Ben, I run my deep well pump during the sunshining days, filling my 2500gal storage tank. If I need to use any corded electric tools, compressor and welders, I also run them at these times of day so that, I don't draw any energy from my battery bank system. I have been amazed at the amounts of energy I have during good sun hours to run electric equipment without drawing any energy from my battery bank with my Sol-Ark 12K. I have only tripped my Sol-Ark once, when I was welding and my pump and 5hp compressor turned on. I was welding half inch plate with excessively high output when it happened.
WOW NICE BROTHER!! That's a goal of mine. My well pump filling the tank as the suns up. I did this for a living back in the day. We did not even use batts. Just well pump controllers and PV :) Would love to do this for my place. Not here as this is not are forever home.
My Sol-Ark 12k just recently starting throwing an alarm code of F-63 with only the fridge and some lights turned on, we have three 5.4kwh e-flex batteries with 10 - 450 watt panels . Guess we will require an installer to come over and find the problem.
Morning, Ben. You should use you car as a giant backup battery for the Solark . oh, wait :-) I have about 90% of the most important circuits in my house running permanently off the Solark through two Reliance switches; the washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, TV's, microwave, other kitchen stuff, bedrooms, bathrooms, basement lights, etc. I can individually chose what runs on the Solark or off the grid now which is nice. I've been running this way now since the beginning of March when I finally got all the wiring done and connected up the second array. It was really cool running the dryer yesterday and watching the Solark draw down 7.5KW to run the house and dryer then toggle between getting most of the power from the arrays and some from the batteries as clouds went by. I bought a Solark after watching one of your videos and I must say I do not regret it at all. Thanks for all the sharing. btw. I do have my kitchen ceiling lights on grid so that at least I have some indication that the grid has gone down! :) I am going to connect AC power generated by a small wind turbine to the Gen input on the Solark to keep the batteries topped up on those stormy cloudy days.
I would love if you could show how this is hooked up to your breaker box and how it automatically kicks on when the power is cut. Thanks for a great video. Just subscribed!
I've basically taken the main power into my house and rerouted it into the Sol-Ark, then fed the main panel from there. The down side with a Sol-Ark 12k is doing that drops your service to 60a. The 15k allows for full 200a pass through.
Hi Scott! I considered that, but the dryer only pulls 5500w 240v. That would be split between L1 and L2 evenly. The strange part is, it never shuts off when you first start the dryer, but maybe 10-20 minutes in. This leads me to believe that the elements are running through a half wave rectifier to run at half power once everything heats up. These inverters hate that. It's basically the same as a hair dryer or heat gun running half power, but on 240v. Another viewer of my channel Vince has had the same issues but with no error codes on shutdown.
@@benssolarandbattery Yep, I can confirm the system shuts down with no error codes after the dryer has been running a while. Doesn't always do it but when it does it's at the most inopportune time. Did it yesterday with full sun and illumination of all the panels and the batteries fully charged. I've just started the dryer again just now to see if it can finish the job it tried to do yesterday. Interestingly I've never seen the shutdown two times in a row. If It shutsdown once and I restart the dryer on the same day it always completes without error - that could also be because the cloths are much dryer than the first start so the dryer unit may be loading up the Solark differently. Yes, I have the same Solark as you, Ben. The one before the outdoor model.
I officially just purchased my Sol ark 12k!!! 🥳 Thank you Ben and David's channels; your most certainly the reason I've invested into my own DIY solar! P.S. I'll be attempting the AC and DC coupling as you've done here Ben 😁👍. System stats: 10.2 kw solar edge South facing array. A DC coupled ground mount out back around my vegetable garden. 33.5 kwh of lifepo4 storage consisting of 26 16s 25ah topbrand DIY batteries. I've never felt this type of satisfaction before ☺️ again thank you for your continued support with this amazing content!!!
@@benssolarandbattery 😅 ummm I'll think about it; I'm no where near yours and David's level in this subject matter!! Just trying to do my lil part, for this world... Oh and what makes financial sense to boot 👢 lol 😂 I'm definitely not affluent, but I get by!!
@@meganwinters5163 What are your thoughts about the SA after having it in use for a while? I just ordered a 15K myself and look forward to the new adventure!
@@ssoffshore5111 I truly believe you'll love the SA 15k! I'm kinda jealous of the full 200A pass through capabilities you'll have, honestly. These truly are beautifully engineered and customer service backed products!!! Don't let the haters, hate is all I'll say (everyone has their own "perfect system")... But I adore my setup and the flexibility, reliability, & down right preparedness that I feel in having it ☺️🙏. All the best!
