Solar PV battery options

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120850686#Comment_120850686

Those are recent batches, the early folk on the forum got pretty much full capacity from late 21 to mid 22 shipments, thankfully I'm in that early batch and get 16kWh out of a 20kWh pack with 20% buffer

randombar

So two Pylontech US5000 4.8kWh from nkon approx 3k for 9.6kwh which would come with case, Bms etc. with a “guaranteed” capacity of 9.6. 3.2w per euro.

if you were to go nkon diy for cases batteries bms’es etc. what kind of money would you be talking. Not sure the quality at the moment from Ali can be relied upon.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120851542#Comment_120851542

If I was starting clean slate

I'd be going for the 300odd ah eve cells or similar from nkon.

Likely would go with a jk bms, but using the translator board using esphome as I'm quite comfortable with that.

Other BMS could be the global power one, off grid garage done a series on that one.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120850686#Comment_120850686

I had CALBs before most other people on the forum and the earlier ones seemed higher grade / more capacity. But I agree with your point. It is not that relevant for me now as I have several cells in parallel, including ones that were known tested at less than 130Ah (that I got very cheap), but the law of averages gives me a high usuable total kWh of the pack. It was fun to manually "balance" the pack in the first week or so by physically moving around cells to get a better match 😂 I also went 15S after being 16S for years as it suited the total number of cells that I had better 🤣

I agree with @graememk that if I were to do it again and would only ever go 1 or 2 in parallel, I would buy EVE cells from NKON. Their prices are very reasonable, only a bit up from the likes of AliExpress, but you then have certainty about taxes and an EU presence. And then hope they don't swell too much or cause trouble. Something that is near impossible with CALB cells.

Ginger83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120850550#Comment_120850550

Out of curiosity do you mind me asking why do you think the battery won't pay for itself?

I'm relatively new to solar but I see this battery has a 6000 cycles life.

unkel

Because the FIT is nearly as profitable as cycling the battery after losses, per kWh. And that doesn't take into account the depreciation on the battery itself and on the additional hardware (like hybrid inverter instead of conventional inverter or battery inverter on top of conventional inverter) and that's even presuming you do the total install yourself

Ginger83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120853196#Comment_120853196

Oh I get you. Would this be depending on exported power and subject to having a smart meter?

I chose a hybrid inverter because I wanted to have a battery to cover excess usage above generation rather than not having a battery if that makes sense. Although we have a day/night meter currently so receive deemed export. I will probably consider a smart meter at some stage but the tariffs don't suit us as an EV is out of the question.

KBeats6

Hi, I am new to the forum, I recently installed a pv system with a Luna2000 -5-S0 5KWh battery. I would like to add more battery capacity, say a further 10 or 15KWh. Are there any limitations, is it a simple addition. It's a home installation, tks Ken

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120858029#Comment_120858029

You can have 3 of the 5kWh modules with one BMS (the bit that’s sitting on top). So you can buy 2 additional modules; take off your BMS; stack the additional two 5 kWh modules you got on top and then stick the BMS back on.

if you want to have more than 15kwh you need to get another BMS.

The prices on midsummer are great; and also Rexel prices are just dropped this month. But you will have to pay VAT at the full rate.

I assume the inverter will just see the new battery’s when you turn it back on. I did set up several systems but never added a battery; other than at initial setup. but I’m sure it’s fine.

cloudhopper19

Have PV panels installed in house - builder installed them but now would like to add a battery but finding it difficult to find someone to supply and install battery to existing panels. Anyone any recommendations on battery or install options for Kilkenny...

championc

Assuming you already have a hybrid inverter, it should be plug in and go

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120865194#Comment_120865194

Builder installed, so I'd say not a hybrid

slave1

could even be micros

portach king

Hi guys,

We're about a month into our Solar/Battery install. Here's our setup.

