#solarpower
My Solar Power Exploits
I've been to User Mode and seen the Promised Land. :) It just seems the Closed Loop management of the Inverter and Batteries were 'fighting' each other. Don't know any other way to explain it. Have gone to Open Loop User Mode on the Inverter and allowing the Batteries BMS to manage themselves. I've given the a couple of good full charges and the functioning/operation of the batteries seems much better. My current readings from Solar Assistant:
GE Vernova announces order of 674 wind turbines, providing 2.4 GW of power
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https://www.ge.com/news/press-releases/ge-vernova-announces-2point4-gw-order-for-pattern-energy-sunzia-wind-project
#energy, #PV, #solarpower, #news, #RSS
My Solar Exploits
Finally after almost two month got my last two PV Panels. this brings my total PV max to 4.4 KWh and with an average of 5 hours sun per day that would give me about 20KWhs which is my average daily usage... of course clouds/winter/etc... Batteries are 25 KWh so if I scrimp I should be able to make it through a couple of cloudy days. (and not everything in my house is running off of this system, only 6 circuits of about 12 or 14. No 220.
It came at a cost though, in getting this final box off the porch to the garage the whole damn thing fell knocking me on my ass and skinning my forearms as I tried to save both myself and the panels...
Ha! This is great! Some of you might find it seriously interesting
(Serious issue with new JK BMS - but great Sense of Humor)
My Solar Exploits
Well.... I'm kinda very disappointed and discouraged at this point.
I had another Under Voltage Error that shutdown/switched the system to Grid. This is the second one of those.
Checking the 5 batteries directly on their displays I find numerous Under Voltage and Over Voltage errors many of which must have been momentarily and not enough or brief enough to not shut down the entire system.
But my take-away from this is that "The System is only as Strong as it's Weakest Link" which is in this/all? cases a single Lithium-ion cell!
One cell not performing properly can shut down the whole system. We Need Much More Robust Error Management!
The system/battery should have the ability to bypass a single bad cell or lock out the battery from the system without completely stopping/switching/blocking system operation.
Beyond that the support and assistance from SunGold Power has been abominable. This is mostly due to language barrier and their lack of serious customer support (even worse than American Companies!! which is saying something!!) they will do just about anything to avoid replacing or warranting their products unless you threaten to Charge-Back via your credit card company. (not my direct experience but an acquaintance in the Solar Community with this same Inverter as mine). And they've stonewalled/ignored me since last week on the battery issues I'm having - #2 Undervoltage Error and #5 not charging/discharging in the same manner as the other four batteries.
Bottom line is Cannot recomment Sungold products by an stretch, but beyond that I'm feeling that this whole industry of DIY Solar (possibly barring the extreme highend systems) is just NOT READY FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION.
No where near plug and play. So far I've had to almost constantly babysit this system to keep it running. Very Disappointed.
There is good news though....I just got my latest Xcel Power Bill and I actually saved approximately 50% on my electric bill compared to last year's same bill. The average temp was slightly higher so that resulted in a lower Natural Gas bill but that is not factored into the 50% savings which is electric only.
Given this that "only a 16 year payback" term! LOL! Sheesh is this even worth it? Dunno.. Having fun but ...taking too much of my time, and I'm expecting knock on my door any minute from the City Code Enforcement people saying I have to stop. :)
We'll see. Onward and Upward. Two additional solar panels due to arrive at the end of the month ... that will complete my collection I believe. :)
Enjoy!
Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night!
My Solar Exploits
Been having an issue or some confusion wrt one of my five batteries. It's not acting like the others and either hogs or supplies extra power to the system and as a result ends up with a significantly lower SOC - State Of Charge. Maybe it just needs a few full cycles but I'm a bit unsettled by it and the vendor (Sungold) I'm working with is a bit difficult both in communication and in support/returns/etc. I think Amazon has spoiled everyone though they too are getting a bit tougher...have refused to cancel a couple of my high-end orders of solar panels so I'm a bit upset with them as well. (even though the panels worked out and I have two more arriving at the end of the year). Should be getting my Xcel power bill in the next day or so. Should prove interesting even if I had two unscheduled/wanted solar issues that caused the system to switch to the grid (not even noticeable when this happens :) :) :) ) for some 10-20 Kw of grid power but I also got two near full charges of the batteries when this happened. (but also revealed the problem mentioned).
I wired in my breaker/cutoff for the batteries so now I can quickly disconnect them if needed and have breaker protection for the entire string and the inverter in addition to the individual breakers on each battery.
also, my six solar panels in the snow from last night.
My Solar Exploits
Having some issues with batteries. Had a battery undervoltage fault (on battery #2) yesterday which forced the inverter to grid bypass mode.
this was because one cell (of the sixteen in each battery) in one (of the five) batteries dropped below a threshold and more or less shut the whole system down.
I've now gone through the process of charging the entire battery system from the grid (overnight) but one battery (battery #3 ..i.e. not the one that had the under voltage cell) would not/did not fully charge to 100% State of Charge.
I figured resetting the battery might clear it but that had other consequences where were that it went back to normal operation once the uncharged battery was offline. So now I have a higher state of charge overall but mismatched battery levels (which actually was likely what started this whole mess and the system has never been fully charged or fully discharged since the batteries were all added at different times and in different states of charge.
Lordy....I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I just assumed between the Inverter monitoring, charging, etc. and the BMS (battery management system) built into each battery this would all take care of itself but so far I'm finding it a FULL TIME BABYSITTING JOB!
Plug and Play My ASS!
New US solar capacity additions have edged past natural gas in 2023
https://electrek.co/2023/11/28/us-solar-capacity-additions-2023/
Solar module prices may reach $0.10/W by end 2024
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/23/solar-module-prices-may-reach-0-10-w-by-end-2024/
