PylonTech Batteries and Hybrid inverters

[Joeboy]

Hi Moxi,
Can't remember if i asked you this before, have you ran down all the vampires in the house and went low energy where you can already? That in itself can make a big difference and best to get it out of the way before it leaches the batteries overnight. We run at about 135W +/- 20W background load.

135W?

I think my smart plugs use more than that!

Used to be 90W, I've let myself go a bit!

[Andy]

Do you run a Ecofan on your WS? Thinking about ways to avoid tumble dryer.
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Do you actually get appreciable air flow with the eco fan?

[Moxi]

Yes we run an eco fan as it pushes the heat out of the inglenook and distributes it around the room and yes there’s enough displacement from it to move clothes on the pulley maid ( o conjunction with the warm air updraft)

I’ve looked hi and low but can’t find much on the Y&H 5.5kW so it might be that I look at some of the “bundled kit” options that are available and which some of the forum members have installed themselves- at least in this case I would have more direct experience to fall back on.

I am starting the hunt for the leach loads - it’s been done periodically in the past but things have a tendency to creep back to standby etc if I don’t police things periodically.

Moxi

[Joeboy]

Do you run a Ecofan on your WS? Thinking about ways to avoid tumble dryer.
[/url]

Do you actually get appreciable air flow with the eco fan?

Yes Andy, Ran it(the WS) for a couple of months. Felt the wee bit thermal striations in the room column. Bought an Ecofan 2nd hand and it was like BOOM! Honestly.




As honest as I can be.

[Andy]

I think I shall add one to my Christmas wish list

[Moxi]

Well I have tried all sorts to find the detains for the CAN buss for the Y&H and cant find it and tracking Y&H to a contactable point seems equally difficult so I have taken that as a sign to look at more mainstream offerings.

I also read a few more threads here on the forum and the concept of maintaining control over my own assets and not necessarily becoming a victim of cloud based software and other such in built redundancy resonates.

Alas I am not strong with regards to instrumentation control and automation and as a mechanical engineer even my electrical knowledge sits at the basic level and I have the unpleasant habit of thinking myself to a standstill - its happening a little bit already for this project.

In my head all I need to keep my electrical import to a minimum is a battery above 36V, my trusty Y&H 600W grid tie inverter and a suitable battery charge. What I was able to deduce for myself was:

36V chargers and batteries seem to be an oddball figure (specialist) so the next "common" voltage seems to be 48V,

my 600W inverter would clearly be running at max quite a lot of the day which could be life limiting for it and grid import for loads over 600W in the house would be notable, it would be ok for the evening and night time loads which are typically sub 400W (evening).

my knowledge of stopping the inverter back feeding the grid is negligible and if the inverter was to do this (I'm not positive it does)I have no idea what to add to limit the back feed to a low acceptable figure.

So that led me to look at the pylontech battery as I recognised its reliable has a good market following and is likely to be around for some time in various models etc. It also led me to look at the hybrid inverters as they seem to have the controls necessary to address my back feed concern and the larger inverter to increase the size of load I can self service in the house so less import periods. The down side is the inverters rely on software over which I have no control and lamentable knowledge.

I may have to live with that and educate myself more with regards the ICA side of things.

So a hybrid inverter with a pylontech battery seems the place to start, I presume the inverter CT clamp tells the inverter to charge the batteries when there's excess PV generation and I will needs to isolate/ decommission? my 4-noks power diverter which isn't "smart".

Current generation from our PV up in Darkest North Wales seems to hover around the 0.5 to 3kWh range per day so the first procurement need only be the hybrid inverter and a single 2.4KW Pylontech I guess as I don't have a tariff to load shift and charge with cheap rate and the option to move to such a tariff is a way off given the present chaos in the energy market so its excess PV charging all the way for me at the moment.

So looking at a few sites that appears to be solax, sofar, and solis and give energy brands - any warnings / recommendations / others?

Do my ramblings make sense ??

Moxi

[Andy]

You could do a Victron inverter with the Pylontech. This would also allow you to add more panels on the dc side in the future if you so desired. They come in many sizes.

[Stinsy]

Well I have tried all sorts to find the detains for the CAN buss for the Y&H and cant find it and tracking Y&H to a contactable point seems equally difficult so I have taken that as a sign to look at more mainstream offerings.

I also read a few more threads here on the forum and the concept of maintaining control over my own assets and not necessarily becoming a victim of cloud based software and other such in built redundancy resonates.

Alas I am not strong with regards to instrumentation control and automation and as a mechanical engineer even my electrical knowledge sits at the basic level and I have the unpleasant habit of thinking myself to a standstill - its happening a little bit already for this project.

