
I looked into solar DIY myself. I have the technical skill, but the regulatory side is just a nightmare - it's all geared towards large professional installations for people who have training in how to get everything properly certified and code-compliant, and how to fill out the multiple pages of complicated forms you need to notify the grid operator. The cost of compliance and paperwork and getting it all signed off by someone with the appropriate certifications is an acceptable overhead when you're building a 10KW installation - but for my planned little 300W hobby-scale system, which is as many panels as my tiny house can fit, the cost of getting someone to sign off and do the paperwork would be more than the cost of all the components put together.
UK electrical law is based upon the principle that home-owners should be kept far, far away from anything to do with the electrics, because most of them greatly overestimate their knowledge and shouldn't be trusted to hold a screwdriver. This is a good assumption - my dad and I certainly did some horrific bodgery in years past! But it's frustrating for me now as a hobbyist-engineer. I have the knowledge to make everything safe, but no way to legally prove I have that knowledge without spending piles of money on training and certification.
Would it be an easier option to use a hybrid inverter that does not export anything to the grid? Some are able to run without batteries and have the smarts to use the panels directly and augment from the grid if your load is more than available sun/solar, if at some point you can justify a battery, performance is improved again....i.e. you would have battery backup, which could be a valuable option this Winter for you....we in Australia seem to be going down the same toilet...i.e. shutting down our reliable power sources, although a year or two behind you guys. I don't consider which is cheaper anymore, instead, Do I want reliable power or not?
You can do it all yourself in the UK. I did my 1.28kw myself and registered it with the DNO. Which for me is Power Networks. Paper work is a pain but stay under 3.6kw and its not too bad. Look up a company called pluginsolar got my kit from them. But the install manuals can be dowloaded and it talks you through the DNO paper work. Just put in a inverter and battery my self that DNO paper work was more of a pain. Can offer advice if you need it. NOTE You wont have an MCS microgeneration compliance certificate so cannot be paid to feed back to grid. But if you are planning to use it all that should not be a problem. A lot cheaper as well.
Maybe for a 300W system you could just treat it as a 12V caravan installation. Would that still require approvals?
I hope that these laws will be eased in the future because of the current situation. Here, Sebastian did the paperwork (it only took him a few hours because he does it all the time). But the installation towards the grid had to be done by a proper electrician (I also own an EE degree ;-)
Grid tie inverters are a waste of of money and useless. You need a hybrid inverter. With a hybrid inverter you can install it in such a way that the power company will never know that you have a solar system. The hybrid inverter only takes extra power from the grid as needed.
I have an SMA grid tie inverter collecting dust in my Garage now for the last 4.5 years since I changed to a hybrid inverter.
Also you need at least 30kW of batteries. preferably 60Kw or more. I have 30kW but for a USA house it is not enough.
Hi Andreas, and thank you for all your educational videos.
I'm currently undertaking my own solar setup, and its nice to see that someone like you doesn't find it easy either. The government regulations, the paperwork, the shortcomings of grid tied inverters, etc. My panels have been installed for over a month with the inverter turned off, while I'm just waiting for the government.
At least seeing your production graphs inspires me to battle on.
We switched our inverter on without permission. We just got a reproof ;-)
In the US, household is one phase 240v split to 120v. We are fortunate to have net metering (100% credit). Outback Skybox inverter with 14kWh batteries. When grid is down, batteries power house and no power fed to grid (for safety).
Net metering is cool. Like that you do not need a battery if you do not strive for autarky. Here we still have cheaper electricity during night. So net metering would easily be possible for the providers. However, I think this will change with the installation of many solar panels. Then electricity will be more valuable (expensive?) during night.
So convent that a neighbour and you have similar systems. It has, and will continue to offer A|B learning opportunities. This a very pragmatic and informative series. :)
You are right. All of us already did some improvements by learning from each other :-)
A couple things to add... I worked for an inverter company over ten years ago. Another reason that the inverter needs to disconnect besides 2 reasons you said is that when inverter is connected to the grid, the AC currents which it produces follows the the grid. When the grids goes off, the inveter has to create a fake frequency like a UPS (all inveters have oscillators but they sync with the grid). When the grid comes back, if inverter isn't disconnected, there is an unknown phase shift between grid and inveter. Since the grid is very powerful, its current will burn you inverter and your wirings.
Another thing to say is what is the optimum battery capacity which you need? Definitely you are buying more electricity in winter. You got locky to have your solar working in pick of summer with a lot of sun.
I agree with your remark on synchronization!
We use between 10-15kWh a day (10 in summer). This is why I decided for a 10kW battery. It covered us till end of Cctober. Now we do not get enough sun to charge it fully. So a bigger battery does not make sense for me.
@@AndreasSpiess but does it make sense to buy the electricity after midnight when electricity is cheaper to charge your batteries and use the batteries when electricity is more expensive during the fall and winter?
@@bayareapianist The price difference is too small for me (I lose energy while charging and discharging the battery). And it would disturb my statistics ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess 3} you want to keep your 98% efficiency!
Excellent information for those keen on greener world!
Glad it was helpful!
I am currently developing a completely new Inverter and after that a battery charger. I also got granted already a sponsorship for these two projects.
The things which we should know beforehand, are many, and most are of simple entity. One is particularly important: even though batteries may have low charge, important appliances should be able to run nevertheless. Thus, I implement brown-out generation, which can be enabled manually, although not suggested. This feature can be life saving.
You are right. I tried to find out the consumption of all devices in our home to establish rules for a blackout. In addition, I purchased a USV for my PC and network which enables me to shut down the PC safely.
The next thing is a display in our kitchen (the most frequent visited room in our home) to show the current situation (production, load, and battery level).
In VietNam, in high population areas, we have full featured meters controlled through WiFi controllers connected via the cell network to the grid operator.
Your series is very thought-provoking. Some grid operators are penalising "home generators" by imposing grid fees for grid availability EVEN IF THERE IS NO GRID CONNECTION to the premises!!!!!
It seems to me that some strange behavior exists in your country ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess These charges are being made in some US states as well.
Andreas, on my installation I use SUN2000 5KTL- L1 +PCS+ 5KWh Battery on each phase. (because Huawei 3ph inverter only could supply backup on 1ph) I add ATS to isolate my house and grid, and add relay to grid side to send GRID OFF signal (ground DI) to trigger inverter to go offgrid.
Thank you for your info. I hope to be capable to feed all three phases from the 1-phase outlet. But of course, only 240V, not 400V.
The backup box showed in the video should do the timing for the DI input...
The optimizer will be needed for sure in the Winter !!!! shadows are bigger in the winter because the sun is lower ion the sky.
I prepared a video about optimizers. You probably will be astonished on what I found out...
although i know i would never be able to do something like this because i live in a apartment but i still watched it
You never know. Maybe a friend asks you for your opinion ;-)
Welcome back Anreas. I trust your road trip was enjoyable, and that you come back rested.
I'm following your experiences with PV with great interest, especially the leucocratic planning and utility issues as we have similar rules and requirements where I am. So far it does not look to be viable in my particular circumstances, even a small scale installation to power one small part of the house. I look forward to how you deal with the grid interruption problem as it seems to have been overlooked by many reviewers and advocates of home solar.
So far we were not concerned by grid-down situation in Europe. These discussions only started a few months ago. That is probably the reason for the low knowledge.
Answering your question, I have a GivEnergy system (UK) and it also seems to show a delay in switching with varying loads. Small amounts are imported from the grid when the battery is well charged, also small amounts are sometimes exported from the battery when house loads change (the load changes are well within the system's capacity when this happens). They are very small amounts and are negligible in cost terms but annoying from an engineer's point of view.
Thank you. So this seem to be a common system.
Thank you so much for this video, some true nuggets of revelation here, for me particularly about the inverters and that high voltage batteries exists. Before I make any decisions about my future solar installation I will eagerly await your findings of the winter months. But I can honestly say that this series is already a must watch for anyone thinking about solar.