@@meganwinters5163 I'm glad to hear it's working out well for you! Yes, I plan on going from the meter to my SA and then to the main panel so the entire house is backed up (I can manage those loads). I too am looking forward to the flexibility and also the independence!
They're justified. Sol-Ark doesn't handle unbalanced loads well at all. I understand the importance of making sure things are pretty well balanced, but when running a toaster shuts the inverter down, that is unfortunate.
I have a newer 15K coming next week and would like to possibly get to the point I'm off grid (or at least be capable of doing so). I know HF inverters aren't the best for heavy loads off grid, but I'm hopeful this thing handles situations like the one you outlined w/o issue. I was going to strictly DC couple, but this now has me considering throwing on at least some AC coupled panels into the gen port for additional OG loads.
Did you ever find where that high-pitched squeal noise is coming from? Is that from the Sol-Ark? Do they all sound like that or is something up with yours?
It's a combination of the Sol-Ark and the SolarEdge. If you stand right between them during heavy charging its almost worse than a screaming baby! The Sol-Ark by itself definitely makes noise, but it's much worse coupled with the SolarEdge and some good sun.
Hey Ben. Enjoy your videos. From seeing your setup, I have 3 questions: 1) The great majority of comments (from customers and installers alike) I have read about SolarEdge products (inverters, as well as power optimizers) are negative. They seem to have a history of both hardware failures (which have clusters both within a few months and after ~2 years) and support nightmares (unbelievable wait times for support, ridiculous failure analysis requests, as well as denial of warranty coverage). How long have you had the SolarEdge inveter? Do you have power optimizers as well? Have you had any failures? What do you think of their support? 2) I saw your (Rheem?) heat pump water heater. What are your views on that water heater in particular, and heat pump water heaters in general? How well does that work up in chilly VT (I'm in central NJ, so it might work even better in this slightly warmer climate)? Does it ever need to use the heating element? I see you are just using the ambient room (basement?, garage?) air for both input and output. When I replace my current (22 year old!) gas fired 70 gal water heater, the (metal) chimney from the basement up through the roof won't be needed for exhaust, so I'm thinking of ducting attic air through the former chimney to the input of a heat pump water heater in the summer (with the exhaust just going to the ambient basement air), and running the reverse in the winter (so I'm not exhausting cooled air to the basement). Thoughts on this idea? 3) I see you have a Chevy Bolt. I'm thinking to buy a used one after we install solar (with battery backup) as our first EV. What are your impressions of the Bolt? Any advice on buying a used one? Any advice on EV charging from solar? Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.
You have to love that cloud edge when it comes around for supercharging the batteries. Although it can cause some major system headaches if not taken into account.
Hi I have the SolarEdge 76000 I believed with the trasforme from SolarEdge that you also seen to have with (2) Tesla batteries 1st generation, I will like to add that inverter that you have with some more batteries to get storage close to 30kwh, right now I'm on 12.6 with the 2 Tesla 1st gen, also I own a 2019 Bolt-Ev. I have 24 solar cel. 240w not producing sufficient to demand the need of my Bolt-Ev 2 rooms AC and the daily electricity consumed so right now I'm picking close to 1000kwh monthly and producing close to 780 worst months. I'm down here in Puerto Rico I can get that inverter down here, there its a supplier that sale those in SanJuan, but my question is if you can explain me how you have the solar edge wire to with the solArc or if you have the SolarEdge w/ the transformer connect to one Phase and the solArc to the other face and the Bolt charger connected to the solArc I also have a Generac 12k generator that I will like to have connected to the solArc. thanks for any tips advice or recommendation that have work for you. Also I'm a GRIDTIE customer . thanks in advance
Thanks! Currently I have about 25kWh usable from my battery. It's a mix of 16s EV batteries. The Sol-Ark does show AC coupled production if you tie into the Gen breaker with it. I opted to tie into the load side of it so I'd have more power available to me during the day.
Sun is important... but the charge settings are easy to program. There are Time of Use settings as well that you can control a generator with when off grid.
It was installed previously to the Sol-Ark, but also in VT, we have net metering that requires a solar production meter to get credits for power produced. A DC coupled system either requires an extra meter, or isn't able to be metered depending on which utility you're on. Hopefully they get rid of this requirement, but this is where we're at for now.
Ben, I've got a question regarding your Solar Edge system. Do you think that it would be worth the effort to convert that over to the DC side of the Sol-Arl? It would manage the solar power generated more efficiently on it's DC bus. I'm curious as to your thoughts on it.
