With help, technical and other, and am very grateful to a friend, we installed the system on a flat south facing roof. I also had the help from a couple of guys to locate the panels on the roof. I am just too old now to tackle that job.
So ended up with
One … Sofar ES5000 Hybrid Inverter
One … LVTopsun LV48100 5kwh battery
Seven … 450W Mono Panels. Kerry lost one so only six installed at present
Seven … 340W Poly Panels.
Bit of a mixture but bought bit by bit.
The system has been up and working for a couple of weeks. Some delay was caused by LVTopsun sending the wrong battery to the company from which we bought the battery.
Our minimum load is very low ie one fridge/freezer. However we have a PHEV with a 6.3kwh battery and several air con units, computers, TV’s, Coffee m/c, kettle, microwave, oven etc. Three of the aged air con units were replaced, very recently, with Daikin KTFM18WV’s. These considerably lowered our electrical usage. We are now running two units downstairs all day. Also put the bedroom one on mid afternoon, if we have spare generation. Our bedroom is at the front of the house.
The weather hasn’t been great since installation. The highest daily generation has been a little over 18kwh, actually no idea if this is good or not and highest max instantaneous being 4.11kws.
Sofar have a comprehensive monitoring system such that when you input your ‘Plant’ details you can access and download an amazing amount of info. It downloads straight into excel which is very handy.
The only oddity found so far is that the inverter gave more output when PV2 input was changed to be the seven mono cells. On the face of it, this doesn’t make sense. When we finally install the last 450W cell I’ll swap the inputs over and see if it is still the case.
That is basically the reason why the PV1 and PV2 wires have, as yet, not been boxed in as it is much easier swapping the dc inputs at the breakers rather that at the inverter.
What have I learnt/would do differently ……
Yes you can install solar yourself and it would be much easier the second time. Isn’t it always the case?
Would probably have bought the inverter and the battery from the same supplier, more likely to help if had a problem. Could have bought direct from China. I have a Chinese speaking friend who would have sorted for us, but wanted to avoid hassle with customs etc. It could have been somewhat cheaper that way.
Should have understood better how to locate the rails for the panels as installation was delayed because of the need to add extra steels under the roof. Fortunately, due to the roof design MrsJ and myself managed to ‘slip in’ what was required but not without some difficulty. We put in 25mm2 galvanised pieces.
That painting galvanized steel using the wash with white vinegar first method isn’t always successful.
When buying steel there is in spec. and there is not in spec. What is called ‘one inch’ can come out at about 20mm. and we needed 24mm-25mm. square. Had to buy twice.
Went for Hybrid as was concerned what would be the effect of in the future being given a no export meter. Now looking at all the data realize that we would have been much better installing a Grid-Tie system. We just don’t get power cuts, well very infrequent. So if anyone wants a Hybrid inverter and 5kwh battery we would sell. PM me if interested.
It’s not that we are unhappy with the system, it is working well, just that the payback would have been shorter. I would certainly stick with Sofar though.
Can see the space for the last solar panel...when it eventually arrives
Additional Roof steels...painting failed
Boxing of wiring still to finish PV1 and PV2 input wiring reversed going to raise the battery also
DC Switch Box
Some system info from today ...generally thinish cloud..a couple of times not quite so thin