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

[Crossy]

@JBChiangRai explains his problems with MUST inverters in this thread:-

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

4 hours ago, commie said:

Could you please explain what do you mean by that and state your hybrid inverter model. I'm considering a 5Kw Pro series hybrid fanless one, specs do look quite solid and the prece is quite attractive compared to similar spec Sofar Solar one (HYD5000-ES).

 

 

4 hours ago, commie said:

 

PH1800-5048+ are my Hybrid inverters, I use them as whole house UPS now, when I used them as Hybrid inverters, most of the time they take very little power from the PV, if not charging the batteries and not using much power in the house then they didn’t export all the solar available, they just didn’t draw the power from the PV.

 

I’m a big fan of the Must PH5000 grid-tied inverters, if you know the password to the admin section, you can tailor them enormously so you are the last inverter to shut down if there are others in your neighborhood and low demand.

 

 

[commie]

10 hours ago, Crossy said:

@JBChiangRai explains his problems with MUST inverters in this thread:-

 

 

 

Thanks Crossy. Now I'm wondering if their PH1000 series is any good (looks pretty solid and obviously a newer generation, but...). Not too many info and user reviews can be found on youtube/internet.

[commie]

On 1/20/2022 at 8:42 AM, JBChiangRai said:

I’m a big fan of the Must PH5000 grid-tied inverters, if you know the password to the admin section, you can tailor them enormously so you are the last inverter to shut down if there are others in your neighborhood and low demand.

 

 

I guess you figured it out, right? ????

[JBChiangRai]

10 hours ago, commie said:

I guess you figured it out, right? ????

I had a look at the PH1000, it looks good and might be ok, I get the impression it’s basically a modified grid-tied architecture.  
 

You can’t run them in parallel unless you split your house load into multiple consumer units, 1 per inverter. You can use 1 of PH1000 with multiple PH5000’s in parallel though.

 

It doesn’t matter which PH1000 model you buy, the grid failure output is 3.6KW, probably enough for your emergency circuits, lights, refrigerator, bedroom A/C etc.

 

On my next big project, I might go this latter route with 1 of PH1000 and 2 of 6KW PH5000’s

[Thaifish]

No movement on the Western Front Issan with batteries and the PEA Meter. No surprise. Jai yen yen. Starting to put the weight on the Battery guy to make it happen.... Had enough... I'm heading back Ozz in 6 weeks and either want the batteries installed or deposit back before I go. I'm feeling sorry for the guy though. PEA just a Delete but have to deal with it their way...

 

January's production dropped off a bit to 1.3Mwh. I wish I could store or sell the left overs...Even at 1/2 price. Still though pumping it out for the month with only 100kwh less than my record.

 

I have been up and running now for 1 year so I have to get motivated and punch some numbers out on ROI....Trouble is PEA and no Batteries are not going to make it look good... Also glitches in the software readouts. This weeks challenge!! 

 

It's also time for the Contractors who installed the system to do their 2nd 6 monthly inspection and service. Reminder they never did the first 6 monthly due to Corona reasons....

 

 

[MJCM]

On 2/2/2022 at 10:59 PM, Thaifish said:

No movement on the Western Front Issan with batteries and the PEA Meter. No surprise. Jai yen yen. Starting to put the weight on the Battery guy to make it happen.... Had enough... I'm heading back Ozz in 6 weeks and either want the batteries installed or deposit back before I go. I'm feeling sorry for the guy though. PEA just a Delete but have to deal with it their way...

WOW Sorry to hear that Fishy!!

 

And how is it going with the Battery guy any progress, I think your deposit has already been spend on something else.

 

On 2/2/2022 at 10:59 PM, Thaifish said:

Also glitches in the software readouts. This weeks challenge!! 

Who is going to solve that for you??

 

On 2/2/2022 at 10:59 PM, Thaifish said:

I'm heading back Ozz in 6 weeks

Enjoy your stay!

[007 RED]

@Thaifish  It's just a thought, and I may be totally wrong about your meter problem, but I wonder if your local PEA are being somewhat reluctant to fit a '2 way' meter' because their systems are not 'geared up' for them.  That is to say the meter reader has a little 'magic box' into which they punch in the normal meter reading and then print out the bill.  The 'magic box' probably won't cope with 2 readings (consumption and feedback).  Also back at 'base' their standard computer system is probably only programmed to accept just a single reading and to accommodate a consumption and feedback reading would require a major (and expensive) software upgrade.