For me, it wouldn't be worth it. We have net metering here that meters all of your solar production and gives you credits based on that. If I were to change away from an AC Coupled system, it would change the rates that I get currently, as the rates were much different when I originally got solar. I'd technically also have to get some sort of rapid shutdown devices to install on the roof to make it code compliant.
Great video. It's nice to also think about how future proof a system is, with the ability to add solar panels batteries and parallel Solarks there are no real concerns we would have to switch out equipment.
Interesting about the Solark shutting everything down when the dryer was running. I've had it happen twice but in my case there were no alarms logged? I'll talk to Solark about that. Nevertheless one thing I did notice is that the shutdown seemed to occur as the batteries were charging continuously back up from being relatively low to close to 100% - anecdotal so don't quote me :) If I run the dryer when the batteries are fully (100%) charged and sunny then I never seem to have the problem even with clouds passing - 2 samples, I know. I do have a similar LG dryer but mine draws 6KW peak in normal - I've never run it in any of the other settings. To summarize: What I do now is run the dryer when I see that I have a stretch of sun that lasts for about an hour and the batteries aren't actively charging. [edit] I have my work computers, switches and routers, etc on small UPS's so the minute or so when the power goes down and the Solark restarts my day work doesn't get interrupted - been setup that way even before I decided to do solar/renewables.
It can when on grid or through the solar charge controllers when off grid. When running ac coupled off grid, the only way it can limit is by frequency shifting.
Ben, if you were starting over building another system, would you plan for a capacity bottleneck in a particular place if you had to limit costs, or would you prefer overkill regardless of costs?
Depends what you'd want to be limited on. I would go for a big 48v inverter like the Sol-Ark for the infrastructure and maybe bare minimum of panels to run it, or a smaller battery that can be added onto in the future. With the Sol-Ark you can do 4-5 panels for a minimum, 9-10 max per string so it's very flexible. Batteries are going the be the most expensive part of a large system.
Ben, is it possible to use the Sol-Ark to prioritize battery power over grid power and have the grid come in as backup power when the batteries reach a certain low level (say 20%)? If this setting is possible on the Sol-Ark, how would the use of a high draw item like an instant hot water heater be handled by the system? I’m asking all this because I want to put my LTO modules to use instead of having them gathering dust waiting for the grid to go down.
Absolutely. So it doesn't work like a cheap MPP solar inverter where there's a relay to switch back and forth from grid power to battery power when the grid is up. It senses how much power you're using and then allows it to come from the grid or the battery depending on your settings. I'm currently running in that mode (self consumption) and it does pretty well even without the CTs. When you start a large load, there is a brief (less than a second) lag time where power will come from the grid before coming from the battery, but in a typical day I see less than 1kWh from the grid.
@@benssolarandbattery that’s awesome! Can’t wait to get up and running. Got my array up most of the panels mounted and working on getting the BMS leads attached to each of the 700+ cells in the 36 LTO modules (Honda Fit) I bought last year.
Ben's Solar and Battery or better yet leverage a mppt Charger, hopefully sol-ark comes out with one that can integrate with the inverter so the batteries can take a larger overall charge
Ben, got to your channel from David Poz's (and being a cool channel, I subscribed :)) Question for you - I have CS/Electrical background (light on Electrical) and would like to find teaching resources for setting up battery backups for solar systems. Your channel has a lot of good stuff, but your system is different enough that it doesn't translate for my (likely basic) questions. What are some good resources for learning to add battery / generator backup to grid-tie solar systems? Just to add complexity my system is not simple e.g. . It's a large system that connects past the main panel (and that's likely just one issue). This is why I'm trying to understand more of the fundamentals. Thanks for your tips!
Hi, Ben... nice video!!! Very informative!!! And practical as well... Could you share your present setup? I mean some diagram or similar of the interconnection between the Solar Edge and the Sol-Ark... You confirm that the Solar-Ark can do 120/120/240 V split phase, right? Keep up the excellent work...!!! My wish is to setup a Solar-Ark as an Hybrid inverter/charger with PV and batteries... to use the grid as less as possible...
I blew the MPP up... (seriously) I'd installed a few Sol-Arks at the time and decided I wanted one. I'm loving everything about the Sol-Ark though! Even installed a proper interlock so I don't blow it up the same way!
@@benssolarandbattery Sorry, what did you do to blow up the MPP? Would like to know more so I know what to avoid myself. 😁 I really want to go off grid and I'm thinking of getting around a 10 kw array coupled with two Sol Arks and a 30 kwh battery bank. This should be adequate without worrying about hitting limits and having faults no? Of course I would use mini splits and gas in place of the power suckers like ac, water heaters, dryers and cooktops. Would probably also get a backup generator for those excessively cloudy and stormy days.
