My Issan 10kw on grid solar project fully installed by contractors 337,500bht

[Thaifish]

So my quote came in for a 30KWH Huawei battery storage system. Click and Play... Sit Down before you read on... 790,000Bht.. Includes 6 x 5Kwh batteries split over the two Inverters + Power module and Battery Module...  A link to the  spec page...

 

https://solar.huawei.com/en-GB/download?p=%2F-%2Fmedia%2FSolar%2Fattachment%2Fpdf%2Feu%2Fdatasheet%2FLUNA2000-5-15-S0.pdf   

 

 

 

 

It is killing me watching excess power just being wasted. ~20 +Kwh per day. The Grid Smart Meter will help I hope but it is looking like only 50% return on what is being exported... Time will tell... So research on installing batteries other than Huawei with their ridiculous cost has become a priority so I don't end up with a white Elephant. By not using Huawei Click and Play modules I can see it is going to be a challenge for me setting up a battery system which would obviously be cheaper than their quote.

 

A question for the Gurus which shows my limited knowledge.

 

The simple formula  W= Amp x Volt. If I have 5 x 24V x 260Ah batteries.  260Amp/h x 24V x 5 Batteries = 31,200Kwh. So will this supply the 30kwh at 220V I want? (I cant understand how at 24V production and then using power at 220V the Kw can be the same if you know what I mean??) I can not get my head around it!!

[sezze]

1 hour ago, Thaifish said:

 

A question for the Gurus which shows my limited knowledge.

 

The simple formula  W= Amp x Volt. If I have 5 x 24V x 260Ah batteries.  260Amp/h x 24V x 5 Batteries = 31,200Kwh. So will this supply the 30kwh at 220V I want? (I cant understand how at 24V production and then using power at 220V the Kw can be the same if you know what I mean??) I can not get my head around it!!

I knew it was going to be terribly expensive .

Ok , i forgot what system you got but your calculations are correct . Do you got a 24V system ? Checking some ready packs on Lazada gave me this in a few minutes .

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/lithium-lifepo4-24v-200a-bms-i1882272306-s5875120437.html?&search=pdp_v2v?spm=a2o4m.pdp_revamp.recommendation_2.10.1ef97c37fpIika&mp=1&scm=1007.16389.126158.0&clickTrackInfo=e4a34e0f-a4cd-483c-9cc0-eba603915dd5__1882272306__11940__trigger2i__202835__0.105__0.105__0.0__0.0__0.0__0.105__9__8__PDPV2V__251__null__null__0____28900.0__0.0__4.666666666666667__3__28900.0____null__null__null__3650.16537_3650.16544_955.3632__null__13499__null__0.0__0.0__elp.9_starplus.9__

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/nmc-48v-100ah-512kw-smart-bms-100a-daly-i2382523176-s8089572908.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.6.507db5dfOrCUR7&search=1

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/nmc-48v100ah-512kw-smart-bms-i2355981192-s7965129041.html?

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/nmc-48v150ah-777kw-smart-bms-300a-i2371664776-s8026433136.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.116.507db5dfOrCUR7&search=1

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/lithium-nmc-module-24v259-294v-100ah-i2379830842-s8074111465.html?spm=a2o4m.searchlist.list.107.507db5dfOrCUR7&search=1

Only a few , but there is plenty around . ( PS if you need 24V , i think you really like nr 1 i posted )

Something you need to know is voltage needed ( 24 and 48 are most used ) , Charging and discharging current . If you can charge at 100 amp/h then your BMS need to be ready for it , same for the discharge .  The more battery packs you put in parallel , the more it is all divided between it all .

[eisfeld]

5 hours ago, Thaifish said:

The simple formula  W= Amp x Volt. If I have 5 x 24V x 260Ah batteries.  260Amp/h x 24V x 5 Batteries = 31,200Kwh. So will this supply the 30kwh at 220V I want? (I cant understand how at 24V production and then using power at 220V the Kw can be the same if you know what I mean??) I can not get my head around it!!