 

I suspect that you may be the only one in the area to require a 'feedback meter', so the additional work involved in manually collecting your meter readings and then computing your bills may well be beyond them. 

 

I have a feeling you will be knocking your head against a brick wall in trying to get then to install the correct meter.  They will just come up with every excuse under the sun not to.

 

Best of luck with your system and I hope you have a safe trip back to Ozz.

[Crossy]

21 minutes ago, 007 RED said:

because their systems are not 'geared up' for them

 

Definitely not a stupid thought.

 

Our man only has one machine and it's loaded with pre-printed stock which does both the bill and the receipt for last month. Nothing at all about export etc. etc.

 

It's just a shame that Fishy found out too late that his Huawei system needed special HV batteries (whilst most of us are happy with the de-facto standard 48V) and also got caught out by the relief meter-man seeing his meter whizzing backwards.

 

But as always, hindsight is 20-20.

 

Hopefully his battery man will deliver (eventually) and the meter issue will become moot.

  

[thaisail]

For those of us who want to do our own instalation it would be helpful if you would give us a break down of the cost of the materials and labor. Great job!

[Crossy]

1 minute ago, thaisail said:

For those of us who want to do our own instalation it would be helpful if you would give us a break down of the cost of the materials and labor. Great job!

 

It's worth having a look at my solar car port thread too although by now the "budget" bit has disappeared over the horizon.

 

[BritManToo]

15 minutes ago, Crossy said:

It's just a shame that Fishy found out too late that his Huawei system needed special HV batteries (whilst most of us are happy with the de-facto standard 48V) and also got caught out by the relief meter-man seeing his meter whizzing backwards.

Yeah,

337Kbht for a 16AH 48V battery (that they can't seem to deliver).

Vs 50Kbht for a 12AH 48V battery (available for immediate delivery) I'm looking at seems a bit of a rip .................

[thaisail]

24 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

It's worth having a look at my solar car port thread too although by now the "budget" bit has disappeared over the horizon.

 

I am just trying to get an idea of the cost of each item required to see if it will be worth the trouble. We are looking at a Nissan Leaf as a second car and want to provide sun fuel verses fossil fuel to run it. We plan to run the meter bacwards as long as we don't get caught which is really unlikely where I live.

[Crossy]

Just now, thaisail said:

I am just trying to get an idea of the cost of each item required to see if it will be worth the trouble. We are looking at a Nissan Leaf as a second car and want to provide sun fuel verses fossil fuel to run it. We plan to run the meter bacwards as long as we don't get caught which is really unlikely where I live.

 

Why not start a thread, tell us what you intend doing and how much energy you want to generate and someone will actually do the sums for you!

 

And unless your meter man comes early in the morning you really do need to mitigate him seeing the meter going backwards, what the eye can't see, the heart won't grieve over!

 

[thaisail]

3 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Why not start a thread, tell us what you intend doing and how much energy you want to generate and someone will actually do the sums for you!

 

And unless your meter man comes early in the morning you really do need to mitigate him seeing the meter going backwards, what the eye can't see, the heart won't grieve over!

 

No time now to start a thread. On a visa run to Cambodia tomorrow. Need only a ball park figure about labor cost to beable to see if this project is even worth starting. I don't want anyone else involved in my labor. So I really just need to know todays cost with the newest geneneration of materials. No need for batteries at this stage. I will have enough headache dealing with the batteries on the Nissan Leaf which are already 4 years old and the cars are still in the show room all over Thailand. But the price has not dropped enough so I am waiting to see how low they will go before shipping them back to Japan! They were 1,9 new and the price is now 1.45.

[007 RED]

1 hour ago, thaisail said:

For those of us who want to do our own instalation it would be helpful if you would give us a break down of the cost of the materials and labor. Great job!

As @Crossyhas suggested, take a look at his original thread as it will give you plenty of 'food for thought' if your considering a DIY installation.

If you go to page 18 and then scroll down the page (January 18) you will find details of the cost of my small scale DIY Grid Tied system.  Scrolling down a bit further on that page you will see more details of my installation.

 

FYI..... The main objective of my system was, and still is, to reduce my electric bill by 75%.  To this end I designed my GT system to produce 7 units per day.  The system has been running now for just over 3 months and its achieving my target.  Payback at the current rate is expected to be 3 years.