Thank you for your kind words! I am eager to see the performance of my PV plant in winter, too!
Thanks for the report! Installing a new PV system these days, it is wise to selsct a system which also supports off grid capability - in my opinion.
You are right. A few months ago, nearly nobody in Switzerland would have spent a Swiss Franc for an off-grid feature. Now everybody talks about it. Still, I hope we will avoid a blackout.
Especially with the exorbitant price of those proprietary batteries, I imagine if/when grid power goes out there will be some very unhappy stakeholders in the building..
@@AndreasSpiess I started theoretical preparations in 2021. German Bundesrechnungshof caculated (and published Apri 2021) that Germany will get energy trouble starting in 2022. And after the last election, I started acting.
Switzerland started early to prepare the population for controlled brownouts.
@@AndreasSpiess the blackout will be avoided, too many 2big2fails in CH (like axpo - what could have been done with the 4mrd francs. imagine the PV-setups build with that money, axpo'd become useless instantly)... BUT we'll have brownouts, Sommaruga already announced THAT (4h power, 4 hours not, 4 hours power), and all the PV-owners will ...have a very bad awakening...
Welcome back Andreas, hope your holidays were fun…..
Yes, they were fun. And quite productive as you saw in the video ;-)
I have Victron Multiplus-II and you can also set this "Grid Setpoint" which sets the watts pulled from grid, usually setting it to 50W to avoid undershooting and feeding power back into the grid.
I assume this is done by my strategy. If the battery is empty I will need all power from the grid.
Looking forward to the upcoming episodes. I have just put up a 6.6 kw setup using a growatt inverter with battery
Cool. These days it creates a bit peace of mind…
what you need is an hybrid inverter. the grid is fed into it, and it decides where the energy goes. and let you use your solar energy even if the grid is down.
You are right, I could have bought an off grid capable inverter.
The chap on the The EV Puzzle channel went for Victron/Pylontech system as he said it had the fastest response times to changing PV/load.
Very informative and clearly presented Andreas. Here in the UK I am on the most generous FIT scheme as my 3.6kW system was installed 10 years ago. The amounts increase by inflation each year. This year I get 60.23p per kWh generated but only 4.25p exported. The news today is that the government is discussing a scheme to pay people c50p kWh for using less energy in peak hours (how do they measure what is less!).
I've been looking at battery storage (should have installed many years ago). Now prices have gone up 50% this year and there are major supply issues. Meanwhile I have built my own energy management system to divert excess energy to heat hot water. I decided not to fix clamps. Instead I have installed a consumption meter with S0 pulse output and changed the PV generation meter to a S0 output model. 1 pulse per 1W. The Smart meter already produces S0 purchase output (but not Export but I can calculate this).
All pulses feed into an Arduino Nano and then the counts passed every x mins to a Raspberry Pi Zero. The Purchase pulses are relayed to a SolarLog that I had installed originally. The Pi controls the immersion element via MQTT and Zigbee. Stats are also sent via MQTT. I've plans to use InfluxDB & Grafana. Alert messages are sent by SMS/email/Telegram. I have built a web front end to monitor and adjust config values. It's taken a long time to build and develop. Maybe I should have bought an off-the-shelf system (OTSS) but at least it meets my requirements. Many OTSS are closed systems.
The Zigbee immersion switch is on/off but I would like one that is variable by value but I've need seen such a device. Do you have any ideas?
I think you were early with your installation. Back then these integrated inverter/battery systems were not available. This is the usual way where an industry learns. But you were able to get decent monitoring anyway!
Today it did not make sense to build the inverter/battery system myself, also because I wanted a high volt one and do not like to work with those voltages.
@@AndreasSpiess Just to be clear, I installed PV with SolarLog monitoring 10 years ago, not PV/battery. Now trying to do "catch up" with retrofitting batteries but supply issues and inflated costs.
I look forward to the MODBUS video. My small setup collects data via MODBUS from my charge controller using Tasmota firmware on an ESP8266. That sends the data out as MQTT to Home Assistant.
I use TCP Modbus which is probably different to the one you use...
@@AndreasSpiess If I understand correctly it's a different transport layer but essentially the same beyond that. I bet your video will be interesting and useful!
Looking forward to the next video on NodeRed integration. I have the same inverter system and already run nodered but want to make sure my boiler doesn't turn on unless my inverter is producing enough power to supply it without using the grid. Boiler is connected via a Sonoff switch re-flashed with Tasmota, just using Tasmota timres for now.
That should be easy...
Great video! I've looking forward to more info on the design of your system. I hope your Harley trip was a pleasant one.
Indeed, the trip was very pleasant :-)
Gratuliere Dir Andrés, perfektes timing fuer PV Anlage. Ich haber eine DIY Anlage seit 2008, aber ohne Rückspeisung, dafür ist die Bürokratie in Mexiko zu umständlich, seit neuem mit Lizium Batterien. Das öffentliche Netz fällt oft aus, aber der Inverter darf weiterlaufen, er ist ja autonom und so haben wir immer Strom. Problem #1 die Blitzeinschläge. Viel von meinem Knowhow habe ich von Ihren Videos, Dank sei dafür. Grüsse aus dem Süden von México
Das mit den Netzausfällen war bis jetzt in der Schweiz kein Thema. Nun scheint es zumindest hypothetisch wahr zu werden... Näher am Äquator ist der Sommer-Winter Unterschied kleiner und so eine Autarkie einfacher zu erreichen. Hier werden wir sicher während 2 Monaten zu wenig Strom generieren. Mal sehen wie wir durch den Winter kommen...
Blitzschläge sind hier kein grosses Thema. In besiedeltem Gebiet hat er viele andere Möglichkeiten zum einschlagen ;-)
awesome presentation with very useful details, looking forward to your next episode
Glad you liked it!
Now you need a wind turbine to get through the winter. 😁👍 Welcome back, BTW. Glad to see you survived the trip down Route 66!
I recently learned that wind is too low on our latitude because it is only created by weather situations. In the north it seems that wind is generated by the rotation of the earth and therefore much steadier. So we use solar and the nothern people wind...
Great series, thanks! Unfortunately I do not currently own a house, so I'm currently planning to add solar power to my rented balcony. That's a bit simpler, but there are still some hurdles (inverter availability, drilling a hole in the house wall, mounting the solar panel somehow, etc)... I'm looking forward to be able to track production during a nice sunny day ☀, and learning a lot on the way there! Your video also added some information that I wasn't aware of before. Thanks!
Good luck with your project! It is very rewarding.
Hey Andreas, the reason you are getting same output over all three phases is because Huawei makes symmetrical inverters thus they are not able to supply different power levels on each phase. Thats another limitation for using this inverter in back-up mode (off-grid) because with that it only powers one of that phases not all three and with only 3.6Kw max if I remember correctly.
You are right. It even uses two phase wires instead of one phase and neutral during off-grid. But I think I have a solution to that problem...
Looking forward to the "hacking" video. We too have an inverter (SolarEdge) which which can handle a battery, but it is not off-grid capable. As of right now I could not find a solution for this problem (thinking along the lines of "grid transfer switches" + such).
Most of normal inverters are not off-grid capable. Recently, this was a topic in our radio and TV shows because most owners are disappointed when they learn about this fact...
I will show how I will get independent from the grid. Maybe it helps in your case, too.
Very good feedback of your solar journey !!!! Thank you. MFG Alex
You are welcome!
Sehr spannend! Ich mache momentan Kleinversuche mit meiner Amateurfunk-Station mit PV. Ich bin Funkmässg total autark. Nun mache ich mir Gedanken, wie ich am besten meine PC USV mit Solar Strom beteiben kann (IT -> TN Netz) / Notstrom. Das macht richtig Spass! 73 aus Kloten!
Den Shack könnte ich grösstenteils mit 12 Volt betreiben. Für das Labor habe ich mich für ein 220 Volt System entschieden weil es sonst zu kompliziert ist weil ich verschiedene Spannungen brauche.