 

By itself 5x 24V will of course give you only 120V. This can be stepped up to 220V. Voltages can be more or less freely increased or decreased via transformers. They have a bit of loss of course but let's ignore that for now. Watt is the total power. I like to use the following analogy with water buckets: amp is the speed (buckets/s) at which the buckets come in and voltage is the amount of water per bucket. Watt is how many liter/s you get. So if you have a given amount of water in liter/s (W) of input then you can double your bucket delivery speed in buckets/s (A) if you have half the water in each bucket (V). Water (Energy) does not appear out of, or disappear into thin air so input and output must be the same. It's not a 100% matching analogy but it can help. And it only works for single phase. With three phase things get more complicated and the math is not as easy to perform in the head.

 

The Huawei battery packs state in the specs 2.5kW at nominal voltage of 450V (350V - 560V). That's about 5.55A. That could be stepped down to 220V at say 11A. Interestingly these power modules don't seem to be capable of outputting this common voltage themselves.

[sezze]

5 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

 

By itself 5x 24V will of course give you only 120V. This can be stepped up to 220V. Voltages can be more or less freely increased or decreased via transformers. They have a bit of loss of course but let's ignore that for now. Watt is the total power. I like to use the following analogy with water buckets: amp is the speed (buckets/s) at which the buckets come in and voltage is the amount of water per bucket. Watt is how many liter/s you get. So if you have a given amount of water in liter/s (W) of input then you can double your bucket delivery speed in buckets/s (A) if you have half the water in each bucket (V). Water (Energy) does not appear out of, or disappear into thin air so input and output must be the same. It's not a 100% matching analogy but it can help. And it only works for single phase. With three phase things get more complicated and the math is not as easy to perform in the head.

 

The Huawei battery packs state in the specs 2.5kW at nominal voltage of 450V (350V - 560V). That's about 5.55A. That could be stepped down to 220V at say 11A. Interestingly these power modules don't seem to be capable of outputting this common voltage themselves.

You are making it way to complicated .

Serial +-+-+-+-+- and everytime you add , the voltage is added also , so 5*24v in series would give indeed 120V , amps as stated on the single battery .

Parallel +++++----- , voltage stays the same but amps go up , so in 5 times 24v/200Ah , you will get 24v/1000Ah .

In total power , it is just the same , you get out of 5 times 24v/200Ah 24kW .

In order to transfer it to useable power  , then it comes down to the inverter . The inverter says the input voltage , small inverters will use 12v , larger 24v , 5000 watt inverters will use 48v . You cannot put 48v in 24v inverter , it will break down .

Why does this matter ? Well pretty easy , as you know power plants make super high voltage . This is done because many want to draw electricity from it . The higher the demand , the higher the amps , while the voltage stays the same . Higher amps do mean thicker wires needed , so doubling the voltage , everything easier .

This does not matter for 10 amps , but if you want to draw 5000watt out of the battery ( not capacity , but like lights , aircons , ... ) then it does matter .

5000 watt 48v = 104 amp

5000 watt 24v = 208 amp .

That is the basic principle ...

So your inverter says the input voltage needed , you just buy a accordingly battery pack .

[Crossy]

6 hours ago, Thaifish said:

So my quote came in for a 30KWH Huawei battery storage system.

 

Ouch. As above I know it wasn't going to be cheap but ...

 

Your inverters should hopefully be configurable so you can use a "General Lithium" or some similar setting with any battery pack/BMS (Battery Management System), time to get the inverter manual out.

 

The first issue I see is that these appear to be high voltage (450V) packs, the vast majority of the available stuff for DIY maxes out at 48V (coz, generally, 48V DC won't kill you).

 

Voltage notwithstanding you should be able to DIY a 30kWh pack for around 160,000 - 200,000 Baht! Still not an insignificant number of $$$.

 

Think of your inverter as a "transformer", Watts out = Watts in (ignoring losses for now). So 5kW at 24V is 208A going in which equates to 5kW at 220V (22.7A) coming out. Obviously these things are not 100% efficient so you actually get fewer watts out than go in (which warms up the inverter).

 

Task A. is to get the inverter manual out and see if you can actually use third-party batteries.

 

[sezze]

21 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Ouch. As above I know it wasn't going to be cheap but ...

 

Your inverters should hopefully be configurable so you can use a "General Lithium" or some similar setting with any battery pack/BMS (Battery Management System), time to get the inverter manual out.

 

The first issue I see is that these appear to be high voltage (450V) packs, the vast majority of the available stuff for DIY maxes out at 48V (coz, generally, 48V DC won't kill you).