Great video showing the SolArk AC coupling in action with a variety of scenarios. One problem with frequency shifting is that your whole house sees that and some appliances will be affected. If done enough of the day, depending on what you have, particular devices are going to have messed up clocks which sync from the 60Hz AC line for their time source (stove / microwave / LED clock radios). It also seems like it is very on/off, instead of curtailing a portion of the output as the frequency starts to goes up. I wonder if that is a limitation of the SolArk or SolarEdge inverter - or both. Some combos can do this more linearly, instead of full off - wait awhile, come back on full. It seems like they really want the big solar to be on the SolArk, for better control.
Yes, the clocks do run a little fast when it's at 61.5hz. There is a setting in the SolarEdge that allows it to ramp down production, but I haven't enabled it as it's fairly complicated on the old inverters and I just haven't dug into it.
@@benssolarandbattery Assuming you did enable it on your inverter, do you know if the SolArk will adjust up the frequency gradually and try to limit the power more gracefully - or does it just jump right up to 61.5Hz like you showed?
@@billjohnson3344 yes, it will. I've seen it adjust gradually to try to slow down charging, but once it hits 60.2hz or so, the SolarEdge shuts off. Very cool that it frequency shifts if the charging amperage hits the maximum as well.
I’m curious to know how far down your battery gets in percentage before it cycles? Mine gets to around 65% before I see a cycle happen. Not sure why it’s cycling there, I always thought it would be more like 20%? I have Battle Born Batteries.
How in the world are you running two dissimilar battery packs in parallel without damaging one of them? Everything I have read says that is impossible. The Victron web site says not to do this. Please tell us your secret.
I thought it wouldn't work at first, but the theory is sound. Basically each of the 16s modules in parallel balance out. Power flows from highest to lowest voltage. Under heavy load or charging, the larger capacity modules see higher amperage because they have a lower internal resistance. I've also taken precautions with an individual BMS on each module (40a rated) and then a circuit breaker where they all combine rated at 20a. This way if one of the modules shorts out, it gets removed from the pack. If one of the cells has an issue, the BMS for that module shuts it off. If that module happens to turn of when the SOC is at a very different level from the rest and the balance current is too high, that module shuts off. I've monitored it carefully under heavy charge and discharge and everything works as it should.
Ben, I run my deep well pump during the sunshining days, filling my 2500gal storage tank. If I need to use any corded electric tools, compressor and welders, I also run them at these times of day so that, I don't draw any energy from my battery bank system. I have been amazed at the amounts of energy I have during good sun hours to run electric equipment without drawing any energy from my battery bank with my Sol-Ark 12K. I have only tripped my Sol-Ark once, when I was welding and my pump and 5hp compressor turned on. I was welding half inch plate with excessively high output when it happened.
WOW NICE BROTHER!! That's a goal of mine. My well pump filling the tank as the suns up. I did this for a living back in the day. We did not even use batts. Just well pump controllers and PV :) Would love to do this for my place. Not here as this is not are forever home.
My Sol-Ark 12k just recently starting throwing an alarm code of F-63 with only the fridge and some lights turned on, we have three 5.4kwh e-flex batteries with 10 - 450 watt panels . Guess we will require an installer to come over and find the problem.
F-63 is arc fault on the PV side. They'll have to check the connections and isolate the issue.
Thanks! Now to try an get my installer, seems to be busy.
Morning, Ben. You should use you car as a giant backup battery for the Solark . oh, wait :-) I have about 90% of the most important circuits in my house running permanently off the Solark through two Reliance switches; the washing machine, dryer, dishwasher, TV's, microwave, other kitchen stuff, bedrooms, bathrooms, basement lights, etc. I can individually chose what runs on the Solark or off the grid now which is nice. I've been running this way now since the beginning of March when I finally got all the wiring done and connected up the second array. It was really cool running the dryer yesterday and watching the Solark draw down 7.5KW to run the house and dryer then toggle between getting most of the power from the arrays and some from the batteries as clouds went by. I bought a Solark after watching one of your videos and I must say I do not regret it at all. Thanks for all the sharing. btw. I do have my kitchen ceiling lights on grid so that at least I have some indication that the grid has gone down! :) I am going to connect AC power generated by a small wind turbine to the Gen input on the Solark to keep the batteries topped up on those stormy cloudy days.
Let us know how the wind project goes. That is my next step. Upstate NY is cold and dark in the winter.
@@adirondackbrewery971 Will do. Waiting for the permit from the town. I have all the materials and ready to go.