Die USV kannst du vermutlich mit einem einfachen 220V Inverter betreiben. Der muss nicht mal Sinus machen weil die meisten USVs im Notbetrieb ja auch kein Sinussignal erzeugen und die PCs gut damit zurechtkommen. Für den (solarbetriebenen) Shack würde ich aber mit einem 19V Laptop mit Batterien gehen...
Thank you for your videos, it brings very sensitive points of view. Just point out the possibility of devices for derivation of surpluses such as the (Diy) Freeds project. It is striking to me that the option of Huawey does not allow to be "offgrider" as many others do that even allow to swap "ongrid" and offgrid.
Most of the inverters used here do not allow off-grid operation. But most people do not know it. Recently, this fact was even mentioned in TV and radio. Many owners feel cheated...
You can add an inverter to the battery bank to provide a backup mains supply for some equipment on a separate set of sockets. 18 panels and battery bank being installed in next ten days. Have you looked at using spare power to heat water. No point selling power to the UK grid as I will only get 10% of what I buy it for.
I hope they will realize that it is stupid to pay you much less than they have to pay others for the same and let you "burn" electricity for heat. Here such discussions already started...
@@AndreasSpiess I'm going to fit a device to monitor out going power and if it exceeds 100Ws feed that amount into the hot water tank. So I will only export when batteries are fully charged and hot water tank is at max temperature. You can pwm the water heater easy its just resistive load.
Getting the installation to work of grid is interesting.
Indeed. Stuff for another video. But for the moment the project is not done :-(
Could you isolate your home from the grid in the event of a power outage?
So if the grid goes below a certain voltage, instead of a complete shutdown, could it go completely off grid in that situation and reconnect to the grid when the grid voltage stabilises?
The Backup Box should do the separation. But it is not yet installed. But the Luna2000 does not have a three phase backup capability.
For a PV System there are different options
Pv
Pv with single phase backup
Pv with 3 phase backup
Pv with 3 phase backup and cold start.
If you have shadows you can optimize the system with optimizers.
The cost efficiency of the system drops with the cold start variants massively.
But if money was not an issue that would be my goto
You are right.
Sehr gute Info, danke. Bitte im zukünftigen Video über die Backup Box auf die nicht zu vernachlässigende Umschaltzeit von 1 bis 3 Sek eingehen - Konsequenzen, Lösungen und so… danke.
Danke! Wie ich gesagt habe plane ich ein Video über USVs...
On your question about the inverter behaviour when interacting with the grid: All grid tied distributed generation inverters, whether residential or utility scale size, meet certain protection criteria when interfacing with the grid. One of the most important fratures is to disconnect from the grid in a very specific timeframe when the grid goes down, in other words the voltage at their output need to fall immediately to safe levels and then to zero and stay there until the grid voltage is back on for a certain amount of time. This is to protect the workers on the grid. There is a plethora of other reasons behind the settings that these inverters have and they mostly have to do with maintaining grid stability. These settings differ from country to country (your friend can see them using his FusionSolar app). I believe that the inverters use the PLL method to synchronise with the grid so if the grid goes down, they synch fails and they stop immediately. Now of you have a battery and work in island mode, I guess there will be provision to work without the grid signal but there should be an internal controlled switchover relay that will only connect back to the grid when the island's voltage and grid voltage are synchronised.
I agree with your information. I will add the backup box which automatically separates the inverter from the grid in case of grid-down
@@AndreasSpiess dont forget to add an earthing rod or otherwise address the local earthing during island operation, i guess this will depend on the local grid/code of practice!
@@nosafetyswitch9378 We have a separate earth that cannot be cut.
Ich arbeite auch gerade an einer kleinen PV Anlage mit Backup Möglichkeiten. Wichtig ist es zuerst mal die Stromkreise zusammen zu fassen die bei Netzunterbrechung funktionieren sollen ( Kühlgeräte, Raumlicht, IT, Heizungssteuerung und Pumpen für Fernwärme...) Man braucht auch einen eigenen FI dafür. Dann kann man messen was der typische Stromverbrauch ( Leistung und Energie) ist und was man abdecken muss. Da ich Zugang zu gebrauchten aber guten Bleigelakkus habe ich eine ebenfalls gratis APC UPS umgebaut. Die UPC funktioniert recht gut mit externen Akkus. Man muss ein Relais ( Solid state) einbauen und einen Timer um die UPC mit 24V Batteriespannung zu starten. Die UPS erwartet einen Tastendruck während Beep um einen Kaltstart ohne Netzspannung zu machen.Leider ist der Ladestrom nur 2.5 A also geht das nur für Blackout protection und nicht für Power time shift. Für letzteres würde man ein externes Ladegerät brauchen. Meine UPS aus dem Schrott braucht leider ca 30W in Standby. Man kann aber die Akkus nur laden wenn die Spannung unter ca 26V gefallen ist. Bei Ali gibt es da sehr preiswerte Batterieüberwachungsschalzungen Neuere scheinen da besser zu sein ( 3W). Es gibt bei Aliexpress automatische Grid Switcher die ich verwenden möchte. Es bleibt spannend aber ist viel Arbeit
Schöne Anlage!
Ich plane einen andern Weg zu gehen. Ich möchte meine Verkabelung belassen und nicht in verschiedene Zonen einteilen. So kann ich entscheiden was wertvoll ist und es einschalten oder nicht…
Here in Western Australia the rate for grid feed in is only about 8% of what power costs to buy!
That is not good behavior of monopoly companies. I hope governments will change the laws. At least in Europe we have such discussions now. But it needed a horrible war :-(
Similar in UK. I get £0.047p/kWh for electricity export but from 1 Oct will pay £0.337 for import.
You may not need the optimizer in the summer but you may have difference results during the winter months.
We will see...
Good work. I use multiple SDM630 to see where my energey travles, To grid, house or any of my other buildings. I also have an proper manual and automatic switch (ATS). And my inverter can run in off-grid mode :) So will be nice to see how you do it later. I have run my system for 5+ years now and is specially made by me. Also have full monitoring and system that will sell excess energy when the price is high and buy back when its low if needed :)
These SDM630s are nice! My problem is the crowded fuse box which was not made for such additional meters :-(
Here we have regulations if the device is connected to the grid. So I decided to go "commercial" for that part. But I still have to find the electrician for installation.
@@AndreasSpiess yeah thats True. I installed a other box just for all The ats gear and The sdms. Then i had an electrician to approve my work :) use an esp8266 to poll all 4 of them.
>> And my inverter can run in off-grid mode
Which model do you use?
@@frankfahrenheit9537 mpi 10kw 3ph. I would not buy it Again. Its very unefficient and low quality.
Optimzers are not only for mitigating shadows. They also help to get the maximum out of every panel. Our panels have differences of around 15% between the worst and best panels, without any shadows. Without optimizers, the whol string would only produce as much as the worst panel. So we gain around 10% at least with optimizers behind each panel. And we see exactly which one panel has a problem if it gets damaged.
I am not sure. We can discuss further after my video about optimizers…
@@AndreasSpiess we would lose a lot of power if all panels on a string would limit themselves to the weakest panel. See the attached screenshot from today. Optimizers make a lot of sense. And they make the whole installation and system a LOT safer, as no high voltage can be present when the inverter is not connected. Especially for self-builders without expensive test and measuring equipment I would always recommend to use inverters. You can install a damaged panel and never know about it and just have bad performance for 30 years.
ibb.co/mJdjGSW
In Germany, only victron's inverter is currently approved if it is to be used for stand-alone operation and a grid connection.
Good to know. Thank you.
Great Video as usual Andreas! Now my comments:
1- Getting 50% price for the energy sold to the grid is actually not bad ... I've seen contracts with Zero pay and all "payments" made with energy credits ..that is some grid operators do not offer money but electricity ... imagine you sold say 10KWH of energy to the grid ... some grid operators say , now you can use 10KWH from our energy ... specially at night ..when there is no solar ...