 

Voltage notwithstanding you should be able to DIY a 30kWh pack for around 160,000 - 200,000 Baht! Still not an insignificant number of $$$.

 

Think of your inverter as a "transformer", Watts out = Watts in (ignoring losses for now). So 5kW at 24V is 208A going in which equates to 5kW at 220V (22.7A) coming out. Obviously these things are not 100% efficient so you actually get fewer watts out than go in (which warms up the inverter).

 

Task A. is to get the inverter manual out and see if you can actually use third-party batteries.

 

Like said before , high kW , big money , low kW , small money. But his monthly bill will be also i guess 30kW daily is 900kWh/ month so if im correct around 4000-4500 bht/ month ? . Pay back time for 200k batteries : 50 months or little over 4 years . Still not bad at all ...

[sezze]

Just now, sezze said:

Like said before , high kW , big money , low kW , small money. But his monthly bill will be also i guess 30kW daily is 900kWh/ month so if im correct around 4000-4500 bht/ month ? . Pay back time for 200k batteries : 50 months or little over 4 years . Still not bad at all ...

but i must add, even though the systems itself aren't that hard to understand , there are some complicated things around , and for that price i would certainly get some good info infront , since the money involved + the amps involved can be dangerous .

[eisfeld]

8 hours ago, sezze said:

Like said before , high kW , big money , low kW , small money. But his monthly bill will be also i guess 30kW daily is 900kWh/ month so if im correct around 4000-4500 bht/ month ? . Pay back time for 200k batteries : 50 months or little over 4 years . Still not bad at all ...

 

That ignores the fact that it will not be every day 100% of the capacity, the losses which for storage in total in-out with conversion can be easily over 10% and crucially the fact that you can feed into the grid at roughly half the price so in total you save for sure less than half compared to that calculation. Add in outages due to battery failures and so on and woop di doop you are looking at 10+ years ROI.

 

Battery storage is not worth it at this point in time unless someone has special circumstances like not able to feed into grid, very frequent and long outages or needing the batteries anyways to guarantee 100% uptime etc.

[BritManToo]

8 hours ago, sezze said:

Pay back time for 200k batteries : 50 months or little over 4 years . Still not bad at all ...

Except the batteries will need replacing after 4-5 years.

[Crossy]

11 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Except the batteries will need replacing after 4-5 years.

 

LiFePO4 should be good for better than 10 years (4,000 cycles) even more if you treat them with respect. 

[BritManToo]

Just now, Crossy said:

LiFePO4 should be good for better than 10 years (4,000 cycles) even more if you treat them with respect. 

Should be ........... too early to tell at the moment IMHO.

[eisfeld]

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Should be ........... too early to tell at the moment IMHO.

To be fair the Huawei batteries come with a 10 years warranty. I have not heard from anyone who tried a claim yet so if the warranty is worth more than the paper it comes on is an open question. At least with Huawei there's a chance they'll honor it compared to noname batteries from Alibaba/-express.

[sezze]

If the batteries are new , and you discharge them 80% or less then they should be good for at least 3000 cycles . Using them for 100% then it should be 2000 cycles , but it is far from recommended , and a cell breaking down faster would not surprise me .

So better do not do that , it is recommended not to charge higher then 90% and not take the last 10% out .

[Thaifish]

On 6/9/2021 at 1:19 PM, sezze said:

Do you got a 24V system ?

Looking at the specs the batteries are high voltage 350-360V.

 

 

On 6/9/2021 at 5:00 PM, eisfeld said:

The Huawei battery packs state in the specs 2.5kW at nominal voltage of 450V (350V - 560V). That's about 5.55A. That could be stepped down to 220V at say 11A. Interestingly these power modules don't seem to be capable of outputting this common voltage themselves.

Trying to do research on the Huawei battery packs and it is like using an android phone with apple software. Huawei have set up their system so only their products fit.

On 6/9/2021 at 5:23 PM, sezze said:

but if you want to draw 5000watt out of the battery ( not capacity , but like lights , aircons , ... ) then it does matter .