I would love if you could show how this is hooked up to your breaker box and how it automatically kicks on when the power is cut. Thanks for a great video. Just subscribed!
I've basically taken the main power into my house and rerouted it into the Sol-Ark, then fed the main panel from there. The down side with a Sol-Ark 12k is doing that drops your service to 60a. The 15k allows for full 200a pass through.
This is great! It's something I wanted to achieve with my future setup. I am def going for a 12k Sol-Ark.
Hey Ben! I think the limit per leg is about 4500 w so I think that's what happened when your dryer took it over that limit.
Hi Scott! I considered that, but the dryer only pulls 5500w 240v. That would be split between L1 and L2 evenly.
The strange part is, it never shuts off when you first start the dryer, but maybe 10-20 minutes in. This leads me to believe that the elements are running through a half wave rectifier to run at half power once everything heats up. These inverters hate that. It's basically the same as a hair dryer or heat gun running half power, but on 240v. Another viewer of my channel Vince has had the same issues but with no error codes on shutdown.
@@benssolarandbattery do you have a green board inverter?
@@engineer775 nope, blue. 63v but before the outdoor version.
@@benssolarandbattery great diagnosis on the hair dryer, I agree. Would be great to confirm if this is a legacy model issue.
@@benssolarandbattery Yep, I can confirm the system shuts down with no error codes after the dryer has been running a while. Doesn't always do it but when it does it's at the most inopportune time. Did it yesterday with full sun and illumination of all the panels and the batteries fully charged. I've just started the dryer again just now to see if it can finish the job it tried to do yesterday. Interestingly I've never seen the shutdown two times in a row. If It shutsdown once and I restart the dryer on the same day it always completes without error - that could also be because the cloths are much dryer than the first start so the dryer unit may be loading up the Solark differently. Yes, I have the same Solark as you, Ben. The one before the outdoor model.
Awesome setup, Ben!!
Looking good
I officially just purchased my Sol ark 12k!!! 🥳
Thank you Ben and David's channels; your most certainly the reason I've invested into my own DIY solar! P.S. I'll be attempting the AC and DC coupling as you've done here Ben 😁👍.
System stats: 10.2 kw solar edge South facing array. A DC coupled ground mount out back around my vegetable garden. 33.5 kwh of lifepo4 storage consisting of 26 16s 25ah topbrand DIY batteries. I've never felt this type of satisfaction before ☺️ again thank you for your continued support with this amazing content!!!
Awesome!! Sounds like a good sized system. Now you just need to take some video of it when installing so we can all see it!
@@benssolarandbattery 😅 ummm I'll think about it; I'm no where near yours and David's level in this subject matter!! Just trying to do my lil part, for this world... Oh and what makes financial sense to boot 👢 lol 😂 I'm definitely not affluent, but I get by!!
@@meganwinters5163 What are your thoughts about the SA after having it in use for a while? I just ordered a 15K myself and look forward to the new adventure!
@@ssoffshore5111 I truly believe you'll love the SA 15k! I'm kinda jealous of the full 200A pass through capabilities you'll have, honestly. These truly are beautifully engineered and customer service backed products!!! Don't let the haters, hate is all I'll say (everyone has their own "perfect system")... But I adore my setup and the flexibility, reliability, & down right preparedness that I feel in having it ☺️🙏. All the best!
@@meganwinters5163 I'm glad to hear it's working out well for you! Yes, I plan on going from the meter to my SA and then to the main panel so the entire house is backed up (I can manage those loads). I too am looking forward to the flexibility and also the independence!
Thanks for sharing this. One day I shall join you in the solark club :)
How do you feel about all the bad reviews talking about the legs not being balanced? 🤔
They're justified. Sol-Ark doesn't handle unbalanced loads well at all. I understand the importance of making sure things are pretty well balanced, but when running a toaster shuts the inverter down, that is unfortunate.
So is the Sol-Ark a grid tie and send power back to the grid? I haven't seen that function!So why did you not oush the extra energy to the grid?
It can push power back to the grid. I was testing it here, but I do regularly have it grid tied pushing power to the house and then the grid.
heya nice instalation you have I have a solaredge myself what is working very nice like yours
I need this now! Lol
Another really good video, thanks for showing real Life operation. Would love to see a schematic of how you set up these two inverters.
Could a Tesla be Level 2 charged with the Smart Dump mode?
What about Sol-ark fans? Are they loud or not compared let' say with growatt spf6000t dvm?