2- Allowing the batteries to go down to 10% is actually a big Mistake ... minimum value should be 20% and Preferably 35% ! You will kill your batteries Much sooner no matter what the battery told you if they go down to 10% charge ...
1. Energy credits are not a bad thing per se (particularly for small houses). It removes the business case for a battery. But it limits the number of solar panels mounted on roofs, which is stupid these days.
2. Huawei gave us a 10-year warranty on the battery. So I assume their 0% is not 0% of the batteries ;-)
Here in Brazil, if you have a grid tie PV system, you are not allowed (by law enforcement) to sell your excess power for money. This excess power is injected in the grid and becomes credit for future use (net metering system). Batteries for self storage in a hybrid PV system are now starting to become common, so you can charge the batteries instead of exporting power to the grid. Starting in 2023, all new grid tie PV systems will have to pay the distribution company for the use of the grid as a "virtual battery" to store the excess power exported to the grid.
@@Fernando_S That is insanely retarded. It is clearly the play of the big power producers to try to make No One to sell energy to the grid. Could you tell us something Fernando, that regulation is at the National Level or is it particular to some States or Grid operators?
@@AndreasSpiess 1- Agree. In any case it is a shame not having the possibility to have Both types of contracts so that users could have batteries or not.
2- I don't care what Huawei or any other producer "gave" you as warranty ... any Lithium based (in your case I think it is LiFePO4) battery will have at best 1000 Cycles if those cycles are from 100% to 0% ... and that is already very very optimistic in optimum discharge conditions and temperature and so on...
In reality if you cycle the batteries from 100% to say 10% you will get the 1000 cycles at Best ... In actual real life conditions with temperature fluctuations, non-uniform power peaks and the like the Real number of deep cycle discharges without affecting battery capacity and performance are Less then 1000x ... and can be Much much less than that depending on usage ...
Any battery producer will play with Statistics and with the fact that most users will not "push" the 1000x Deep cycles (100% to 0%) in 10 years. They count on everyday residual charge of maybe more then 40% ... so the total number of cycles expands Way more then 10 years ... away from the dreaded 10 year "warranty". So They will claim on the cases of less then 10 year battery burnout the usual ... ..warranty Void because is Battery misuse ...
Again Strong advice: make that Lower charge limit be at least 20% ... better to invest in more battery capacity storage then to regret having the batteries exhausted in a very short amount of years.
@@John_Smith__ Question: On what do you base that? I looked into that and have found different numbers. There are datasheets out for different battery suppliers. For example Evium describes on one of the data sheets they get > 3500 full cycles 2.5-3.65V and back at 25°C until capacity drops to 80%. At 45° they guarantee > 1800 cycles. If you run a full cycle for 250 days a year that means you would be good for 14 years.
Referenced datasheet: batteryfinds.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/EVE-280Ah-Lithium-Iron-PhosphateLiFePO4-LFP-Battery-Cell-Product-Specification.pdf
There are other batteries from evlithium-com, that claim to endure 9000 cycles if you use 80% per cycle.
The EVE Batteries are well respected on different forums, but you really have to double check that you get genuine cells, not fake ones.
I wonder which battery systems make it possible to add self-made batteries, that are cheaper if no error ocurs.
Can't you use your Shelly 3em in your DB along with Solid State relays to limit the load on your inverter.
Switch off fridges/heating when you are cooking. Or switch off the fridges when the battery level is low and it is a cold day.
You could even use it to warn you if you forget a stove plate on.
I could use relays for that purpose. Fortunately, this is not needed because our battery momentarily supplies the needed electricity when we do not have enough sun. We only have to decide if we start the washing machine today or shift it to tomorrow...
Hi Andreas, nice video. I have the same battery and inverter. We do have an"off-grid" option installed so if the grid goes down it immediately disconnects from the grid and continues to feed one circuit (kitchen, computer room etc).
I did not yet install the backup box. I am interested how you connected the kitchen and computer tu the inverter
@@AndreasSpiess I also have the backup-box. I installed a new circuits in the house for 'critical loads' and a new row of switches and protection devices in the distribution board and a UPS for the CCTV and Computers on the Critical Load so that they do not turn off when the backup box disconnects the solar from the grid.
@@DominicClifton Aha. I plan a different route. I want to connect all three phases. We will see if I am successful...
Andreas! Great video as always. Can you make a video on the battery life of such solar systems? Every time I talk with people in general, they say "you need to change the batteries every 5-7 years" scaring a lot of enthusiasts like me.
Most such batteries come with a 10-year warranty. So I assume they will last for at least this time. With current prices, a battery is an expense, no investment. But this might change if we believe the current energy prices...
It depends on how you cycle them.
For lithium, if you use say 4kWh/day when there is no sun, and install a 5kWh pack, it probably won't even reach 5 years.
In same scenario a 15kWh pack limited to cycle between 30% and 90% will have a much higher chance of reaching 10 years or more.
Some battery manufacturers give actual kWh of the cells, some give a slightly limited kWh value for longer life.
Some battery allow changing parameters to limit depth of charge/discharge, some are changing over the life of the pack by firmware or updates from "the cloud"..
it depends on the battery-type.
Li-Ion is rather shortlived, while LiFePo4 can do much longer; also there are "DIY-solutions" (rather adventerous ones) with old forklift batteries, which are within the volt-range of the professional batteries; these led-batteries just need regular water-fillings and will do a long time for personal use...
BUT - at the moment, due to everyone upgrading in the hope to circumvent the brownouts announced by swiss federal counse, costs are immensly high...
@@michaelkeller5008 I don't think li-ion is necessarily short-lived compared to lifepo, just more energy dense..
In applications where density matters (small portable devices) they are usually cycled heavily and therefore may seem short-lived.
Where density and size isn't a factor, lifepo4 is the go-to, even in vehicles.
Less maintenance and higher charge/discharge rates and efficiency than lead or nickel iron.
Lifepo4 is getting cheaper like the panels, cells at 150-200$ per kWh but branded 48v packs with cheap BMS are 600$/kWh, which is about the same as lead.
Maybe in very cold situations lead is better, or if it's free. Used lead batteries are almost always junk and no amount of tinkering will bring them back
@@michaelkeller5008 I found a flaw in lifepo4 if your upgrading from say 24v to 48v inverter and don’t check the resistance of each cell you end up with bloating batteries and maybe a shorted cell. Better to buy more cells and sell off what you have as 24v packs. Also, you cannot replace 1 bad cell unless the resistance is really really close or the new cell will fail and show as a short. Then the whole bank charges up to whatever voltage your using if your BMS is crap. BMS can’t resistance unless you spent good money. These fails were pointed out to me when I inquired to the factory where i purchased the batteries. I never had noticed there were red barcodes on the bottoms until I replaced a cell and suspected they sold me reject batteries as I never felt like I was getting the full ah worth. They always blamed my solar. I got on Skype to the CEO which took a lot of doing and he was like what???? Sent pics of each barcode and 6 weeks later new batteries. Boom! Fired employees. 32 sort of 200ah battery rejects. That would be china! Be careful.
Interesting video with similar experience to our solar setup + battery and backup gateway. I’m interested to see how you get on optimising the purchase of electricity in winter months when you cannot generate enough solar power. I’m still trying to optimise based on short range weather forecasts so that we buy enough cheap electricity overnight without buying too much and ending up sending solar generation to the grid.
Interesting! So far I have no such plans. I will have to go through winter to learn our pattern. I added a few more panels in direction south and very steep optimized for winter. Like that I hope that I do not have to buy too much electricity. Only for bad weather situations where optimization through forecasting probably also will not be interesting. But we will see. Maybe I am wrong.
Good information, great video. Surprised to learn that Switzerland has three-phase power for residential service. Here in US three-phase service is generally only used for commercial or industrial service.
This seems to be normal also for other European countries. Here, distances are smaller and therefore we need less copper than in the US...