 

Obviously if you intend your system to be used to charge your EV, then things will become somewhat more complex than my little system.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

[thaisail]

25 minutes ago, 007 RED said:

As @Crossyhas suggested, take a look at his original thread as it will give you plenty of 'food for thought' if your considering a DIY installation.

If you go to page 18 and then scroll down the page (January 18) you will find details of the cost of my small scale DIY Grid Tied system.  Scrolling down a bit further on that page you will see more details of my installation.

 

FYI..... The main objective of my system was, and still is, to reduce my electric bill by 75%.  To this end I designed my GT system to produce 7 units per day.  The system has been running now for just over 3 months and its achieving my target.  Payback at the current rate is expected to be 3 years.

 

Obviously if you intend your system to be used to charge your EV, then things will become somewhat more complex than my little system.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

 

Thanks for giving me the location of your financial end. I am actually doing the solar installatoin mainly for the same reason as you but buying an electric car for someone who is retired, is not the same as when you are working and making the daily commute. I think the car will accually be using less power then all the AC units combined. I have 3 x 12000 btu inverter, 1 classic 10000 btu in the garrage/workshop. And one 9000 btu inverter in the separate bungalow. None are running for almost 3 months now here in Chiang Khan! I think you made a good move and you will get a good return on your investment. But for me it is the principle of not putting more of a strain on the fossil fuel power grid to feed an electric car. 

[Crossy]

10 hours ago, thaisail said:

I am actually doing the solar installatoin mainly for the same reason as you but buying an electric car for someone who is retired,

 

This would mean of course that charging during the day is possible reducing the need to export / re-import (or store) energy???? 

 

I remember reading somewhere about EV chargers that can tailor their output to available solar, I'll see if I can find the reference again.

[007 RED]

5 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

This would mean of course that charging during the day is possible reducing the need to export / re-import (or store) energy???? 

 

I remember reading somewhere about EV chargers that can tailor their output to available solar, I'll see if I can find the reference again.

I just had a look at the spec for the Nissan Leaf and it appears that they do two chargers for this vehicle namely; a 6.6kW Double Speed Charger which takes 6 hours to fully charge, and a 3.6kW Normal Charger which takes 12 hours to fully charge. 

 

The interesting thing is that the 3.6kW Normal charger has a 'standard house plug to facilitate connecting to your normal home socket.  If @thaisailis not doing a lot of daily travelling the 12 hour charge would seem a feasible option with a grid tied system. 

 

Not sure what size system he would need to be able to cope with his AC's plus other household items and the car charger, maybe you could advise.

 

Have a look at the sales blurb with pictures of the chargers lower down the page.

 

https://en.nissan.co.th/vehicles/new-vehicles/leaf/range-charging.html

 

[Crossy]

12 hours ago, Crossy said:

 I remember reading somewhere about EV chargers that can tailor their output to available solar, I'll see if I can find the reference again.

 

I found one EV charger that purports to be smart enough to know when the sun is shining (i.e., when the array is delivering current), and manage EV charging accordingly -- the Zappi by British solar outfitter MyEnergi -- I'm sure there must be others.

 

EDIT If you are in a DIY mood have a look at OpenEVSE https://www.openevse.com/

[Thaifish]

One year down on installation. Ive been hiding my head in the sand knowing ROI would not look good. So after flogging some figures as my graph readout had erroneous spurs which occurred after blackouts I rounded figures to show a more realistic calculation. Should be very close.

 

The bottom line Return On Investment after 1 year. Self Consumption... i.e what was produced and Self Consumed. 6322.79Kwh x 4.2Bht = 26,555Bht (Free Power for the year)

 

Cost of System 337,500Bht / 26,555Bht = 12.7 years ROI.

 

If there was a  smart meter installed then the figures would have been..... Exported to the grid 6,516Kwh at lets say 2BHt buy back price = 13,032Bht which gives a ROI of 8.5 years.

 

I reckon @007 RED is on the money with regional PEA not having the set up to read Smart Meters up in the sticks so rather than lose face (Raksar Naa or Khai Naa... Egg face!) they just put installation off.

 

I haven't included batteries in my figures as a third scenario as still waiting for installation also...

 

 

[Bandersnatch]

10 hours ago, Thaifish said:

One year down on installation. Ive been hiding my head in the sand knowing ROI would not look good.

For me my ROI greatly improved once I purchased an electric car. 