The bigest consumption from the grid happens from ~1800hrs till ~2300hrs when everybody jumps in the tub for a bath.. Pulling 4kw with spikes to 7/8kw

On 6/10/2021 at 2:21 AM, eisfeld said:

very frequent and long outages or needing the batteries

Outages are a pain in the butt. With the onset of the wet season the power drops out maybe once a week. They can average from 3-4-5-28hrs. Something I have to live with.. After the wet sets in it is generally pretty stable

 

On 6/9/2021 at 5:54 PM, Crossy said:

Voltage notwithstanding you should be able to DIY a 30kWh pack for around 160,000 - 200,000 Baht! Still not an insignificant number of $$$

The high voltage batteries are a killer in price... LG Chem 10H_ R 9.8Kwh going for 227K Bht or Tesla (Import from UK?? 120kg each!!!)which are both compatible. I cant find a supplier of high voltage batteries in Thailand... Banging my head against the wall. Even if I do source batteries the Huawei inverter may not talk to them. The Huawei battery bank starts with a Power module and communication with a RS485 cable so from my limited knowledge I'm stuffed unless I buy Huawei.

[Thaifish]

For the month produced 1.2Mwh... Exported 434KWH or roughly  1,736bht which is dead money now my meter does not spin backwards. Have done my best to consume the export part but anyway helping the environment and PEA out!! Still waiting on the smart grid meter to show up 5 1/2 months now. My Issan Luv Machine has contacted Korat PEA two times now being ever so polite wondering if they could come and fit if it wasn't to inconvenient for them!! The promise is in the next 2 weeks... The sun has reached its Northern Equinox a couple of weeks ago and slowly heading back to Issan. Have noticed the PV's struggling to put out 8kw peak which I reckon I can put down to the orientation of the sun. In March the Pv's where pumping out 9.5Kw.   Interesting to watch in the next few months what difference there will be with output.

[Thaifish]

So my latest update. Produced 1.177GBh. The Grid Smart meter has not arrived yet as promised from Korat!! Covid an easy out for the delay.. It only took PEA Nang Rong however 1 week to replace my meter which spun backwards with another one that did not and then charged 500bht!!!. . There was 2 grid losses through the month 4 hours and 5 hours. The second outage looks like when power was returned it spiked the readouts with false info. As a result on the 13th our consumption/production was over the top. I'm trying to get the contractors to amend the glitch. They have more access than me to the platform so maybe they can alter the it. The graph does not show but I probably exported to PEA around 700Kwh free. Even the antacid tablets are not stopping that feeling of being eaten from the inside out! The bin for the month was 2,667Bht 698Kwh consumed.

The   plant is also coming up for its first 6 month service and again Covid is going to put that on hold I'm sure. There is an issue with the RCBO breaker tripping (see below) in moderate to heavy rain. I'm presuming it is tripping due to an earth problem and not over current as the solar panels are producing <deleted> all at the time. Easy to fix resetting the breaker but pain in the @rse having to do so. I'm thinking of getting a hose on the exposed wiring which is in mostly in conduit and seeing if I can trip the breaker??

 

Have done heaps of research on batteries.. I was looking in all the wrong places... I have found a supplier in Thailand that sells Huawei genuine batteries which will click and play. I have not discounted going down this path yet... A 15kwh Lithium system 297,712Bht. I will follow up with another post later.

 

[ExpatOilWorker]

1 hour ago, Thaifish said:

So my latest update. Produced 1.177GBh. The Grid Smart meter has not arrived yet as promised from Korat!! Covid an easy out for the delay.. It only took PEA Nang Rong however 1 week to replace my meter which spun backwards with another one that did not and then charged 500bht!!!. . There was 2 grid losses through the month 4 hours and 5 hours. The second outage looks like when power was returned it spiked the readouts with false info. As a result on the 13th our consumption/production was over the top. I'm trying to get the contractors to amend the glitch. They have more access than me to the platform so maybe they can alter the it. The graph does not show but I probably exported to PEA around 700Kwh free. Even the antacid tablets are not stopping that feeling of being eaten from the inside out! The bin for the month was 2,667Bht 698Kwh consumed.

The   plant is also coming up for its first 6 month service and again Covid is going to put that on hold I'm sure. There is an issue with the RCBO breaker tripping (see below) in moderate to heavy rain. I'm presuming it is tripping due to an earth problem and not over current as the solar panels are producing <deleted> all at the time. Easy to fix resetting the breaker but pain in the @rse having to do so. I'm thinking of getting a hose on the exposed wiring which is in mostly in conduit and seeing if I can trip the breaker??