I live in Brazil and here your connection to the grid depends on your power demand. It doesn't matter if it is a home or business. Up to 12-15 kW you are serviced by 1 phase, from 12-15 kW up to 25 kW you are serviced by 2 phases, and from 25 kW up to 75 kW you are serviced by 3 phases, always in low voltage, depending where you live it may be 127/220 V or 220/380 V (phase to neutral / phase to phase voltage). From 75 kW and up, you are serviced by the high power distribution grid (13,8 kV) and you must install your own transformer to step down the voltage. Also note that the high power grid operates with 3 phases in delta configuration without neutral wire, and your transformer will step down the voltage and the low voltage side is wired in star configuration with 3 phases plus neutral, and the neutral wire must be earthed. When you are serviced by 1, 2 or 3 phases in low voltage, you are always serviced by the corresponding phases plus the neutral wire in a star configuration. The earthing scheme is almost always TN-S, the neutral from the grid must be earthed upon arrival in your home.
I thought most grid-connected PV systems had a "grid-disconnect" function the disconnected from the grid when the grid goes down, and may need manual intervention to restore connection to the grid (may be automated...) At least that's how I understood the situation.
They do not disconnect. Just switch down for safety. And at least mine restarts automatically if the grid comes back.
Only a few inverters offer "island" operation. But you are not alone. Most people are astonished when they learn this fact...
My setup, maybe you can duplicate:
3 phase install from energy company
Shelly 3EM monitoring the connection to the energy company
Shelly EM monitoring solar production
All feeding Home Assistant, so I can clearly see how much I have produced and how much I have send/received to/from the grid. You can also monitor your battery from their. Very useful.
I don't have a battery, but, I monitor a lot of single loads with smart plugs...
After the installation of the inverter, it provides all numbers in one interface. So I do no longer need the Shelly and I can repurpose it. Unfortunately, the space in the fuse box does not allow to mount the sensors at the wires to the load. So I have to measure at the outlets using other means.
@11:06 And it also could help to reduce unwanted "ham radio transmissions" due to unfiltered switching noise on the dc lines from the inverter...
You are right!
I'd say in climates like yours heating and heat storage is far more important . So funding all sources of waste heat and collecting them and storing them for later is fundamental. You can use data to decide when to store heat and use heat. Heating costs would be double your electricity costs.. so heat pumps would be essential.
You are right. Heat is very energy intensive. Fortunately, we get heat from a collaborative wood heating plant. If not, a heat pump would be the way to go.
There is a kit available that stops your house from delivering power to the grid. Ford has electric F-150 pickup trucks with huge batteries. The truck can be used to power your house if the power is down. The kit costs somewhere around $2500 US.
My ex-boyfriend moved into an older neighborhood with big old trees and overhead wires. The power went out every time there was a crack of thunder. He build a backup system using gel-cell batteries, the ones used in handicapped scooters. It was pretty funny. The entire neighborhood would be dark. He had lights and was watching TV using an antenna. He wasn't connected to the grid. He just kept the batteries charged.
Hopefully I can show how I will solve this topic using the backup box showed in the end of the video... But currently, I do not own an e-car.
Good job Andreas as well! I’m very curious to see next episode to hack the inverter when the grid goes off.
Also here in Switzerland we’ll expect a lot of blackout during next seasons…
Thank you! I hope you are wrong with the blackouts ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess this is what someone from the SwissGrid told me one month ago… unofficially…
if I understand correctly about the design, that if the grid goes down, you also have 0 electricity in the house even though you have the backup battery charged full and panels producing, this seems trivial to fix with the existing inverter, since it senses grid being down and shuts itself off, why not install a relay between the grid and the house then - this would be controlled by the inverter, as soon as it senses grid going down, it opens the relay and your house is no longer connected to the grid and the inverter can feed the house, and the grid servicemen are safe to do whatever they need on the street with no risk from your panels since the house is not connected to the grid any more
in the current state - having the battery seems quite pointless (without going into details of course)
Your proposal will be implemented by the backup box. But unfortunately, it is not as easy :-(
@@AndreasSpiess I'm not sure where the difficulty lies (probably some sort of design limitation of the inverter I'd guess), but that is the basic setup of how it is done with 2x 100kW diesel generators we have at the facility, there is no complication whatsoever, no mysterious backup boxes, just a disconnect from the grid which allows to run the building on generators immediately, in fact, the generators start up as soon as they sense the grid down, then the input to the building is switched from grid to generators
the only "complication" I can see is switching it back on to the grid and syncing the inverter, but even that is no more complicated than turning the inverter on for the first time with the grid connected
automating it completely could be a bit problematic, not knowing what sort of loads there are in the house, maybe there are some induction motors switching on or something (a fridge + some sort of water pump perhaps), that the inverter might have trouble with, but then it is as simple as turning them all off (even manually) and back on 1 by 1 so not to overload the inverter when you want it to power the house
and I'm assuming the inverter has the current capacity to run the house from batteries
Hello Andreas, Long time viewer here. I love your videos and the way of explaining. Thank you!
I wanted to ask if there was a particular reason you stopped numbering your videos with # in the beginning of the video name? It was quite easy to search or follow a video for future references, or also to search for follow up videos from a certain point.
I did not stop. The videos get numbers after a certain time.
The main thing people "forget" is the average 24h power delivery compared to the peak wattage: in winter it's between 5 and 10% of Wc and between 25 and 35% of Wc in summer. Why? Because of low production in the morning and end of the day and because of the night (there's not a lot of sunny hours in winter). Also if you really want to exploit that in winter you need a lot of batteries to compensate for a few consecutive days of bad weather.
The biggest problem is that the price you pay electricity is much higher than the price you sell it. So you really have to consume your production yourself otherwise the system will never pay for itself.
I agree with your analysis for wintertime. This is why our systems are grid-systems. I added (and will add more) panels pointed towards south and steep, optimized for winter to get more energy during the good winter days. Adding more battery capacity does not help for the bad days (unless you are a millionaire). In most cases we would not be able to charge them fully during the short days.
The biggest problem in my eyes is the cheap prices for (valuable) electricity. I hope the bad behavior of monopoly electricity companies will be forbidden by governments. At least there are discussions now. Still, we will not get 100% back because only a part of our bill is for energy. Ther rest is for the usage of the grid and taxes.
BTW: With the current situation our payback period shrinks like snow in the sun :-)
Nice video. Thanks Andreas. Because your utility company only pays you 50%, have you considered storing some of the excess electricity you generate in the form of hot water (in large insulated water tanks) to use for things like showering, bathing, laundry, washing dishes, and (perhaps) radiant heating? I'm imagining after your battery is fully charged your system would then "fully heat" water in large insulated water tanks, prior to selling the electricity back to your utility company.
We are connected to a heat producing plant which runs with wood. So I did not include heat in my project. It is already renewable..
@Andreas Spiess I see. I wasn't thinking about renewable energy; I was thinking about you spending less money for power.
Selling electricity for 50% of what you pay for it made me think that it would be more cost-effective for you to heat water and then store it in hot water tanks rather than sell that electricity to your electric company.
If you get heat (I guess, perhaps, in the form of hot water) at a price that is 75% or less of what you pay for electricity, the it's probably more sensible to sell your excess electricity back to your electric company.
To me, renewable energy is a boring topic because wind and solar are so cheap-and projected to keep becoming significantly cheaper- that no other form of energy seems likely to be able to generally compete with them.
The incumbent power producers are scrambling to stay in business for as long as they can. Here in California, our terrible governor and state legislature just handed a huge "subsidy" (gift) to Diablo Canyon Power Plant of 1 billion US dollars so that it could operate for up to another 20 years. It’s absurd, but it's the way politics work in the USA: companies pay what are tantamount to “legal bribes” to obtain favorable legislation.
