Solar PV Hints, Tips & Troubleshooting

Two things I've noticed with my system over the last while that I'm hoping I can get advise on. 

1. 

My battery constantly discharges when at at 100%, and isn't required by the house.

2. 

My Eddi uses the battery to heat up the water. This only happens when there's not enough solar to cover a load,and the Eddi kick starts when it sees power coming from the battery.

Eg, the dishwasher goes on at 10am, but there's not enough solar to cover it, so it uses the rest from the battery. That's fair enough. But then the Eddi kicks in. It must assume the battery power is excess solar?

Thank you, much appreciated.

I'll try both these recommendations..

You should do it to be kind to ESB. Basically to every estate they (ESB) run three phases. Usually they round robin all the phases to the houses, so the 1st house gets phase 1, 2nd house gets phase 2, etc. The problem is that they need to "balance the phases" if there is significant reverse current flowing.

That can prove tricky if they are expecting 6Kw, and there are a number of people on one phase breaking that.

In reality - it's probably fine. it's only if there is a massive unbalance that it's typically an issue and 1x house in isolation is unlikely to cause an issue, but you don't want to be a bit of a prick either, right? :-)

Hey Folks,

I want to ask how much 'give'/movement you find in your MC4 connection, particularly the female connectors? This is after i loosen the plastic wire fastener, not the plastic parts that click together. I mean the actual wire that has the metal component attached.

I've been struggling with panels recently, and i found a common quality that the MC4 female connectors have about a 3-5mm give when i pull on the wire. is this normal? expected?

I've no experience so I'm shooting in the dark about whats normal or not?

Thanks

Ray

This discussion might be better suited to this thread outside of the quotes thread, ive a west facing end of terrace house, im looking at putting panels on every aspect at the moment and currently the best quote I have has 15/16 total 340 JA panels with 7/8 on the west facing, 5 on the east facing due to a velux and then 3/4 on the south facing due to another velux and a chimney. My original thought was I could add optomisers to the east and south as 1 string but the last fitter I talked to said that optomisers will drop about 16% off the max generating capacity on each panel they are added to. Now I cant find any evidence online to support this so wondering if its true? If it is I was thinking that I would simply add micro inverters to the 3 or 4 on the south facing roof? But i'm also finding conflicting info on the cost and viability of this too. All help and advice appreciated.

Hi Guys,

I've my LifePo batteries in now so I'll be moving on 2.4kw pylontech. About 2 years old only used exclusively with solar, no nightsaver loading or anything like that.

Any idea what the value of this would be?

Thanks,

Gary

Sorry, following up again on this. What model Solis Hybrids do you have and what version are they running?

I'm expecting pushback from Solis so want some additional info when I follow back up with them. I'm not accepting this 95-100% and drain as it just doesn't make sense. It's a pain also with the myenergi stuff as it knocks them off once the battery gets below 95%.

Battery is not currently full