PLEASE NOTE: If you had an account with the previous forum, it has been ported to the new Genetry website!
You will need to reset the password to access the new forum. Click Log In → Forgot Password → enter your username or forum email address → click Email Reset Link.
We have a very large battery bank (lifepo4) and more than enough solar to keep it charged and run the house 24/7 from late March to late October (usually!) The exceptions are the electric dryer and the central AC, both of which run when needed only on grid power. My 15kw powerjack can't run either one reliably so they are only grid connected
Thank you for showing how you go off-grid as I was sure I had enough battery power of over 40000 watts to go off-grid 24/7 . I been off-grid 24/7 for the last 4 days doing what you do . I can use the washer but not the electric dryer . I hang the clothes outside and not use the water heater . NO heat pump and set the swamp cooler at 86 degree when the temperature is over 100 degree every day and it was 111 degree yesterday . Use the microwave amd air fryer but NO oven . Use LED for lights .
I haven't tried to figure the percentage. From March to October, running 24/7 the batteries never drop below 52 volts after running the house overnight. Even after one very cloudy day or multiple partly cloudy days. On sunny days the overnight drop is only to about 52.5v.
It's a very large bank. 16 BYD 24v 220ah modules configured for 48v. They weren't new when I got them so I try to use them without pushing them overmuch. If they will be dropping below 52 volts overnight because of long nights or bad weather(poor charging previous day) I just switch to grid overnight. Sometime in october I usually start doing that daily. By winter solstice I have to stay on grid most of the time. Winter days are just too short here, and many of them have little sun.
By february I'm usually running daytime and switching to grid overnight. Then sometime in March I can start 24/7 running again straight through to late October.
So no lower (usually) than 52v and float is set to 56v, so that's my range.
It's a very large bank. 16 BYD 24v 220ah modules configured for 48v.
I think that is over 80000 watt hour . That is the amount of battery Sean say he need to run his 5000 sq ft house 24/7 . Sean say he has less than 10000 watt hour of battery and can only run one hour at night . My BMW car battery run between 64 v to 46 v on a 15kw Powerjack that is 3 years old . I can run 24/7 now .
The amount of energy you guys are burning through makes me almost embarrassed to say that even if I try I can only expend about 7kWh across a whole day. That includes standard resitive water heating and an aircon in heating mode running all night maintaining 21c and .. an electric blanket to make my old joints happy since the overnight temp has been around 7c lately.
The amount of energy you guys are burning through makes me almost embarrassed to say that even if I try I can only expend about 7kWh across a whole day
I can not explain why dochubert and Sean and ME need so much battery . Maybe 240 vac single phase need less battery ?
kWh is kWh. The batteries do need to be sized to cope with peak draw and then some to avoid flogging them but that aside... It would be interesting to see some real world measurements of where all the power is going if for nothing more than satisfying curiosity.
The batteries do need to be sized to cope with peak draw and then some to avoid flogging them but that aside... It would be interesting to see some real world measurements of where all the power is going if for nothing more than satisfying curiosity.
I will now do the math to show why I will NOT get a 12 kw sigineer and expect to run the whole house 24/7 with the 42000 watt hour of BMW car battery I have .
12,000 / 0.88 = 13,636W input for 12kw output. That's 1,636W of heat generated at full nameplate.
SID say I'm sorry, but a little quiet 80mm muffin fan ain't gonna get 1,636W out of an inverter! And of course, the hotter the transformer gets, the higher the losses go (due to the thermal resistivity of the wiring). At night I must charge the BMW battery at the same time I am using the battery because my solar can not charge all the battery during the day . I am using 10 e-bike charger at 4 amps and 65 volts which is 2600 watts very hour . This 31200 in 12 hours so only 11000 left of the 42000 watt hour of battery . The sigineer has 250 watt idle times 24 hour is 6000 watts so now only have 5000 watts left to run the whole house for 24 hours but have to subtract 1,636 W and that leave 3364 watt to run my house . NOW running my house from the sigineer 12kw with 3384 watt of battery left is NOT going to work . I am able to run 24/7 yesterday with my 15kw PJ and the temperature is a high this year at 112 degree F and the concrete in the patio is 130 degree F . The Delta fans sound like a 747 flying overhead all day .
Your logic / thought paths are about as broken as a PJ 🙂
You can't pull 15kw from the PJ at all. You probably can't sustain 12kW from the Sigineer either but it might get there for a while. The Sigineer might have an idle draw of 250W, where did that come from? The PJ has idle draw too but you don't account for that. You only subtract that 1.6kW of power with the Signeer at full tilt and it probably can't sustain that anyway. If you draw 8kW at 88% efficiency your waste is 1.1kW, ie total load is around 9.1kW.
