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New home triage Solar Panel Inverter efficency – Please give advice!

Question:

Hi

Solar Panel Inverter efficency

, everyone. Like most stories worth telling, this one starts out with “I have this friend…” :) In this case, the friend has a nice, new off-grid solar powered home, and a solar installer that is either incompetent, insane, or evil – I don’t care which. Communications have broken down between the friend and his solar guy, (mainly about going over budget, there still being serious problems with the system, and him not knowing how or not being interested in tracking them down unless he gets more money) This is where I come in.  I’m just a geek – no solar experience, per se, but I’ve wired a lot of stuff, hack both hardware and software,  went to school for electromechanical engineering, and try to be a pretty on the ball guy whenever possible.  I’m also willing to do it for free, which is why I’m inheriting the stewardship of the house instead of a solar expert. :) I’m still assessing the problems and trying to determine solutions for the mess they’re in, but I figure getting involved in a community of experts (or at least familiar amateurs, whom I generally consider equal) is a good start. Hopefully, this is the right place to be.  I’m probably going to need a lot of advice, and I’d appreciate anyone letting me know if I’m likely to kill anyone or burn the house down with any ideas I suggest. First, here’s a basic laundry list.  This is cobbled together from a smeared, twice-faxed handwritten invoice.  Some of these model numbers may not make any sense – if so, please try to help me guess what they really are. 1) Xantrex 5548 inverter 1) Trace CW CONDUIT 1) Trace DC 250 Disconnect 1) Trace 240 Auto Transformer 2) Trace DC-60 somethings 1) PVG 1-P2 Trace Ground Fault (With box) 2) C-40 Cont. Trace 1) KCB-10 Trace Combiner box 2) DELTA AC Lightning Arresters 2) Delta DC Lightning arresters 1) 125 Amp Disconnect w/ arresters 1) Trimetric meter 24) u120 watt Kyocera PV modules 12) 560 lb Industrial 17500 (or 1750D/B) batteries 2) Trace BTS-15 Temp. Sensors Installed, this system was about $39,250 US with another 4K for “design”.  Did he get a decent deal? Major appliances: 1) Grundfos 120 VAC 100 head pump

Solar Panel Inverter efficency

. 1) AOSmith gas-fired hot water water (with blower)

Solar Panel Inverter efficency

1) Honda EM6000GP 11hp 389cc 6,000 watt 6KV Max 5,000 KVA continuous 2) VestFrost “Conserve” 120V Fridges (one is broken, one online) 1) Equator 120v Dishwasher (runs once per day) 1) Staber washing machine, Generic Sears gas-powered 110 clothes dryer. 1 computer on continuously with a CRT that is normally off, 4 additional computers 10-12 hours a day that share a LCD monitor.  Each computer is on a mini-UPS from Staples. This system was designed according to a much larger set of power requirements, and was sold to my friend as “more than enough for the task”.  This does not seem to true and the solar guy could not show any math proving it before communications broke down. I’d like your opinions on how well it is sized. As of today, he has to run the generator 3 hours a day on average to keep up with demand, and he has stepped down his intended consumption considerably to get it this way.  The house is always dark at night – candles or a few low-energy fluorecents, and they do not watch TV or run the hood over thier stove for fear of killing the batteries and causing feuds with the neighbors over constant generator noises. There has not been a proper power audit conducted yet, that’s coming up this week.  We are also *strongly* considering tying into the grid – it seems local solar guys have strong vendettas against the local utilities, but frankly, I just want his house to be stable as quickly and as cheaply as possible. There are currently serious grounding issues with the house – (IE, large appliances do not appear to be grounded at all), and we’re tracking those down now, with the assistance of an electrician.  We’ve just removed an (ungrounded) 240v step-up transformer that was running a grundfos 240 pump.  This seemed extremely stupid, and it seems to have alleviated several problems related to power cleanliness and consumption. There is still occasionally a squeal from the computer UPS’ as the 110 pump kicks in, so we’ve got more work to do there. Obviously, more appliances should be running on 24 volt but that will have to wait until funds are available. Why would an “alternative energy professional” install 110 pumps and fridges, or a water heater with a blower, when there;s al that good, clean 24DC sitting there? And then, why place everything on the same inverter?  Does this seem strange to anyone else? That 240 transformer is hanging loose now, so I’m considering using it to step 240 down from the generator to 120 – this will put less tear on the engine and charge faster, correct? My geek side is also hard at work, and I’m hacking together some python scripts to interface a 24-7 linux box to a SWCA adapter, so I can get a better idea what usage looks like, and do some nice strip-charting. That trimetric is practically useless for historical data gathering (in fact, when it says batteries are at 100%, what is it measuring?), and I’d really like to be able to monitor it from *my* house, not his. This monitoring software will be released under an opensource license (GPL), so if anyone is interested, let me know.  I may even write up how to turn a 486 recycled from the dump into a zero-cost networked monitoring station, which is what I am doing here.  We run a Microsoft free zone. Please, any advice, online resources, books we HAVE to own, etc would be appreciated.  Also, I don’t suppose anyone knows a litigator that is familiar with solar issues and will work on on percentage basis, so you?   I think he might need one pretty soon.

Solar Panel Inverter efficency

Response:

You said a funny thing.  ”Good clean 24 VDC sitting there” is useless to a 5548 inverter.  I’m sure you meant “good clean 48 VDC”. Please provide geographic location, tilt angle and azimuth (orientation to south) of PV array, and an estimate of daily and seasonal shadow sources. Measure and provide the battery voltage after all charging sources and loads have been removed for 6 to 12 hours.  A full battery in good condition at 77

Solar Panel Inverter efficency

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