Here’s an “article” that looks like it was written by nuclear power interests…
Diablo Canyon extension and renewables investment is a win for climate action and a win for California
www.catf.us/2022/09/diablo-canyon-extension-win-climate-action-win-california/
You were just on Route 66. Perhaps, just maybe, you noticed that here in the Southwest (I live in Los Angeles, California) we have this thing called a d-e-s-e-r-t. We also currently import electricity from many other states including as far away as Wyoming which has some excellent areas for wind generators. We obviously don’t need nuclear power. But the executives at Diablo Canyon Power Plant are probably very reluctant to, for example, get jobs flipping hamburgers at McDonalds. Therefore, I suppose they are probably spending money like drunken sailors: not on women, but on politicians.
Another great video Andreas, looks like you have a well working installation!
Yes, so far it did not give us any problems. Only joy :-)
Looking forward to the next videos!
Coming...
another project... here in the uk stuart pittaway (creator of diybms) has embarked on a journey to connect his solar pv system to uk grid. and make his own battery.i think it is another helpful example in a diversity of solar pv systems. if interested please also check out his new video series here on youtube. many thanks
interestingly he decided not to go with the huweii (although technically a good option) because... it seems to require also buying into the proprietary huweii ecosystem with a matching battery. and he very much wants to construct his own battery. for connected on grid under the lower power 16a (3kw) category. which is less regulated / easier to certify for on grid over here in our country.
so therefore i am also looking forwards to seeing what extent anybody is able hack the drm on those new huweii systems protocoll. if it is merely only for data collection. or if it can be anything more than that, to the level of impersonating (or simulating) a real huweii battery pack. kindda interesting subject. it also reminds me of the proprietary nature of certain other systems too. like for the enphase stuff etc. not sure how much that matters in specific circumstances. just being curious
You are right. The system is closed. But because I wanted a high voltage battery I did not want to build it myself.
I subscribed with Stuart, BTW
Mein lieber Andreas, leider ist meine Angst eines Blitzes bereits eingetreten, gestern hat es geknallt und 2 Panels sind ausgestiegen die am Rand, ja die Tropen sind eben unberechenbar. Zum Glück blieb der Inverter verschont. GRÜSSE THOMAS
Das ist Pech! Hier haben die Blitze viele Möglichkeiten zum Einschlagen. Und es hat glücklicherweise nicht viele.
There are some Hybrid inverters that people use in Brasil (from EPEVER, MUST, etc) they switch to battery automatically and disconnect from the grid, but I think they do not send energy back to the grid. It would be good if there was a way to switch the solar panels energy in a ON-GRID system to this hybrid Inverter-controller, this way in a grid power down the panels would be in like in a OFF-GRID system the big issue would be switching 800V, it is a ""big men"" job. That what I used to hear when I studied Electronic and there was also an Electrotecnic (High Power) course, the difference of the two is: The Electronic receive many electric shocks in his work, the Electrician only receives ONE!
Good joke!
My backup box will separate my Inverter from the grid.
Victron has a product line that does that. even double relais for failsafe separation.
I have 2 concerns and thus I look for someone to tell me what to do:
- Regulations: I don't know them and if I don't follow them I get trouble. I dont want to make experiments and then face an inspector of my power company telling me that I must throw everything out.
- Safety If I don't change my Fuse box I fear to get in problems. All normal LS Line safety switches in it need 5x the rated current to instantly brake the connection. No reasonable Inverter can provide such grade of short circuit current. That may or may not be a problem. Again fear of an inspector telling me to throw out everything.
Looking fwd to the hunting down what is adding up to 12KWh (or is it KWd, d as in day) during summertime. I am doing that at the moment.
It is frustrating to know that we, a family of 3, use like 9KW per day. 22 year old Liebherr fridge, 1.3KW, other Zanussi freezer 1KW, .... . It keeps adding up. Still hunting down like 3KW somewhere :-( . To measure I use these Tuya smartswitches with power metering, but you can't reset the values on the app to start from scratch. Luckily I also have them in home assistant so I can see what happens. So very interested on how you will measure and what values you get.
Still very interested what will happen during the not so nice days. Here in the Benelux we had kind of a fantastic couple of solar months. Yesterday was our first crappy rain and no sun day. I measured the 140 Watt worth of panels to be outputting like 3 Watt.
I will do a video on how I hunt the "ratholes". So far my finding is that the word "and" (many different devices) uses most of energy. This will limit the savings without losing too much comfort, I fear.
We already had two days where we had to buy electricity. But I am curious how it will behave during winter. I already added 4 panels direction south with a steep angle for winter...
You're right to think hard about where those kWh are going. Our 2-person family uses 6kWh per day. We are at home all day. Changing the 20 year old fridge/freezer saved us lots of energy.
Hi Andreas! There is a company in Australia that has had the ability to print solar panels for 15 years now and we still do not see this technology. I was thinking... Perovskite is .25 cents per square foot and 267% more efficient than regular silicon based panels. If we were to get an older printer where you can still refill the cartridges and create a circuitry diagram that activates each color (red,blue,green,black) using the hexidecimal colors in a program like paintbrush then inject the chemicals for the panel and print them onto the perovskite sheets we could make high efficiency solar panels very easily and then give away the plans to end the energy crisis.You would only need the list of chemicals to inject into the printer cartridges or connect tubes to them from a larger container and you could automate the printing of solar panels using an old printer. Also if you needed a layer of carbon you could use possibly carbon paper... if you needed to make the ink be conductive perhaps dry out some nanosilver chemical and mix it or something of that sort then laminate it at first to test and use some copper strips to connect? Do you think this if it was made public would help end the energy crisis and help the environment? I was hoping you might find it interesting that the australian technology they have not been widely distributing for useage uses ink to print the chemicals. The perovskite sheets recently somehow were able to be more efficient over long periods of time giving them a higher lifetime. I am not certain of the 267% efficiency increase but a video I recently watched has that as the thumbnail. Anyway, regardless of whether it is perovskite used, I proposed this idea as a hacking idea for the next defcon conference in case they would find it interesting to let the little hacker kids try to figure it out but since you are a master electrical engineer I was thinking you might find it fun so the world doesnt have to wait another year (defcon recently ended and they never replied to my email)... and since you already have the grid figured out, if you figured out how to print your own panels in the most efficient way and shared it, you could be a hero if you made it reasonable for normal people to accomplish. I am not saying you are not normal. I am saying you are a master of what you do and most people cannot accomplish what you can. Thank you if you would please consider my idea. Please reply and let me know what you think of it. I am trying to help the world with the idea but I am not good at electronics. I am also sorry I do not know the lifetime of perovskite sheets or whether merely laminating the cells with plastic would work etc but I thought you might find it a great idea to help humanity with the energy crisis. By the way, I have not commented for a long time as I shut down my channel and stopped using youtube for a long time. Would you be willing to take a donation to attempt to create the plans for making a regular printer to print the solar panels ? I would not be earning anything from it, I want to help to make the plans public.
Perovskite is a well-known alternative to silicone (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perovskite_solar_cell ). There is hope it will replace the current technology. But not all problems are solved, particularly as you state, the lifespan. Quote: "As of 2021 there is a little manufacturing in Poland and China,[215] but large-scale deployment is held back by the instability and shorter lifespan".
A similar invention is the "Grätzel Cell" ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell ) which was very promising but so far did not make it to mass production. Inventing something and bringing it to mass-production seem to be different things.
So let's hope we get good news from the Perovskite front in the near future.
@@AndreasSpiess what about repurposing old printers to print regular silicon versions as I think there are only a few chemicals involved...? do you think it is a feasible idea for a bunch of hacker kids to try it or anyone to try? Even low efficiency solar cells being able to be printed might be useful
@@AndreasSpiess this may be the answer you were looking for in regards to the Perovskite front: th-cam.com/video/oW1pfxDSPTE/w-d-xo.html
Could you maybe share a little bit about the administrative process? For example, did you connect the inverter to the grid yourself, or did someone 'official' have to do this and/or did you have to wait for approval before connecting? I'm in Basel-Land too and wondering whether to DIY a PV system because the waiting times are so long for companies to come and do it.