 

Have done heaps of research on batteries.. I was looking in all the wrong places... I have found a supplier in Thailand that sells Huawei genuine batteries which will click and play. I have not discounted going down this path yet... A 15kwh Lithium system 297,712Bht. I will follow up with another post later.

 

I might follow in your footsteps down the battery hybrid path.

The below system has some good reviews and is 278k baht for a 16.4 kWh 5kW system. Proper LiFePO4 batteries.

 

https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/buy/giv-energy

[ExpatOilWorker]

I just saw the below solar hybrid system. 8 x 340 panels on the roof, running smooth for a couple of years. Looks like good quality equipment. 

 

[driver52]

1 hour ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

I just saw the below solar hybrid system. 8 x 340 panels on the roof, running smooth for a couple of years. Looks like good quality equipment

I like funky pics like that BUT alas Anern's website looks like it doesn't exist anymore so another business bites the dust probs

I was actually looking for a manual for that inverter so I could understand the wiring ????

[ExpatOilWorker]

22 minutes ago, driver52 said:

I like funky pics like that BUT alas Anern's website looks like it doesn't exist anymore so another business bites the dust probs

I was actually looking for a manual for that inverter so I could understand the wiring ????

https://www.anern-marketing.com/products/wifi-monitoring-hybrid-solar-inverter

wifi-monitoring-hybrid-solar-inverter-manual.pdf

[driver52]

2 minutes ago, ExpatOilWorker said:

https://www.anern-marketing.com/products/wifi-monitoring-hybrid-solar-inverter

maybe they don't like folks browsing from the EU lol

 

[phetphet]

4 hours ago, driver52 said:

maybe they don't like folks browsing from the EU lol

 

If you are browsing from the EU have a look at this german company. They do power packs.

Sonnen  https://sonnengroup.com

[driver52]

26 minutes ago, phetphet said:

If you are browsing from the EU have a look at this german company. They do power packs.

Sonnen  https://sonnengroup.com

Nice looking! but I bet they cost an arm and a leg....

the other website started working! weird

[MrJ2U]

What was your average bill before?

My bills run 7,000-8,000 baht a month.

We've got a pool and run two air cons at night.

The usual TVs in every rooms with kids.

Pumps for watering the gardens.

 

I'd love to bring that down.

 

Very interesting, thanks for posting.

[MrJ2U]

On 2/24/2021 at 12:41 PM, ExpatOilWorker said:

Please share ur graph. 

Thaifish's does not make sense at all. Why would he consumption be zero before 7 am and after 5:30 pm?

Also a peak consumption of 15,000 W at high noon sound excessive. 

Be nice to compare graphs if it's ok with the OP.

 

What was your monthly bills about?

 

I finally got a variable speed pool pump that saves a lot on electricity.

45,000 baht here in Thailand, much cheaper on Alibaba., 25,000 baht.

Emaux.

 

 

[shdmn]

How many years before you break even on this after you take into account all the upfront and ongoing costs and savings?  Also taking into account the estimated lifetime of the panels and any degradation over time.  That's the bottom line.  Maybe its already in the comments somewhere but I can't be bothered to look through all of them.

[gk10012001]

On 2/24/2021 at 9:49 AM, Thaifish said:

Putting copper earth into ground.. When the going got tuff with the sledge hammer they used a drill with the hammer setting... great trick...never seen before..works...

Typical Thai safety foot ware with the open toed foot cooling option I see. 

[shdmn]

17 minutes ago, gk10012001 said:

Typical Thai safety foot ware with the open toed foot cooling option I see. 

Steel toed boots and hard hats are for sissy's.  ????

[ExpatOilWorker]

5 hours ago, phetphet said:

If you are browsing from the EU have a look at this german company. They do power packs.

Sonnen  https://sonnengroup.com

That is a bit odd for what is supposed to be a sophisticated system. 

 

In its standard configuration, the sonnenBatterie only supplies your house when the grid is online. If you want to protect dedicated circuits and important appliances against grid failure, your installer adds the sonnenProtect, which supplies your most important appliances with energy stored in your sonnenBatterie.

[sezze]

2 hours ago, shdmn said:

Steel toed boots and hard hats are for sissy's.  ????

Advantage , you can only have 1 accident per foot , while proper safety shoes , can have many accidents . Dont even mention safety hats , i don't even count how many times i bumped my head hard (with pain in neck after) with my helmet on .