You can't both charge and discharge a battery. It's one or the other. It might oscillate back and forth but it's still one or the other. If you are having to put 2.6kW in via a wall of ebike chargers you have made a fundamental design error with your system. Fix the PV side so that your production is commensurate with your expected load or run at least part of your load direct of the AC supply that you are using to run the chargers instead of the chargers into the battery into the inverter. It'll be more efficient not having to go through multiple voltage conversions and thereby cheaper no matter what the underlying source - grid or generator.
The only way the above response doesn't work is if what you stated is not what you are actually doing or is so confusingly stated that it makes a reasonable reply impossible.
You can't pull 15kw from the PJ at all. You probably can't sustain 12kW from the Sigineer either but it might get there for a while. The Sigineer might have an idle draw of 250W, where did that come from?
This 250 W of idle draw come from your post in another topic today .
6 hours ago, TheButcher said:
The high idle draw of even the lower wattage Chinese inverters is a problem. 80 watts is about 2kWh a day and that's a fair slice of the production of a small system.
yes, on a whole house system running a large inverter which is never at idle ,,,,, a Sigineer 18K LF inverter with 250 watt standby idle would not be as big a problem in a large solar panel system with a big battery bank, but still a bit of wasted solar power... so more panels needed....
Sorry I know my PJ 15 kw can only pull 4000 watt with the rev 11.1 control board . I never has a sigineer 12 kw or seen test on it . I was making a (what if ) statement or posting what happen with a high idle draw inverter like a sigineer 12 kw .
MY logic / thought paths are about as broken as a PJ 🙂 The only way the above response doesn't work is if what I stated is not what you are actually doing .
Nope. I did not say that and the post you linked to does not show me saying 250W it shows... 80W for lower wattage Chinese inverters. Neither does PilgrimValley's post. The person that did say it was inPhase. Probably best that you don't attribute one person's post to another. 🙂
You can't both charge and discharge a battery. It's one or the other. It might oscillate back and forth but it's still one or the other. If you are having to put 2.6kW in via a wall of ebike chargers you have made a fundamental design error with your system. Fix the PV side so that your production is commensurate with your expected load or run at least part of your load direct of the AC supply that you are using to run the chargers instead of the chargers into the battery
I know I can't both charge and discharge a battery. It's one or the other . Sean say on youtube all the time he can not do that . That is why he only can run the GS 12 kw one hour at night on battery and have to use the grid at night with NO generator to charge the battery . Sorry my logic / thought paths are about as broken as PJ advertising 🙂 The reason the above response doesn't work is if what I stated is not what I are actually doing . I am sure some PJ user will connect the grid to the input to try to charge the battery and also connect the output to the grid . I thought about doing that many in this forum but Sid say my PJ will blow up so I have not try . I thought the rev 11.3 control board is so good that a PJ inverter is protected no matter what a stupid user do to it .
The person that did say it was inPhase. Probably best that you don't attribute one person's post to another. 🙂
Sorry .
Posted 6 hours ago
That 18 kW Sigineer has an EI transformer and idles at 250 watts by inPhase .
Sorry mate I simply can't make head nor tail of what you are saying. It's like herding cats, something best not attempted so I'll stop annoying you.
I got the 250 watt figure from the Sigineer documentation.
You can't both charge and discharge a battery.
That one has me scratching my head also.
I have a lot of solar to allow me to run the house and keep the batteries full during the day. This allows me to have a full charge at sunset for running the house all night. We don't use much power overnight. 10 amps or less (usually less) average draw to the powerjack overnight. 10a doesn't impact my battery bank significantly, so the voltage drop overnight is acceptable during short summer nights.
My battery bank is at least twice the capacity I probably 'need'. My solar can and does produce 120 to 150 amps of charging to that bank as needed on a good summer day. Also, some of my panels face east, some west and some south. Charging starts as soon as the sun is above the horizon and continues at significant levels until sunset. Because they listen to "Solar Power Experts", most people only have south facing panels, which don't produce significant output until much later in the day than my east facing panels. And those south facing panels drop off their charging as the sun angles towards sunset. My west facing panels pick up their charging in the afternoon till sunset. So I get a much longer 'charging day' with this setup than those with south-only panels.
Also, with more solar than I 'need' for a summer day means I can run on a partly cloudy or even mostly cloudy day and still get an adequate charge, so I don't do more than keep an eye on things. We've been having many cloudy days recently and I've cruised right through them all with no problems. Yesterday was almost nothing but rain and clouds and I still made it through the day with a fairly full charge, so I'm happy with my system as it stands currently.
Dickson, hope you get things figured out the way you want.