How about a solar car port on a budget?

[Crossy]

8 minutes ago, carlyai said:

So you've still got grid, solar, batteries and genset all automatic?

 

Pretty much, the batteries don't currently power anything if the grid is off. Coming soon!!

 

After yesterday's high, today is miserable, barely scraping to 1,000W and not charging the batteries at all ???? 

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

5 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Pretty much, the batteries don't currently power anything if the grid is off. Coming soon!!

 

After yesterday's high, today is miserable, barely scraping to 1,000W and not charging the batteries at all ???? 

 

You previous mentioned 0.25 Kwh/m2 as a reasonable value for a cloudy day minimum production, but from the sound of the above, some days can even be lower?

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

You previous mentioned 0.25 Kwh/m2 as a reasonable value for a cloudy day minimum production, but from the sound of the above, some days can even be lower?

 

This morning was really, really awful, it's brightened up significantly now.

 

For the day this far (3PM) just over 9kWh in the batteries plus 17kWh into the 220V.

[ExpatOilWorker]

9 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

This morning was really, really awful, it's brightened up significantly now.

 

For the day this far (3PM) just over 9kWh in the batteries plus 17kWh into the 220V.

I lost track, how many m2 panels do you have now?

[Crossy]

15 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I lost track, how many m2 panels do you have now?

 

We have 32 panels at about 2m² each totalling 10.6kWp installed ???? 

[sezze]

20 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Pretty much, the batteries don't currently power anything if the grid is off. Coming soon!!

 

After yesterday's high, today is miserable, barely scraping to 1,000W and not charging the batteries at all ???? 

 

How come , does your Sofar ES5000 not work on its own ? Or is it because you put your discharge rate at 500watt , and is too low for the consumption you want ?

Cutting power consumption is always helpful , it cuts your cost , less solar power needed , less storage needed , less electric bills ... At 10.6 kWp installed , you would expect to have any normal house powered well enough , even with large aircons installed . Only thing lacking is probably in your case batteries , which you do got but maybe not enough or you handle them too gently . I do however understand as it is a building system , can't do all straight away and it keeps you busy .

You do give us a wealth of info here , keep on the good work .

[Crossy]

34 minutes ago, sezze said:

How come , does your Sofar ES5000 not work on its own ?

 

It was working perfectly as intended, with only 1,000W from the array and local consumption of about 1,200W there was nothing to go into the (empty) batteries.

 

Yes, we are limited by the battery capacity, more is definitely needed and will be added over time. As we can still net-meter there's no actual rush.

 

[Crossy]

Now here's an interesting thing! (which may negate my earlier posts moaning about getting only 1kW from the array).

 

I assumed (yes, that word again) that the hybrid would do it's thing trying to maintain grid energy at zero and pushing any extra solar into the batteries. Indeed it does work like that when it's alone.

 

Then I noticed that despite the grid-tie banging out energy the actual energy to the grid was still zero!! A look at the inverter display confirmed that the grid-tie was blasting out 2.5kW and yet I was only measuring 1.5kW at my solar meter. Worrying.

 

Then I spotted this on the hybrid display:-

 

 

Battery Power and Charge-Discharge match the energy from the panels attached to the hybrid at about 1580W. BUT doing some simple sums and multiplying the battery voltage by the battery current yields 2523W!!

 

An extra kW is going into the batteries which just so happens to match the energy "missing" between the grid-tie output and my energy meter.

 

So despite actually having no comms between the inverters the whole system is behaving as a hybrid!

 

This is an unexpected and very welcome feature!

 

EDIT The only slight negative is that the total combined battery charge energy is limited to 3kW ???? 

Not that I'm complaining

[Thaifish]

On 9/14/2021 at 6:26 AM, Crossy said:

used 2.4kWh from the grid. We exported and then re-imported 13.4kWh giving me an idea of how much more storage we will need if/when we get an electronic meter installed.

I'm envious!!! Keep that meter at all cost. Free storage!!!!

[Crossy]

7 hours ago, Thaifish said:

I'm envious!!! Keep that meter at all cost. Free storage!!!!

 

Still no sign of your export meter then? ???? 