• An 8kW panels on the roof.
• Inverter model: Solis RHI-5G Series Hybrid Inverter 
• Battery type: Dyness 5kWh

So far, we're very happy with the setup but are looking to up the battery. I can imagine that compatibility will be the issue if I want to add another 5kW or 10kW. So I have a few questions:

1. Do I have to stick with Dyness?
2. I see Dyness have different modular shapes. Our current one is the server cabinet style. Can that be connected with a powerwall style?
3. Is there some kind of compatibility chart online that I can use? I searched, and found nothing.
4. What is the capacity I could reach with the inverter installed? This is mostly out of curiosity.

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120866325#Comment_120866325

https://www.failtesolar.com/assets/uploads/documnets/dynesscompatiblelist-20211015-v1.pdf

unkel

@portach king - did you do any sums before even considering such an investment?

Another 5kWh Dyness battery will almost certainly never pay for itself if supplied and installed by an installer and you have a feed in tariff.

Also your Solis inverter does not perform to spec. It is very limited in what it can charge the battery with. It throttles very quickly down to 3kW. So on this glorious blue sky day when your (presumably south facing panels) are producing the full 8kW, 5kW of that is going straight back to the grid (unless you directly use it yourself or have car or hot water diverters), whether you have a 5kWh or 100kWh Dyness battery.

Same for discharging. Even if you had a 100kWh Dyness battery that was fully charged, if someone is hoovering and you have a washing machine running and someone else puts the kettle on, then you are buying a lot of electricity for that from the grid

portach king

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120866421#Comment_120866421

Hey, Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on adding a second battery to my solar system. I was planning on doing the installation myself, by the way. The current battery in installed in a server cabinet, and a second one could fit on top of it.

I understand your concerns about the cost of the battery and the performance of my Solis inverter. I'm still just at the stage of considering this as an option, and I was wondering if the battery will eventually pay for itself in terms of reduced electricity bills.

Likewise, I also understand that even with a 100 kWh battery, I will still need to draw power from the grid during peak usage periods. Again, my hopes were that the battery will help to reduce my overall electricity consumption, and that will save me money in the long run.

I appreciate your concern, and I will continue to monitor my system closely to see how it performs.

Thank you again for your feedback.

unkel

It will save money for sure and adding another battery to your inverter in the server cabinet is super easy. But the 5kWh battery (new) will still probably cost you about €1700-1800 or thereabouts. The savings might be less than €100 per year (if even that), so effectively it will never pay for itself as it will likely be kaput before. And that's not even taking into account finance cost and opportunity cost

Try make a realistic calculation of the savings, and then decide

I don't want to be a negative nelly here and my own system is very big in terms of battery capacity. But it was all raw cells that I bought at very good prices (only a fraction of the cost of ready made batteries like Dyness). So if your extra battery costs €600 and you made €150 per year back (in my case more than the €100 as my inverter can charge / discharge much better than the 3kW from Solis, it would start to make a lot more sense.

Now obviously it depends on what way electricity prices will develop over the mid term, nobody knows. Personally I expect much higher differences than today. More like in the UK where a variable tariff can be anywhere between minus 30p and plus 60p or thereabouts for those that opt in 😎

slave1

Sit back and see how you get on during a full year of usage, I would not rush an expensive decision like that, after a year you can estimate what your additional savings would have been and then decide is it worth it.

portach king

Thanks lads. I genuinely appreciate the frank answers.

Just to add a little more context, we have a smart meter installed and are on a night boost plan for the EV. We also have a heat pump.

I was hoping to fill the batteries up overnight during the darker months so to avoid pulling as much off the grid during the expensive day rates.

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120866670#Comment_120866670

i think what slave1 said is the right approach. give it a year and then make a judgement whether its worth it or not.

with an 8kW array i would at the moment be sending every bit of excess to the grid after the car, battery and house are sorted in order to make the most of FIT.

portach king

Thanks!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120866756#Comment_120866756

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120866549#Comment_120866549

Plus1 to what Slave says. It's a 25 year game. Took me a few months to chill. I wanted to buy a battery ASAP but then waited to see how we used power over the seasons.