I have a newer 15K coming next week and would like to possibly get to the point I'm off grid (or at least be capable of doing so). I know HF inverters aren't the best for heavy loads off grid, but I'm hopeful this thing handles situations like the one you outlined w/o issue. I was going to strictly DC couple, but this now has me considering throwing on at least some AC coupled panels into the gen port for additional OG loads.
How many solar panels and what size wattage are the solar panels
I have 42-260W panels on the south roof, 9-300W panels on the north roof and 1-285W panel facing west above one of my heat pumps.
Did you ever find where that high-pitched squeal noise is coming from? Is that from the Sol-Ark? Do they all sound like that or is something up with yours?
It's a combination of the Sol-Ark and the SolarEdge. If you stand right between them during heavy charging its almost worse than a screaming baby!
The Sol-Ark by itself definitely makes noise, but it's much worse coupled with the SolarEdge and some good sun.
Saw something on another video about using a solar edge auto transformer , is this a phase imbalance causing drop? Maybe you need to add, also?
Hey Ben. Enjoy your videos. From seeing your setup, I have 3 questions:
1) The great majority of comments (from customers and installers alike) I have read about SolarEdge products (inverters, as well as power optimizers) are negative. They seem to have a history of both hardware failures (which have clusters both within a few months and after ~2 years) and support nightmares (unbelievable wait times for support, ridiculous failure analysis requests, as well as denial of warranty coverage). How long have you had the SolarEdge inveter? Do you have power optimizers as well? Have you had any failures? What do you think of their support?
2) I saw your (Rheem?) heat pump water heater. What are your views on that water heater in particular, and heat pump water heaters in general? How well does that work up in chilly VT (I'm in central NJ, so it might work even better in this slightly warmer climate)? Does it ever need to use the heating element? I see you are just using the ambient room (basement?, garage?) air for both input and output. When I replace my current (22 year old!) gas fired 70 gal water heater, the (metal) chimney from the basement up through the roof won't be needed for exhaust, so I'm thinking of ducting attic air through the former chimney to the input of a heat pump water heater in the summer (with the exhaust just going to the ambient basement air), and running the reverse in the winter (so I'm not exhausting cooled air to the basement). Thoughts on this idea?
3) I see you have a Chevy Bolt. I'm thinking to buy a used one after we install solar (with battery backup) as our first EV. What are your impressions of the Bolt? Any advice on buying a used one? Any advice on EV charging from solar?
Thanks in advance for any guidance you can provide.
Running on Sunshine lol it is amazing
You have to love that cloud edge when it comes around for supercharging the batteries. Although it can cause some major system headaches if not taken into account.
I'm glad that the system I'm using does take it into account!!
Hi I have the SolarEdge 76000 I believed with the trasforme from SolarEdge that you also seen to have with (2) Tesla batteries 1st generation, I will like to add that inverter that you have with some more batteries to get storage close to 30kwh, right now I'm on 12.6 with the 2 Tesla 1st gen, also I own a 2019 Bolt-Ev. I have 24 solar cel. 240w not producing sufficient to demand the need of my Bolt-Ev 2 rooms AC and the daily electricity consumed so right now I'm picking close to 1000kwh monthly and producing close to 780 worst months. I'm down here in Puerto Rico I can get that inverter down here, there its a supplier that sale those in SanJuan, but my question is if you can explain me how you have the solar edge wire to with the solArc or if you have the SolarEdge w/ the transformer connect to one Phase and the solArc to the other face and the Bolt charger connected to the solArc I also have a Generac 12k generator that I will like to have connected to the solArc. thanks for any tips advice or recommendation that have work for you. Also I'm a GRIDTIE customer . thanks in advance
Great video! What is the size of your battery? It would be nice if Sol-ark could show the AC coupling production on the read out.
Thanks! Currently I have about 25kWh usable from my battery. It's a mix of 16s EV batteries. The Sol-Ark does show AC coupled production if you tie into the Gen breaker with it. I opted to tie into the load side of it so I'd have more power available to me during the day.
@@benssolarandbattery Curious how many amp hours are your batteries? I'm looking to do 15kw 300ah for a small home backup.
What settings are available on the Sol-Ark to ensure the batteries are well charged before the sun goes down on an off-grid setup?
Sun is important... but the charge settings are easy to program. There are Time of Use settings as well that you can control a generator with when off grid.
Fantastic! now we have too do a Solar Hot Water one eh
Awesome system!
what is the purpose of the solar edge in the system, can you not do everything from the sol-ark?
It was installed previously to the Sol-Ark, but also in VT, we have net metering that requires a solar production meter to get credits for power produced. A DC coupled system either requires an extra meter, or isn't able to be metered depending on which utility you're on.