All installations to the grid have to be done by a certified electrician (as usual). And a specialist had to come and approve the overall installation. All was managed by Sebastian. He had to fill out a lengthy form...
Nice video Andreas, as always. One more thing to underline. Your inverter is producing the same amount of power on all phases because it is unable to close the current of unbalanced loads over neutral. I am using the same inverter and I found this. Even the connection is 3 phases 4 wires on neutral it is not drawing any current. All unbalanced loads has to be closed by the grid neutral connection. Even you have the back-up box you should know that in island mode it will became an single phase inverter able to power only some single phase loads. We can discuss more about this issue that is not open declared but this inverter as many transformer less inverters are not able to close unbalanced currents over neutral because they are using only three switching bridges . I am using the new version of Shelly 3EM software with neutral current transducer and any current goes on inverter neutral.
Interesting aspect about neutral! I know that my inverter only provides one Phase backup. But I hope to connect this line to all three phases in parallel. Most of our loads are single phase. With this trick I hope to get all lights on in off-grid. Needs an additional automatic switch.
@@AndreasSpiess I am thinking to do the same but I am not sure that the power output will be the same but reduced to on third. In island mode it is connecting L2 to neutral and earth. That is why it is becoming a single phase inverter with two switching bridges. And the bridge for L3 will not be used anymore. So maybe the power is reduced. Somewhere in the answer is said that for on/off grid in Germany only Victron inverter are allowed . That is because the Victron are with triangle/star transformer and able to use unbalanced loads. It looks that we are working in the same direction ;). Also I am interested in hacking the modbus of the inverter battery network and making a new kind of back-up box. BTW other way to close neutral currents is by two capacitors in series providing a AC half voltage divider on the DC connection of the bridges. And the DC bus bar is accessible on the battery connection of the inverter where are 620VDC.
@@paullacatus8975 My inverter outputs 3.3kVA (one-third as you mentioned) in backup operation. Which is way too much for such a situation where we do not cook or bake...
We looked at the Backup box. It seems to have only needed parts. Modbus is unnecessary for the backup mode; only one digital input switches the inverter into backup mode. The backup box does the timing for that. It also has a double breaker to make sure the grid really is off.
I will make a video about how I read the Modbus using node-red
@@AndreasSpiess You are using Modbus RTU or Modbus TCP ? You can also write some registers to apply some settings as power limit or reactive power control ? It will be interesting to show a schematic diagram as shown inside of back-up box and the timings. For me the back-up box looks to expensive for what it contains and can not power back all three phases as you said. I think to design another back-up box.
@@paullacatus8975 I use ModbusTCP.. The Backup Box is quite expensive. But you cannot reduce a lot of parts because it has many functions. Its quality is quite good. Also the switches. I hope to add one automatic switch to connect the single-phase backup power to all three phases.
I would be interested if you can create one which is considerably cheaper.
A further improvement in self-consumption can be achieved if, when using a heat pump for heating and hot water preparation, surplus energy is used to charge the hot water boiler. With heat pumps the temperature is often around 55°C and with surplus energy it can be heated up to around 80°C. This means that the heat pump has to be charged at night. This means that the heat pump has to reheat less often during the night. In Switzerland this can make sense, because the yield per kWh with about 6.5 cents differs massively compared to 30 cents with the purchase. The market offers various components to integrate this correctly or to integrate a (bidirectional?) car charging station.
Andreas: In your situation with wood related heating system it still may make sense as wood is in these days getting more and more expensive 🤪
I agree, heating pumps are efficient. With solar, energy at night is precious, though.
You are right with the increasing prices for wood. But we have a remote heating plant, and I got the pricing for next year: it increases around 3cents/kWh. Wood is just one part of the pricing.
Andreas, I have learned so many things from you and I will continue learning. Thank you so much! Two questions
A) is it possible with a proper change in the inverters wiring to make it work off grid? For example, if you could disconnect it off the grid and feed its ac input by a small ups to cheat its protection mechanism. Would that work ? (For moments of blackout, when you need to use some power )
B) I didn’t understand the wiring at around 11:15. Is the blue line also connected at the frame of each panel or it just pass along each panel?
1. You must not hamper with the inverter. It is illegal in most countries. But I will show how I solved the problem.
2. The blue line is only connected to the last panel.
Thank you for the great video! I'm also planning a pv for my house in east switzerland with huawei sun2000 and luna2000 but the supply chain issues are really frustrating. I already have the inverter, power meter and the battery modules. But the optimizers, the backup box and the battery control module are not coming soon. Maybe you know a good supplier? Did you know that you are not able to load the battery if you have optimizers? It's not a bug, it's a feature. The optimizers cut the voltage to zero if the inverter has no mains. If your house is on fire and the firefighers cut the mains power it's exactly what you want but in the off grid mode this means you can only use the remaining power of the battery even if the sun is shining.
I did not know about the optimizers. Currently I experiment with a few of them (I got them on ebay) and I prepared a video about them. In most cases they are not very useful and with your information they become more and more a pain in the a...
My backup box also came late and still is not connected.
It may be interesting to know if the Shelly would be able to deliver all nine (or 18) values for current power (L1-L3), energy delivery integral (L1-L3) and consumption integral (L1-L3), (and then the same for reactive power) not only total power and energy. I have one here but not installed yet. Also Tasmota does not seem to be available for it (yet). If Tasmota did not do it it would be just one feature request away ;)
My problem is the place of the current sensors. They are now at the wrong place (towards the grid, as I have shown in the drawing). If moved to the load side, they would show precise values. But this is mechanically hard in my crowded fuse box :-(
@@AndreasSpiess Thanks :)
very excited for the next videos.
Thank you!
Interesting that you're not allowed to have backup power, I guess it's because of the 3 phases requiring the grid to balance? In Belgium you can have it continue supplying power to your home. I assume they put an electric breaker to prevent feeding back to the grid in those cases?
We are allowed. But we have to take precautions to avoid the situations described in the video.
Thank you. Very interesting video. Explanations are clear. I can't imagine so cooperative neigbours at my place. :D
Glad you enjoyed it!
Es scheint, die ganze Welt freut sich, daß ANDREAS endlich dieses so wichtige und wunderbare Thema aufnimmt. Ich war so gefesselt von dem Video, daß ich vergessen hatte , meinen FIAT500E an die WALLBOX anzuschließen - ist jetzt aber nachgeholt. Das war für mich die tollste Erfahrung - meine eigene Tankstelle auf dem Dach. In Zeiten, wo die Spritpreise unkontrolliert explodieren ist das E-Auto ein unverzichtbarer Bestandteil der SOLAR-Anlage . In Deutschland zahlen wir 32 Cent pro kWh und bekommen nur 8 Cent vom EVU für den eingespeisten Strom - also 25 % .
(Stand letztes Jahr ) . Also gilt - möglichst viel Strom selbst verbrauchen . Die stationären Batterien der Solaranlage sind - wenn die Sonne es gut meint - um 10h bereits auf 100 % und somit freut sich das EVU auf den günstigen Strom, den es mit 300 % Aufschlag weiterverkaufen kann. Mit dem E-Auto kann man den ganzen Tagesüberschuss aufnehmen .( rollende Batterie ) .
Aber nicht vergessen - bei aller Begeisterung im Sommer - in unseren Breiten nutzt die SOLARENERGIE im Winter so gut , wie nichts . Es ist, als hättest du nichts auf dem Dach !!!!
Leider wird dieser doch so einfache Zusammenhang von Kinderbuchautoren und Trampolinspringer:innen offenbar nicht verstanden.
Das Thema wurde erst in den letzten Monaten wirklich interessant :-( Ich hatte lange gewartet weil ich fürchtete dass wir das Flachdach beschädigen würden. Bis jetzt ist es immer noch dicht...
Betreffend e-Autos: Gut wird deines tagsüber geladen. Die meisten kaufen sich eine Wallbox damit sie ihr Auto nachts laden können. Nicht sehr intelligent...