In my head all I need to keep my electrical import to a minimum is a battery above 36V, my trusty Y&H 600W grid tie inverter and a suitable battery charge. What I was able to deduce for myself was:

36V chargers and batteries seem to be an oddball figure (specialist) so the next "common" voltage seems to be 48V,

my 600W inverter would clearly be running at max quite a lot of the day which could be life limiting for it and grid import for loads over 600W in the house would be notable, it would be ok for the evening and night time loads which are typically sub 400W (evening).

my knowledge of stopping the inverter back feeding the grid is negligible and if the inverter was to do this (I'm not positive it does)I have no idea what to add to limit the back feed to a low acceptable figure.

So that led me to look at the pylontech battery as I recognised its reliable has a good market following and is likely to be around for some time in various models etc. It also led me to look at the hybrid inverters as they seem to have the controls necessary to address my back feed concern and the larger inverter to increase the size of load I can self service in the house so less import periods. The down side is the inverters rely on software over which I have no control and lamentable knowledge.

I may have to live with that and educate myself more with regards the ICA side of things.

So a hybrid inverter with a pylontech battery seems the place to start, I presume the inverter CT clamp tells the inverter to charge the batteries when there's excess PV generation and I will needs to isolate/ decommission? my 4-noks power diverter which isn't "smart".

Current generation from our PV up in Darkest North Wales seems to hover around the 0.5 to 3kWh range per day so the first procurement need only be the hybrid inverter and a single 2.4KW Pylontech I guess as I don't have a tariff to load shift and charge with cheap rate and the option to move to such a tariff is a way off given the present chaos in the energy market so its excess PV charging all the way for me at the moment.

So looking at a few sites that appears to be solax, sofar, and solis and give energy brands - any warnings / recommendations / others?

Do my ramblings make sense ??

Moxi

Just to pick up on a few things:

• I'm pretty technical, but as much as I'd like to get into rasberry pis and interacting directly with inverter / battery control signals I'm abstaining because it feels like an enormous timesink and with a family I just don't have that time right now. If you're not technical I wouldn't recommend starting out down that journey.

• Those 600W Y&H inverters just crank out their full rated power when connected to batteries. You can use a buck converter to slow them down but I haven't heard of anyone using a CT with one to target zero export.

• 36V is an oddball voltage for battery systems. 12, 24, or 48V are the most common. Some hardware (eg Victron) can work with 36V systems, but they need special firmware to do so.

• A hybrid inverter does everything you're looking for. It uses a CT to divert power to/from the batteries to target zero export. LuxPower, SoLax, SoFar, Solis, and others compete at the cheap end of the market I've heard nothing bad about any of those. They're usually available very cheaply in used condition but current high energy prices have increased demand and made bargains harder to come by. Victron and SMA compete at the expensive end of the market, they make very high quality, feature-packed, kit but I don't get the feel you're looking at that segment.

• Where batteries are concerned "lead is dead", time has moved on and lithium batteries (of various chemistries) that are so much better in so many ways are now cheap enough that there isn't a case for installing Lead-acid batteries.

• You can build a system with a single pylontech. However be aware they're rated at 25A (1200W) each so if you buy a 3.6kW hybrid inverter it'll be limited to 1200W with 1x pylontech and 2400W with 2x pylontechs (assuming 2.4kWh batteries). There is also a problem with some inverters where they pull huge current from the battery to charge capacitors when you first connect them. This can cause the battery short-circuit detection to cut power. Sometimes you can just try two-or-three times giving the capacitors a little bit of charge each time before the inverter will successfully fire up. Other inverters won't ever from a single battery (I can think of a few ways round this they all require caution!).

• Solar diverters connected to immersion heaters can work with hybrid diverters. I'm surprised that there seems to be no manufacturer making both devices (it is the same market FFS) however if you simply set your diverter to target 50 or 100W export then it'll effectively prioritise battery charging and will heat water when the batteries are already full or being charged as fast as they can.

[Paul_F]

Prompted by a Facebook group I'm in, I've just had a quick look at Alibaba for Chinese made LiFePO4 battery packs, and they seem to be incredibly cheap even allowing for tax and shipping - see e.g. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 5a3aC71xaz

Does anybody know of someone who has been brave enough to try it?

[Stinsy]

Prompted by a Facebook group I'm in, I've just had a quick look at Alibaba for Chinese made LiFePO4 battery packs, and they seem to be incredibly cheap even allowing for tax and shipping - see e.g. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/ ... 5a3aC71xaz

Does anybody know of someone who has been brave enough to try it?

Seen a few YouTube videos where people find the cheapo direct-from-China LiFePO4 batteries offer exceptional VFM. The only real downside is that you’ll typically be running without a data connection between inverter-charger and batteries. This can work well but you’ll have to be conservative about the voltages (and therefore sacrifice capacity) or you’ll shorten lifespan of the batteries.