Hopefully they get rid of this requirement, but this is where we're at for now.
NICE brother. Thanks for sharing. Love seeing all the power. Is that 2 MWH just from the North solar? God Bless..
Yup, all from the north roof!
Ben, I've got a question regarding your Solar Edge system. Do you think that it would be worth the effort to convert that over to the DC side of the Sol-Arl? It would manage the solar power generated more efficiently on it's DC bus. I'm curious as to your thoughts on it.
For me, it wouldn't be worth it. We have net metering here that meters all of your solar production and gives you credits based on that. If I were to change away from an AC Coupled system, it would change the rates that I get currently, as the rates were much different when I originally got solar. I'd technically also have to get some sort of rapid shutdown devices to install on the roof to make it code compliant.
Great video. It's nice to also think about how future proof a system is, with the ability to add solar panels batteries and parallel Solarks there are no real concerns we would have to switch out equipment.
Interesting about the Solark shutting everything down when the dryer was running. I've had it happen twice but in my case there were no alarms logged? I'll talk to Solark about that. Nevertheless one thing I did notice is that the shutdown seemed to occur as the batteries were charging continuously back up from being relatively low to close to 100% - anecdotal so don't quote me :) If I run the dryer when the batteries are fully (100%) charged and sunny then I never seem to have the problem even with clouds passing - 2 samples, I know. I do have a similar LG dryer but mine draws 6KW peak in normal - I've never run it in any of the other settings. To summarize: What I do now is run the dryer when I see that I have a stretch of sun that lasts for about an hour and the batteries aren't actively charging. [edit] I have my work computers, switches and routers, etc on small UPS's so the minute or so when the power goes down and the Solark restarts my day work doesn't get interrupted - been setup that way even before I decided to do solar/renewables.
I thought Sol-Ark could limit the amount of power back to the battery...
It can when on grid or through the solar charge controllers when off grid. When running ac coupled off grid, the only way it can limit is by frequency shifting.
Ben, if you were starting over building another system, would you plan for a capacity bottleneck in a particular place if you had to limit costs, or would you prefer overkill regardless of costs?
Depends what you'd want to be limited on. I would go for a big 48v inverter like the Sol-Ark for the infrastructure and maybe bare minimum of panels to run it, or a smaller battery that can be added onto in the future. With the Sol-Ark you can do 4-5 panels for a minimum, 9-10 max per string so it's very flexible. Batteries are going the be the most expensive part of a large system.
Ben, is it possible to use the Sol-Ark to prioritize battery power over grid power and have the grid come in as backup power when the batteries reach a certain low level (say 20%)? If this setting is possible on the Sol-Ark, how would the use of a high draw item like an instant hot water heater be handled by the system? I’m asking all this because I want to put my LTO modules to use instead of having them gathering dust waiting for the grid to go down.
Absolutely. So it doesn't work like a cheap MPP solar inverter where there's a relay to switch back and forth from grid power to battery power when the grid is up. It senses how much power you're using and then allows it to come from the grid or the battery depending on your settings. I'm currently running in that mode (self consumption) and it does pretty well even without the CTs. When you start a large load, there is a brief (less than a second) lag time where power will come from the grid before coming from the battery, but in a typical day I see less than 1kWh from the grid.
@@benssolarandbattery that’s awesome! Can’t wait to get up and running. Got my array up most of the panels mounted and working on getting the BMS leads attached to each of the 700+ cells in the 36 LTO modules (Honda Fit) I bought last year.
Gosh.. seems like you need a good dump load setup to take advantage of the power and not have to manually switch stuff off/on. Hot tub...? 🙂
Once I go fully off grid, definitely!
Ben's Solar and Battery or better yet leverage a mppt Charger, hopefully sol-ark comes out with one that can integrate with the inverter so the batteries can take a larger overall charge
Power dump into an electric water heater, use it as a tempering pre tank.
got this video recommended 1 hour ago but it's 3 days old by now wtf ?
Weird. I'm not really sure how RUclips does their recommending.
Ben, got to your channel from David Poz's (and being a cool channel, I subscribed :))
Question for you - I have CS/Electrical background (light on Electrical) and would like to find teaching resources for setting up battery backups for solar systems.
Your channel has a lot of good stuff, but your system is different enough that it doesn't translate for my (likely basic) questions.
What are some good resources for learning to add battery / generator backup to grid-tie solar systems? Just to add complexity my system is not simple e.g. . It's a large system that connects past the main panel (and that's likely just one issue). This is why I'm trying to understand more of the fundamentals.
Thanks for your tips!
Hi, Ben... nice video!!!
Very informative!!! And practical as well...
