It seems to me that if I had 5 X 585 facing East then the system would appear to be more balanced. The inverter prioritises the MPPT with the highest voltage. I thought about this, and I’m not sure it can do anything else.
But it can & does use the new, North facing panels when it needs to. So does it matter?
I need now to start shifting some load into the afternoon. The heatpump or the guest geyser will be easiest. If the system supports those well then we rethink our priorities & routines.
Sometimes, you also need to sit back, and see if the system works throughout a whole year before spending more.
You will either confirm you need to make a change, or, you will go, you know what, as is, it work for you and then leave it until something goes wrong and then make a choice.
Yeah, don’t worry about it. If it can get all the power it needs from one MPPT, disabling the other means reduced losses.
I’ve been calling them “North” & “East” but that’s just laziness. They are more like ENE and NNW. The sun is hitting what I refer to as the “North” head on at about 13:00. The “East” is still producing usefully past 14:00.
I tried a big load this afternoon. Both strings were producing. At first. Then the cloud came in. We nearly did it though.
Battery was charged by 9:05. So I have more woema now.
Sure. I got solar in 2019,so I did develop some idea of the benefits & shortcomings.
We’ve had an unusual long overcast spell in Gauteng. A scorching hot early summer was followed by wet & gloomy weather. And that’s really what got me wanting a bit more PV power, not for the sunny days, but the not so sunny.
Well this is the gift that keeps on giving - but not to me.
I recently had the house rewired and got an updated COC. The electrician who did the rewire did not include the PV system.
The guy who did the panel upgrade told me he would send his electrician to do the supplementary COC.
He didn’t give me a COC. Says there are problems. Inverter casing is not earthed to the grid earth, the panels are not earthed to a spike in the ground, and the cables from the panels to the combiner box are not in conduits.
He says possibly this was legal at time of install, but he can’t issue a COC now.
Who did the install? Cant they provide the CoC? Im also struggling with the same.
They provided a COC as a supplementary to the original COC for the house.
The house was re-wired and a new COC issued. So I just assumed that I would need a new supplementary for the later COC.
Too late now. BTW this also means that there were … I don’t want to say “lies”, so “things that ain’t so” on my SSEG registration which show the inverter and panels as earthed.
I am not cross with the electrician who is doing the supplementary. He has noticed some issues and so won’t sign off because there is a fire risk. That’s fine. He’s taking his job seriously and is being thorough.
But the reason I had the house rewired was because the original COC that I got when I moved in wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.
So often us layfolk are victims of what Sybil Fawlty would refer to as “cut price cockup artists”. It’s almost impossible to know who is doing the job properly & who isn’t. As laypersons we have to take the artisan’s word for it.
Yeah so for that same reason, I got an electrician in, who rewired my DB from scratch, checked the house, then checked everything on the solar inverter side, then did CoCs for both house and solar. Then got in the engineer, then after that provided me with everything up to date. CoCs and all docs needed for a SSEG registration from scratch.
Wasn’t cheap, but I wanted it all done right, so that I could get my building insurance up to date as well. There really is only one reason for that, if a fire starts and the house burn down, I want insurance to pay out.
You never know when a fire will start. House behind me, was still busy with their CoC and SSEG process, when wiring on the inverter side caused a fire. They lost the garage contents which included both their vehicles. I don’t know if their insurrance paid out.
Next step on the list, is to get alarm company to add a smoke sensor in the garage where the inverter is for early alarm if a fire start there.
So the last phase of the job (earthing and COC) was done on Friday.
This morning we had actual sunshine. Hoorah. And look at the production:
Both strings working. Nearly 4kW at that time of the morning.
I leave the app on my phone running whilst I brush my teeth etc. And then I get this
Look out the window. The weather hansn’t changed. Sun is still nice & bright. Battery is at 95% so still would like some charging. What’s going on?
Ah. There’s an error. “High DC supply” at 9:24.
The current drawn from the panels continues to ramp up, but slowly. By 10:00 the system is running full tilt again. The battery charges, the system cuts back because now it just needs to service the load.
I check back in the logs. The earliest occurence of that message I find is in March, before the panel https://energytalk.co.za/t/i-need-some-work-done-quotes-please/5424/49upgrade.
Serious? IDK. After all the system recovers. This afternoon when I switched the kettle on it ramped up the draw from the panels again, with most of the juice coming from the North facing string.