 

Payback:
Main Components
20,000 Watts of PV @ ฿9/W = ฿180,000
9kWh LiFePO4 Batteries ฿68,000 x 3 = ฿204,000
Inverters ฿36,000 x 3 = ฿108,000
= ฿492,000

 

Savings: 
Gasohol saving ฿5,000/month
PEA saving ฿3,500/month
= ฿8,500/month 

฿102,000/Year saving 
Payback = 5 Years - after which free electricity 

Assumptions:
Electricity and Gasohol costs never increase
Cost of Tax, service and Maintenance on an EV same as a Petrol Car

 

 

 

[Thaifish]

Monthly production 1.1 Mwh. 70% lost to PEA free. No Meter and no Batteries. The amazing thing is the Contractors phoned up and said will be here in a couple of days for the 6 month service. There was no phoning them as I expected it would be a waste of time. So during clean and service I'm speaking with the young head guy about the breaker tripping in the rain..Breaker trips while guys are hosing and cleaning the panels.. Bonus...What was going to be a drive to Issan for them and return trip back to Grungtep the same day ended up with them staying o/night to rectify.. 2nd day and still not good...Need parts so will be back in a couple of days.... A couple of days has blown out to a week now.. But I believe they have a fix soon.. At least they know there is a fault and I don't believe they will just dodge the repair.. (naive me!!).

 

 

 

 

I came up with an Idea to store power generated through the day. Best investment yet with Solar... I wont say what it is you can look at the picture and see if you can work it out. Its an every day cost of mine which can be up to 40 Bht (sometimes more depending on # of kids) including the kids Kanoom

Outlay was 6890Bht expect to pay off in 24 weeks.

 

 

Heading back to Ozz in a couple of weeks for maybe 4 months or so. Hopefully can still access the Huawei readouts.. I noticed using a VPN on my compucker computer I had to turn it off to access. So Thinking in reverse I will have to use the VPN loging in from Thailand??

[Encid]

On 2/17/2022 at 8:12 AM, Bandersnatch said:

Main Components
20,000 Watts of PV @ ฿9/W = ฿180,000
9kWh LiFePO4 Batteries ฿68,000 x 3 = ฿204,000
Inverters ฿36,000 x 3 = ฿108,000
= ฿492,000

How noisy are those inverters under load?

[Encid]

On 3/4/2022 at 9:31 PM, Thaifish said:

I came up with an Idea to store power generated through the day.

Brilliant idea!

I am looking at something similar... link.

I have not started building our new house yet but am planning to build a lockable shelter first (with solar power and well water) and having one of these onsite for the construction workers would be a big plus.

 

I did guess correctly didn't I?

[Bandersnatch]

1 hour ago, Encid said:

How noisy are those inverters under load?

I just uploaded a video with the inverters underload in the background - my lapel mic has no noise canceling, you can decide for yourself:

 

 

[Encid]

11 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

my lapel mic has no noise canceling, you can decide for yourself:

I can't hear any noise at all!

Do the Growatt inverters have fans?

 

I am just concerned over noise levels as I am planning to install my system inside a room that would double as an office.

It would contain all the solar system control components, batteries, mains power circuit breakers, a couple of computers, security system etc.

 

I recall reading about JBChiangRai's concerns over his MUST inverters sounding like jet engines under load.

 

And @Thaifish, what are the noise levels like from your Huawai SUN2000 inverters? 

[Bandersnatch]

4 minutes ago, Encid said:

I can't hear any noise at all!

Do the Growatt inverters have fans?

 

I am just concerned over noise levels as I am planning to install my system inside a room that would double as an office.

It would contain all the solar system control components, batteries, mains power circuit breakers, a couple of computers, security system etc.

 

I recall reading about JBChiangRai's concerns over his MUST inverters sounding like jet engines under load.

 

And @Thaifish, what are the noise levels like from your Huawai SUN2000 inverters? 

The introduction to the video was recorded with the same lapel mic in my office and the fans from PC made more noise.

 

Yes the Growatts do have fans they are pretty quiet most of the time, remember that they react to heat so if you had them in an airconditioned room they probably wouldn't ramp up at all. 

[Thaifish]

5 hours ago, Encid said:

I did guess correctly didn't I?

You win the prize!!! Make sure you get a big one....50lt ++... Honestly worth its weight in gold... I cook the best Nam Kang (ice) in Issan so I'm told... 555

[Thaifish]

4 hours ago, Encid said:

what are the noise levels like from your Huawai SUN2000 inverters? 

Huawai Inverters have no moving parts. They are silent.