Solar Charge Controllers - Multiples

[Sunking]

I can't give you advice for the present sales but below is a link to information new to the market today and pretty amazing I think;


http://cleantechnica.com/2012/03/14/ultra-thin-solar-cell-company-unstealths-aims-to-cut-cost-of-solar-cells-in-half-images/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaig n=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+(CleanTechnica)

Hope the link works it's long !

It is another Vaporware just like NanoSolar.

[russ]

Zachary Shahan is one of the ultra green bloggers that would make doggy stuff sensational if he thought it would get hits. If he is right once in a while it is purely by accident.

Cleantechnica has a number of that type - Susan Kraemer writes about wind and knows nothing about it at all. Others are just as bad!

I believe they write blogs for pay or favors as well - at least I have seen posts that I am positive the writer knew better from previous discussions.

I used to read that site until I realized they were just pimping for profit and to make themselves feel good.

That bunch was pushing One Block Off The Grid - again for profit - Seems like OBOG bought the site a couple of years back.

[Sunking]

I believe they write blogs for pay

That is highly probable. I have had several offers from manufactures and vendors offer me to write articles on their their blogs for pay. The incentive is X dollars for X amount of words. Offers range from $4/$7.50/1K words.

[solarponders]

I've a question regarding power coming directly from Solar Panel to run the house ..

If I've connection such as : PV to CC to Battery to Inverter and use a Changeover switch.

And, I've a full output from the panel at the peak and a full load being pulled from within the house,
will this be deemed as direct from PV or will some charge be spent in charging the battery?

I ask this especially because the connection is made through the battery bank and I really don't
know how the internals work .. will the charges always settle in the battery bank no matter
whether is an online pull or not? Or, if the charges will just use the battery terminals
as a conduit to the inverter.

I hope my question made sense, I am not sure how to rephrase it.

If there is a grid, for the changeover automation purpose I am considering buying a switch and I need to set
one source as primary and other as secondary. If I choose the Solar as primary, this option will
imply anything to the upstream of inverter (inclusive of battery bank) right?? Or would there
be three 1) PV 2) Battery 3) Grid

[billvon]

If I've connection such as : PV to CC to Battery to Inverter and use a Changeover switch. And, I've a full output from the panel at the peak and a full load being pulled from within the house, will this be deemed as direct from PV or will some charge be spent in charging the battery?

It will not be "direct from PV." It will still be going through the charge controller and inverter.

If the inverter draws more current than the PV panel is supplying, then the extra current will come out of the battery. If the inverter draws less current than the PV panel is supplying, the extra current will go into the battery. If they are exactly the same, the battery will "float" at whatever voltage it happens to be at* and neither take nor add current.

(* - "float" in this context is not the same as float phase of the charge controller; that's a specific part of a charging profile. Also, all batteries self-discharge slightly so you'd actually have to add a tiny amount of current to keep the battery at the same state of charge.)

If there is a grid, for the changeover automation purpose I am considering buying a switch and I need to set
one source as primary and other as secondary. If I choose the Solar as primary, this option will
imply anything to the upstream of inverter (inclusive of battery bank) right?? Or would there
be three 1) PV 2) Battery 3) Grid

You likely do not want to do this. If you have a grid connection then by far the cheapest/most efficient/most powerful option is solar to grid tie inverter. No switching or primary or secondary. It just feeds back as much power as it can when the sun is out.

[solarponders]

It will not be "direct from PV." It will still be going through the charge controller and inverter.

If the inverter draws more current than the PV panel is supplying, then the extra current will come out of the battery. If the inverter draws less current than the PV panel is supplying, the extra current will go into the battery. If they are exactly the same, the battery will "float" at whatever voltage it happens to be at* and neither take nor add current.

(* - "float" in this context is not the same as float phase of the charge controller; that's a specific part of a charging profile. Also, all batteries self-discharge slightly so you'd actually have to add a tiny amount of current to keep the battery at the same state of charge.)

Thanks for the clarification.

You likely do not want to do this. If you have a grid connection then by far the cheapest/most efficient/most powerful option is solar to grid tie inverter. No switching or primary or secondary. It just feeds back as much power as it can when the sun is out.

Note that, in my part of the globe (India) the power cuts are rampant .. And, also the feed from inverter to the grid (and hence get the payback/deduction in the power bill) is not an option, such meters are not sold. Not sure why it is not, but just may be the technology is not here..if it is a big one to get a meter that reverses. So I do not have the luxury of not providing a switch when trying to make a seamless integration of PV solar, battery and grid. I do not want to manually trigger the switch when power outage happens because the power cut is so random that you'd make many such trips to the power/solar room/enclosure.

[Mike90250]

I have a xantrex XW-6048 inverter/charger, that runs off 48V. You can use use it (or several of them) as an automatic backup, they have an internal transfer relay, when the grid fails, you don't even see a blink as it switches to INVERT. It's internal 100A charger can recharge the batteries when the grid returns. I'd only put critical loads on the inverter, till you learn how long it will last on battery, till power comes back. Minimum battery bank would be 600AH @ 48V, and should likely be twice that size, I think 1,000ah would be a reasonable place to start. 4 car batteries will not work well.

You can add solar PV and charge controller to keep things running longer in the daytime.

[solarponders]

http://www.morningstarcorp.com/en/st...38&TmaxUnits=0



hi all, here is my pv model of choice and tristar 60a mppt ... the morning star calculator shows
that there is "marginal performance" if I connect 2 in series and 2 in parallel, the Min Vmp < Battery Vmax .. Unfortunately,
I do need 48 volt battery system because my inverter size demands that. And, I do not want
to buy any additional panels now because this is an experimentation phase that I am going through ..

Now, how bad does this "marginal performance" sound ... I know this happens only if 2 conditions are met :

1) when its very hot outside (close to the average max)
2) batteries are fully charged

does marginal performance mean, ithat its not peak or its far worse? Because, I will soon upgrade (in 8-9) months to have more panels to mitigate the condition, specifically my question is :

avg battery voltage ~ 48 v
max battery voltage ~ 62 v

if my array Vmp @ hottest temperature = 50v

which means there is a drop in the power,

instead of : 62v (battery voltage) x 16 Imp = 992 w
it wuld be : 50v (array voltage) x 16 Imp = 800 w

am I right on the ballpark ignoring all efficiency loss etc?

[Sunking]

Solarponders the problem you are going to have is PWM and even MPPT controllers cannot up convert voltages. It takes a minimum of about a 55 to 58 volt source to charge a 48 volt battery. So if you have a 50 volt source, it is not going to work. Minimum required panel voltage on a 48 volt system is 64 volts.

[solarponders]

Solarponders the problem you are going to have is PWM and even MPPT controllers cannot up convert voltages. It takes a minimum of about a 55 to 58 volt source to charge a 48 volt battery. So if you have a 50 volt source, it is not going to work. Minimum required panel voltage on a 48 volt system is 64 volts.

Ok, I understand.

But on the flip side : if I connect 4 PVs in series - the Voc @ Min. recorded low temperature exceeds 150v thats the maximum pemissible for the Tristar 60 amp.

Is there any solution without expanding or shrinking my panel output?