Ich bin ebenfalls auf den Winter gespannt. Einstweilen habe ich zusätzlich 4 Panels Richtung Süden in steilem Winkel montiert. Die sollten wenigstens in den guten Tagen Energie liefern. Und dann bin ich am Messen was wieviel Strom braucht.
Für mich war der finanzielle Aspekt nie sehr wichtig weil ich damit rechne dass Strom über die nächsten Jahre teurer wird. Im Moment schmilzt unsere Payback Periode wie Schnee in der Sonne. Auch wenn wir nur e-Bikes laden ;-)
@@AndreasSpiess Über 15k Aufrufe jetzt schon am Montag morgen - du hast das richtige Thema zur richtigen Zeit gebracht.
Was mich als Ingenieur an unserer SOLARANLAGE besonders reizt ist die OPTIMIERUNGSAUFGABE und das Erweitern der Systemgrenze - dafür sind wir ausgebildet .
Glücklicherweise haben wir ein vernünftig gedämmtes Haus mit Fußbodenheizung, sodaß mit einem simplen HEIZSTAB im Schichtspeicher auch eine Menge Heizenergie ( zumindest Warmwasser ) vom Dach zugesteuert werden kann . Die Ereignisse überschlagen sich ja zur Zeit - Die Gefahr eines BLACKOUT war vor einem Jahr noch nicht wirklich gegeben - für den schlimmen Fall "WARMOUT" ( schlicht kein Gas mehr ) gibt es noch nicht mal ein Wort .
Die notwendigen Veränderungen und Nachrüstungen müssen gut durchdacht sein - im Moment ist mein Favorit ein kleines Diesel-Notstromaggregat ( Drehstrom ), welches auch für einige Tage die Stromversorgung des Hauses übernehmen kann und über den Heizstab zwar nicht das Haus bei Wintertemperaturen heizen kann - was aber verhindert, dass das Wassersystem einfriert und die komplette Heizung zerstört.
Falls du interessiert bist , an einem persönlichen Ideenaustausch hier meine Adresse
bs.fortdefrance@gmail.com
Vor allem würde ich dir gerne Beispiele aus unseren Grafiken schicken, die ausgezeichnet die gesamten Verhältnisse und das Zusammenwirken von Stromerzeugung, Speicherung und Verbrauch aufzeigen. An der Statistik von gestern konnte man schon den Winter vorwegnehmen : Die Anlage mit peak 6,6 kW brachte bei Sonnenschein über 5,5 kW , wenn jedoch Wolken aufzogen und der Regen einsetzte waren es noch 700 Watt. .
15k ist durchschnittlich für meinen Kanal ;-)
Glücklicherweise haben wir Fernwärme mit Holz. Aber die Pumpen müssen trotzdem laufen.
Hi andreas probably you already know but the solardedge inverters provide a fast tcp-modbus interface if you want to read all the interesting data for some projects.
I did not know. The Luna2000 does the same.
@@AndreasSpiess I just assumed you had the solaredge inverter but I was wrong :D
I have a transfer switch between grid and inverter. My inverter is not Grid tie but has an AC input for charging battery from the grid. When I switch from grid to inverter there is a physical barrier to the grid and the house And inverter. Inverter is wired on the normal power side so it stays switched over as long as the inverter is on. Batteries go down it switched auto to the grid. I tried making a switch with some SSR switches but they don’t really hold back the grid when switched off then kablewy went my inverter. Powerjack fixed it for free. Sent me a big box of parts.
As showed in the video I have a backup box that should include all needed relays to switch off the grid when it is down. They use standard relays, not SSRs...
@@AndreasSpiess I abandoned the SSR idea permanently some time ago. Which is better? 36 volt panels in series double for 72 volts or triple for 108 volts. I went with 108 volts. Any higher would have pushed my controller into hyper Voc.
Great video as always
Thanks for sharing your tour de off grid :-)
We will see how this works out. For the moment I only have an idea on how I want to do it...
Would your utility allow you to put a contactor or auto transfer switch in the grid connection This would maintain your house load
Yes, I thought I showed the backup box which will be added for that purpose.
Thank you for so much researching
You are welcome!
Good work Andreas. If you want to access to Huawey Cloud data, data in and out the grid, using the API instead of using motbus, I can share a shell script to do so.
Interesting! Can you contact me on Twitter or Facebook messenger?
@@AndreasSpiess yep, I have sent you a messenger
I found this video really useful and very interesting Andreas. Thank you so much. I’m sure you have documented it somewhere, but can please remind me how many sq metres of solar panels you have on your roof?
Hugo and I have 8.1kWpeak each installed. 18 panels of about 2 square meters (36 sq meters)
@@AndreasSpiess Thank you
Welcome back!
:-)
Hallo Andreas, formerly from Basel region too, I have installed the Huawei SUN2000-10-KTL-M1 with Luna 2000 at 15kWh. Battery on a 9.75kWp rooftop system in Bangkok in January. For normal operation I am very happy but the 3ph backup system only allows for 2.5kW backup power whereas the batteries could provide 5kW. Would I have known/ realized this earlier I would have bought 2 single phase 5kW units connected on only 2 out of the 3 phases because those 5kW /1 ph inverters can feed 5kW in backup mode. With the energy meter, the battery / grid feed in mode could be managed as well as with the 3ph. Inverter.. keen to see on how you further pull data / interconnect into a nice power management with UPS etc..
I knew about the backup power limitation. I anyway will not cook or bake in an off-grid situation (to preserve my battery). So it is more than enough power.
But it might be different in your situation.
This will help to clean your panels. Search for Solar Panels Drainage Water Clips (pasting link doesn't work)
Thank you. Maybe I will test them...
nice series. Looking forward to more my friend. Have you guys experienced reversed current flow back into your solar panels during the night?
No, I did not.
@@AndreasSpiess oh okay. is that because of because you used blocked diodes?
@@david-tracy I think this is a property of the inverter.
Have a water tank with 3 heater elements (each phase) that stores energy for heating and hot water. Shared heating will be a game changer
Actually, we heat using wood (remote plant). So producing heat so far was not on my to-do -ist. It is already renewable..
@@AndreasSpiess I wonder how would solar water heaters fare at your location. They should work fairly well if you have any sun light. There might be an issue with finding room to place them... maybe behind the chimneys?
@@ИванСнежков-з9й You are right. My father had such a heater for nearly 30 years. 2 square meters produced the needed hot water during the extended summer.
Excellent Andreas, Excellent :-)
Glad you liked it!
I have heard that some brands of optimizers make a lot of RF noise . Did you have a chance to notice any before you removed it ? Nice job on the setup and monitoring. I am all off grid here and this spring got 15 kwh worth of lithium to replace lead acid. In late winter I did my record solar production of making 30 kwh but I had to run electric heat , heat water, and do a lot of electric cooking to use up that much power. At that time of year the PV was cold making them more efficient , the sun more bright with less humidity, and the PV on my ground mount was at perfect angle to the sun to maximize everything. I also use grafana that gets data from my solar controller and some inexpensive PZEM-016 for AC and PZEM 017 for DC running into tasmoda esp32 which supports the pzem without any extra tinkering. Can't you put some AC monitor on different parts of your wiring and then use Grafana to subtract or add to get the different power consumptions from load or to grid ?
We had trouble with Solaredge optimizers here in Switzerland. So far I did not see RF issues with my installation. But I have a high noise level anyway.
Yes, I could shift the current sensors. But unfortunately, I do not have a lot of space in my crowded fuse box...
Victron Energy inverters have the ability to act as a UPS - they have input for grid, output for your house and input for PV. If the grid goes down, they keep working - downside, you need one per phase to my knowledge, there is not 3-phase victron energy inverter
I heard about these inverters but did not check it out. When I planned my system, off grid was no needed option. Only with the recent situation in Europe it became more important :-(
How is phase synchronization done when connecting the inverter to the grid?
I do not know. I assume they use a PLL (phase lock loop) circuit