Could you share your present setup? I mean some diagram or similar of the interconnection between the Solar Edge and the Sol-Ark...
You confirm that the Solar-Ark can do 120/120/240 V split phase, right?
Keep up the excellent work...!!!
My wish is to setup a Solar-Ark as an Hybrid inverter/charger with PV and batteries... to use the grid as less as possible...
I'd like to see this information. I currently have 8.6K of Grid Tied PV. One of the inverters is A Sun Power 5100 the other is Aurora 3.6Kw inverter.
So you went from MPP to Solark right? If i may ask, why did you make the switch besides capacity? Reliability? Features?
I blew the MPP up... (seriously) I'd installed a few Sol-Arks at the time and decided I wanted one. I'm loving everything about the Sol-Ark though! Even installed a proper interlock so I don't blow it up the same way!
@@benssolarandbattery Sorry, what did you do to blow up the MPP? Would like to know more so I know what to avoid myself. 😁
I really want to go off grid and I'm thinking of getting around a 10 kw array coupled with two Sol Arks and a 30 kwh battery bank. This should be adequate without worrying about hitting limits and having faults no? Of course I would use mini splits and gas in place of the power suckers like ac, water heaters, dryers and cooktops. Would probably also get a backup generator for those excessively cloudy and stormy days.
Great video showing the SolArk AC coupling in action with a variety of scenarios. One problem with frequency shifting is that your whole house sees that and some appliances will be affected. If done enough of the day, depending on what you have, particular devices are going to have messed up clocks which sync from the 60Hz AC line for their time source (stove / microwave / LED clock radios). It also seems like it is very on/off, instead of curtailing a portion of the output as the frequency starts to goes up. I wonder if that is a limitation of the SolArk or SolarEdge inverter - or both. Some combos can do this more linearly, instead of full off - wait awhile, come back on full. It seems like they really want the big solar to be on the SolArk, for better control.
Yes, the clocks do run a little fast when it's at 61.5hz. There is a setting in the SolarEdge that allows it to ramp down production, but I haven't enabled it as it's fairly complicated on the old inverters and I just haven't dug into it.
@@benssolarandbattery Assuming you did enable it on your inverter, do you know if the SolArk will adjust up the frequency gradually and try to limit the power more gracefully - or does it just jump right up to 61.5Hz like you showed?
@@billjohnson3344 yes, it will. I've seen it adjust gradually to try to slow down charging, but once it hits 60.2hz or so, the SolarEdge shuts off. Very cool that it frequency shifts if the charging amperage hits the maximum as well.
I’m curious to know how far down your battery gets in percentage before it cycles? Mine gets to around 65% before I see a cycle happen. Not sure why it’s cycling there, I always thought it would be more like 20%?
I have Battle Born Batteries.
Ben, what do you mean by cycle? Do you have something that counts charge/discharge cycles?
@@benssolarandbattery
Yes my Victron app. All my gear is Victron and Battle Born Batteries.
Oh, ok. I've never used that monitor. Perhaps a setting adjustment is needed?
@@benssolarandbattery
I believe you need to get the Victron shunt. That way you can read the cycles, temperature and other particulars.
I have considered it. Can it control a relay based on SOC? I can do that with the Sol-Ark but not combined with AC coupling.
What brand batteries and kwh?
Smart Fortwo and Volvo 16s EV batteries. 25kWh.
how many btu is your heat pump?
I have 3. A 15k btu, a 12k and a 9k.
How in the world are you running two dissimilar battery packs in parallel without damaging one of them? Everything I have read says that is impossible. The Victron web site says not to do this. Please tell us your secret.
I thought it wouldn't work at first, but the theory is sound. Basically each of the 16s modules in parallel balance out. Power flows from highest to lowest voltage. Under heavy load or charging, the larger capacity modules see higher amperage because they have a lower internal resistance. I've also taken precautions with an individual BMS on each module (40a rated) and then a circuit breaker where they all combine rated at 20a. This way if one of the modules shorts out, it gets removed from the pack. If one of the cells has an issue, the BMS for that module shuts it off. If that module happens to turn of when the SOC is at a very different level from the rest and the balance current is too high, that module shuts off. I've monitored it carefully under heavy charge and discharge and everything works as it should.
Hey Ben question can the sol-ark can operate in a single phase inverter ?
It can do 120/240 split phase, 240 single phase, 208 single phase or 208 3 phase.
@@benssolarandbattery Oh ok thats kool
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First! First to watch, first to like - I'm trusting this will be worth a like! (Hah, just jiving - I know your vids will be great Ben. Thanks pal.