 

We are definitely taking steps to ensure the meter reader doesn't see the the meter going backwards. We are helped by the fact that he usually rolls up at about 6.30AM between the 17th and 19th of the month (16th in February) when we're not exactly generating much anyway. So "no-export" is enabled during those times, we just throw away what we can't store. The panels are not visible from the road.

 

I know we will eventually end up with an electronic meter which is why we're working on adding storage so we never actually have to export.

 

Gradual expansion means no lump-sum expenditure is needed.

 

Next month it's either another 200Ah of batteries or new french windows for Madam's downstairs sitting/entertainment area. I suspect I know who will win after the very visible purchase of those panels 

[Crossy]

Just for interest, today was "partly cloudy".

 

 

That's a pretty meaty export rate, whilst I doubt PEA's monitoring system is that sensitive I may bring forwards the installation of a further battery pack.

 

[Thaifish]

@Crossy. The wires must be getting warm at the meter!!! Your pumping it out. I have seen similar on my 10kw system but not for long. Get ready for putting in end of month report in Gwh...not Kwh..

[Muhendis]

8 hours ago, Thaifish said:

@Crossy. The wires must be getting warm at the meter!!! Your pumping it out. I have seen similar on my 10kw system but not for long. Get ready for putting in end of month report in Gwh...not Kwh..

From another thread, Crossy works out a cable drop of 4v over 60 metres of a 16mm cable. That's only 132 watts, 2.2 w/m. Easily dissipated methinks.

Edited September 18, 2021 by Crossy
Fixed the cable size to avoid confusion.

[Crossy]

September production, 750.83kWh.

 

We went from 20 panels to 32 panels on 13th September and I've had to throttle the output a bit as we are heading for a worryingly low bill (3 days we actually had negative grid usage).

 

 

[bankruatsteve]

Don't worry, be happy.  ????

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, bankruatsteve said:

Don't worry, be happy.  ????

 

I'm happy that I can sit in my office with the A/C set to 26C and the electricity meter not moving ????

[BritManToo]

On 9/11/2021 at 4:51 PM, Crossy said:

So today we went shopping. I have purchased 12 x 340W Jinyuan poly panels @ 2,890 Baht a pop, from Global House I'm in instant-gratification mode.

Lucky ..... they want 4,000bht each now.

[Crossy]

2 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Lucky ..... they want 4,000bht each now.

 

Ouch! Looks like we got in just in time there.

 

[007 RED]

7 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Ouch! Looks like we got in just in time there.

 

You were definitely lucky.  I have just returned from a trip to my local Global House and can confirm that the price of your panels has 'sky rocketed' with affect from today... see photo below with price date in bottom left by QR code.

 

Not sure, but the sudden price rise may have something to do with a recent report that the US government is investigating 3 or 4 solar cell manufactures in Thailand.  Apparently these companies get 'special' low import duty rates when exporting to the US.  But the US suspects that these companies are owned by Chinese and they are getting panels from China and re-branding them as made in Thailand in order to circumvent the very high import duty placed upon made in China panels.  

[Crossy]

A bit like those "made in Malaysia" buses a few years back that I think are still stuck at a port.

[Crossy]

October generation 751.93 kWh.

 

Note that the system has been severely throttled from the 26th due to us actually making more than we used and heading for a suspiciously low bill (I'm back in the office and the grandkids are back home ready for school to re-open).

 

[Crossy]

If anyone wants to try the updated version of the No-Export controller which includes auto configuration (ok via your phone browser) of the WiFi here it is:-

 

ESP8266_SSD1306_NoExpRel_4.0.ino

 

And the compiled binary if that's what floats your boat

 

 ESP8266_SSD1306_NoExpRel_4.0.ino.generic.bin

 

EDIT You will probably want to set Erase Flash to "All Flash Contents" in the Arduino IDE to ensure that it's completely forgotten any earlier WiFi settings.

 

[sidgy]

ok, so have a question for the electrical experts,  on one of my Souer GTIs, the cooling fans are u/s. 

Specs   Manufacture     Poweryear.

             Type                  DC    Brushless fan.     