HotSwap

You’re in the same situation as me in this regard. I already have 10kWh of battery; which I charge every night between 2-4 am on the EI night boost. This is working well in summer when the battery only drops to about 60-70 % by 2am due to the longer days.

but in winter; I’ll be hitting 0% before 2am And My battery can only charge at 3KW from the grid; so to get it from 0-100% would take between 3-4 hours. Which would mean that I would not be charging it exclusively from the boost rate.

So what I’m going to do is charge the battery between 2am - 8am majority of the power will come between 2-4 am and then some on the off peak between 4-8 am. But importantly I won’t start discharging the battery until 8am as it will be set to charge during this time.

The main thing for me is to avoid any grid usage between 8am - 11pm when it’s the highest price. I believe I should be able to make the 8am - 11pm (15 hours) on 10kWh battery plus whatever bonus kwhs the panels generate. Some days it might be feck all; other days might be 6-10kWh.

this is also shifting behaviours like washing machine during the day in summer to scheduling it to come on between 2-4 am in winter.

HotSwap

Sorry just to clarify. I’d personally add more battery if I could charge them faster to allow me to totally fill them to 100% between 2-4 am. Or alternatively if there was a longer “boost” period like 2-6am.

im thinking I should also wait till I’ve lived through winter with what I have before making any changes.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120867993#Comment_120867993

With a bigger battery and more powerful inverter, you could actively trade electricity. Buy in your supercheap slot between 2-4AM and then sell back to the grid when you least need it. And of course if / when we get super variable rates, soak up all that electricity from the grid when the price is negative, like in the UK and the Netherlands last week. In a typical Irish house you got a 12kva connection, which means you can draw up to about 15kW from the grid. At €0.25 / kWh negative, this makes you nearly €4 per hour, fully automated. Well that's the plan 😁

But seriously, this is more important in the move to renewable energy than renewable energy generation itself...

remoteboy

Is there any indication of when people may be forced onto smart meters? I’m on a D/N meter so I get a deemed output of 3.26kw per day from Bord Gais regardless of how much or little I export. If I could get a few years out of that I could invest in an extra battery in the meantime (currently have a 3.6kw pylontech in a cabinet), essentially getting the benefit twice.

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120867963#Comment_120867963

this is a really good strategy. the new flogas community tariff is hopefully indicative the way the market is heading (especially for those relying on night rates to charge their battery ahead of the day rate period).

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120868582#Comment_120868582

The roll out of day/night capable smart meters starts this Autumn so it really depends where you are and if you can get the contractor if ESBN are using one to put you at the back of the list. I got them to do that for me without refusing a new meter which stops you getting FIT with some if not all suppliers.

randombar

Any recommendations for the “fastest battery charge” for an inverter?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120868720#Comment_120868720

8kw sunsynk!

unkel

@graememk - "8.8kw sunsynk!"

FYP 😁

190A charge / discharge. About 3 times what a Solis 6kW hybrid can do...

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120869032#Comment_120869032

Yup this bad boy is a beast and can't be beaten in price either for the features you get.

Could easily pump almost 20kwh into the batteries during those scabby-a$$ 2 hour windows.

randombar

Where’s the best place to pick these up?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120869908#Comment_120869908

Will need to get it shipped to the north though,

https://www.itstechnologies.shop/products/sunsynk-ecco-8k-hybrid-inverter-solar-wind-inverter

Mr Q

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120869908#Comment_120869908

I purchased a 5.5kW version directly from China. Took a very long time but I think at that time they were quoting 1.7k for the 8.8kW version DDP.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120870135#Comment_120870135

If you buy from China directly does it have the option of selecting the Irish specific regulatory settings for EN50438 from the menu, and how much and how much difficulty was the completion of the NC8, if you don't mind me asking?

Mr Q

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120870175#Comment_120870175

I'm on a NC6 from the original solar install so didn't apply for this unit. The Deye/Sunsynk is for replacing a Sofar ME3000SP in my case.

The setting wouldn't be an issue for our grid.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120870231#Comment_120870231

Ok, 5.5kW, I see now. I had in my mind that it was the 8kW. 😀

ColemanY2K

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120869924#Comment_120869924

ITS wouldn't ship to the north when I enquired last year. They said their couriers had been refusing requests to ship stuff across the sea.

