Does Solis Hybrid Invertor have to have meter and CT?

[bpabpa]

Hi

I am looking to fit a Solis Hybrid inverter initially with Pylontech batteries with solar to follow.
In the install manual it states inverter is able to connect to Acrel or Eastron meters.

Does the Solis have to have the meter? I am guessing yes but can't find explicit confirmation.

I ask for an odd reason. We have an existing suitable underground SWA mains cable so we could fit the batteries and inverter in a weatherproof cabinet near to the future ground mount solar installation. Unfortunately it would be extremely difficult to run the RS485 cable back to the consumer unit where the meter and CT would be located.

Regards

Ian

[Umski]

Hello, having just gotten my head around the Solis AC coupled unit which comes with the Acrel meter, I believe the answer is yes because it relies on the meter and CT to sense the current flow in or out from the CU to the DNO meter/grid - if you're adding PV later and/or depending on the size, you may need to limit the export to 3.68kW which may not happen in reality, unless of course the batteries are full and there's nowhere else for the energy to go and I expect this would form part of the DNO application...

[Caesium]

I'm not at all familiar with these Acrel meters so hoping to learn something here, but I'm not really clear what the Acrel meter provides to the Solis inverter that a simple CT clamp around your incoming tail couldn't, other than converting the signal to modbus?

Can the Solis not just work with a simple CT clamp and no extra equipment?

[Umski]

I'm not at all familiar with these Acrel meters so hoping to learn something here, but I'm not really clear what the Acrel meter provides to the Solis inverter that a simple CT clamp around your incoming tail couldn't, other than converting the signal to modbus?

Can the Solis not just work with a simple CT clamp and no extra equipment?

It seems not, I too don't understand why the Acrel hardware isn't integrated into the Solis, as you say all it seems to do is send a modbus signal to it - after all it has another CT which feeds in directly for the PV reading (on the AC coupled unit at least) so it knows how to do that - I wonder if it's related to the G100 export limitation and was a workaround to 'comply'. From what I can gather the Sofar ME3000 works just with CTs. Odd but at least the Acrel is supplied with the unit (at least on the AC RAI unit) though I've now bought a short length of DIN rail to mount it!