             Rating               Dc 24V   0.18A

After looking online, the closest i can find  are  0.15A  or 0.2A,  will either of these be compatible, if so which would be preferable, or is it vital to find 0.18A fans

TIA

[BritManToo]

1 minute ago, sidgy said:

ok, so have a question for the electrical experts,  on one of my Souer GTIs, the cooling fans are u/s. 

Specs   Manufacture     Poweryear.

             Type                  DC    Brushless fan.     

             Rating               Dc 24V   0.18A

After looking online, the closest i can find  are  0.15A  or 0.2A,  will either of these be compatible, if so which would be preferable, or is it vital to find 0.18A fans

TIA

Nah, 0.2A will be fine.

[sezze]

19 hours ago, sidgy said:

ok, so have a question for the electrical experts,  on one of my Souer GTIs, the cooling fans are u/s. 

Specs   Manufacture     Poweryear.

             Type                  DC    Brushless fan.     

             Rating               Dc 24V   0.18A

After looking online, the closest i can find  are  0.15A  or 0.2A,  will either of these be compatible, if so which would be preferable, or is it vital to find 0.18A fans

TIA

Both do fine , i highly doubt that a simple device will check the power going to the fan , unless it is OP ( so way too high) . I did post in somewhere else i think , but all fans used in these inverters aren't the best fans . Meaning high power consumption , high noise , low output . Changing them for a good computer fan , same voltage ( thats important ) , will cost you a lot more ( the cheap fans cost less then 100b , good quality can cost upto 1000b , but theres a lot in the middle ) , but provide more cooling for less noise and power consumption and some have MTBF of many many years .

[Muhendis]

2 hours ago, sezze said:

Both do fine , i highly doubt that a simple device will check the power going to the fan , unless it is OP ( so way too high) . I did post in somewhere else i think , but all fans used in these inverters aren't the best fans . Meaning high power consumption , high noise , low output . Changing them for a good computer fan , same voltage ( thats important ) , will cost you a lot more ( the cheap fans cost less then 100b , good quality can cost upto 1000b , but theres a lot in the middle ) , but provide more cooling for less noise and power consumption and some have MTBF of many many years .

Agreed.

Look out for the number of wires because many fans are speed controlled these days and have feedback systems. Two wires = simple on/off. Four wires gives speed control and requires some external circuitry to do the business (I think I can recall seeing a few three wire ones too).

Edited November 27, 2021 by Muhendis
smell check

[sezze]

27 minutes ago, Muhendis said:

Agreed.

Look out for the number of wires because many fans are speed controlled these days and have feedback systems. Two wires = simple on/off. Four wires gives speed control and requires some external circuitry to do the business (I think I can recall seeing a few three wire ones too).

well , yes , but i highly doubt these fans are speed controller , but yes , you need to check . Fans aren't anything special , thats why theres very cheap things floating around and used . It is sure that the fans used in a 3000 baht device , meant to be to do a lot more complicated things then cooling , are just bad . Replacing them with better , will not only give better results ( aka cooling) but also extend the lifetime of the total device ( better cooling ) .

[Muhendis]

20 minutes ago, sezze said:

well , yes , but i highly doubt these fans are speed controller , but yes , you need to check . Fans aren't anything special , thats why theres very cheap things floating around and used . It is sure that the fans used in a 3000 baht device , meant to be to do a lot more complicated things then cooling , are just bad . Replacing them with better , will not only give better results ( aka cooling) but also extend the lifetime of the total device ( better cooling ) .

Quite so, but I was thinking from the viewpoint of accidentally buying a four wire fan where a two wire fan is required.

[sidgy]

thanks guys

yes, just the two wires.

just wanting something cheap and quick to deliver for quick fix as i have to head back to colder climes again next week and could be a few months again before i return

 

 

[Seeall]

On 11/26/2021 at 9:41 AM, sidgy said:

ok, so have a question for the electrical experts,  on one of my Souer GTIs, the cooling fans are u/s. 

Specs   Manufacture     Poweryear.

             Type                  DC    Brushless fan.     

             Rating               Dc 24V   0.18A

After looking online, the closest i can find  are  0.15A  or 0.2A,  will either of these be compatible, if so which would be preferable, or is it vital to find 0.18A fans

TIA

I am no solar expert, but TH is hot, so 0.2 A slightly stronger, I would look at that...