Perhaps things have changed since, you'd have to enquire.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120850419#Comment_120850419

Thanks for the link. I bought 8 of these as they were cheaper than the CALB and NKON cells I was looking at for similar capacity and they have the added capacity of not having to explain my wiring attempts putting the BMS on to the mrs. She's not a fan of my "projects" already installed but she was really not a fan of the battery setup I was explaining. Managed to get them for 1350 each, find me 15 100AH (these are 15S) cells for that, and add on the BMS cost too. I'm not a fan of pylontech but they are better than the dyness units I have now.

Since both are 15S I'm researching if I can paralel them and turn off comms on the dyness (giving me 1200AH of storage at 48V) or sell the dyness to recoup some costs.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120870231#Comment_120870231

If you had a 5.5 or 6kw inverter you were exceeding the NC6 in any case as the Sofar provides an additional ~3kWh inverter power which pushes you over 6kW limit

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120875166#Comment_120875166

😀 You are the new MAD_LAD 😁

You bought 8 * Pylontech 4.8kWh for €1350 each? That's €281 per kWh, not sure how you can claim that's cheaper than EVE or CALB cells, your Pylontechs are 100% more expensive per kWh (just checked on NKON). And they'd only need 1 BMS (under €200) no matter how many cells you use in parallel.

You can't combine them with your 16S Dyness. Well technically you could, but you'd lose a large chunk of capacity of both. And only one of the two sets could control your inverter.

ColemanY2K

There's something to be said for plug and play especially for those of us who wouldn't have a notion when it comes to setting up a CALB battery.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120875338#Comment_120875338

Dyness are also 15S. A48100 are 15S and the BX5100 are 15S. I have 4* A48100 currently. Combining two differently branded 15S battery brands with the pylontech handling the comms with the solis is absolutely possible, giving 1200Ah at 48v of storage or approx 45kWh usable.

Nah, look, like I said to you , theres a hidden cost here of herself not complaining at me. I'd been broaching the subject a few times with photos of good DIY setups etc but it was a flat no. I think the pylontechs at that price have some good resellability so once I get a smaller off grid setup done with some calb cells (like I have for my office UPS on some truck 12v batteries I got for free) perhaps that couuld serve as proof of concept.

unkel

Fair enough, forgot that the Dyness were 15S too. You're still a maniac 😂

I wouldn't use lead acids in a room you spend a lot of time in like an office, unless it is very well ventilated. Like a barn or an uninsulated shed would be more appropriate.

ELM327

Yes it's been on my list to move the 12v to the "control room"/ office kitchen for some time actually, must actually get the finger out

unkel

Still not sure why you didn't just buy a few more Dyness? Pylontech tiny pouch cells are seriously poor. I've opened several of them (2.4kWh), and there was plenty of bloating. And I had an interesting experiment hard discharging a bloating pack - no fire but let's just say we got a massive vent and the stink of electrolyte took ages to disappear from my shed 😁

I sure hope the 4.8kWh do not use same tiny 25Ah pouch cells. That said I don't really know what's in the Dyness either. If it were up to me and I was forced to buy ready made batteries (and pay for 8 * expensive BMS while you'd only need 1 😀), I think I'd go for generic no name packs from AliExpress with decent EVE cells. Was doing Seplos / Mason DIY kits not an option?

If you don't change your mind and the packs come, try and not connect them as Pylontech says you should, as that is wrong. They need to be paralleled via shared central busbars, not via those connecting cables they supply.

zoom_cool

I assume these are the same as the Sunsynk stock in Germany but only 5.5kw version

https://www.europe.opsolarbattery.com/product-page/Hybrid-Inverter-SUN-5K

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120875831#Comment_120875831

Any links to these busbars you suggested? Sounds like a good idea for balancing.

With 8 packs and 4 dyness packs I think nothing will be hard discharged as even putting in or out 100A (the solis limit - notionally anyway) is not even 0.1C of my 1200AH pack combined.