Schneider XW vs Sol-Ark

[robby]

An autotransformer only carries the unbalanced load. Unless you are way out of balance, the efficiency losses are negligible. Mine stays at room temperature. (No heat, no losses) and it helps with start up surges.

PS : I wouldn't run a high frequency inverter without one. (For split-phase configuration)

What is the average power you are running through it? It must be pretty low and almost balanced.

 

[400bird]

Schneider handles PV going to Load going through an inefficient method.
Schneider Power Goes From PV to DC Charger to Battery to Inverter which I am told gives it an efficiency of 89% total efficiency
BTW that 93% efficiency Schneider lists is just for the Battery to Inverter Section.
THAT Is why you must have batteries connected to the Schneider.

Sol-Ark goes from PV - Directly to the Inverter for 96.5% total efficiency
Batteries are optional because of this.

It is just the difference between AC coupling and DC coupling? Do you use more power when the sun is out? AC couple and get 98-99% efficiency.
If your biggest use is overnight power, then DC couple and charge the battery with a charge controller. For both the components, you can choose any brand or product you want you're not stuck with the one built into the single giant box.

Efficiency wasn't the decision maker for me, buy another panel if you the 4% of your power is going to make a difference. I've got to start and run the central air, others need to run a well pump. Plus Schneider has the history behind a long lifespan. I don't want to buy a replacement ever, let alone 5 years from now.

That said, the single box of a Sol-Ark (or any all in one) is super easy for an installer. Plus it's only one component to stock. If I was installing solar with backup daily, I'd was easy above all else.

 

[robby]

It is just the difference between AC coupling and DC coupling? Do you use more power when the sun is out? AC couple and get 98-99% efficiency.
If your biggest use is overnight power, then DC couple and charge the battery with a charge controller. For both the components, you can choose any brand or product you want you're not stuck with the one built into the single giant box.

Efficiency wasn't the decision maker for me, buy another panel if you the 4% of your power is going to make a difference. I've got to start and run the central air, others need to run a well pump. Plus Schneider has the history behind a long lifespan. I don't want to buy a replacement ever, let alone 5 years from now.

That said, the single box of a Sol-Ark (or any all in one) is super easy for an installer. Plus it's only one component to stock. If I was installing solar with backup daily, I'd was easy above all else.

Daytime efficiency was huge for me. It's hot and the AC's are running a lot harder.
Also the washer and dryer are being used in the day, not to mention the water heater.
I can literally cool down the house enough in the Day that at night it uses a lot less battery power. I just finished setting up IR control over IP so that I can remotely change the AC units in the day if it gets cloudy. I find every percentage point of power makes a difference. These systems tend to get nibbled down by small losses if you don't set them up with the right equipment. As for paneling my way out of it, I am maxed out in terms of space.

 

[timselectric]

What is the average power you are running through it? It must be pretty low and almost balanced.

Average 2a.
Rarely over 5a, momentarily.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

No I think your right, at night we are comparing 93% Schneider efficiency to Sol-Arks 96.5%

Why just at night. What about when there’s clouds and the battery is used in combination with pv to fully supply the load without having to use grid power. I assume this would be how most people would use the SolArk during the day to zero out their bill with the excess pv power stored in their battery. Wouldn’t adding the battery and inverters internal charge controller make the efficiency closer to Schneider

 

[robby]

Why just at night. What about when there’s clouds and the battery is used in combination with pv to fully supply the load without having to use grid power. I assume this would be how most people would use the SolArk during the day to zero out their bill with the excess pv power stored in their battery. Wouldn’t adding the battery and inverters internal charge controller make the efficiency closer to Schneider

It is very rare that my PV cannot full power my house in the day. Even with heavy cloud coverage I will get at least 2-4KW off of the array. One condition that is bad is dark grey rainy clouds, that will kill the PV production down to a few hundred Watts. On typical overcast days my biggest issue is getting enough excess PV to charge back the batteries fully. Not powering the house.

Here is the worst day I have had since I put in the system a year ago:

If you look at is the batteries only came on for periods between 11am and 1pm. The rest of the day from 7am to 5pm the PV powered the house. You can also see the SOC never got past 40% so I only got battery power from 10pm until about 1am.

Here is a typical day

As you can see batteries powered the house from 10pm until 7:30am. PV then powered the house from 7:35am until 6pm with only two minor battery assists at 4:20pm and 5:25pm. Just about 99% of my power on a typical day is direct PV to Grid conversion at 96.5% efficiency. On the Schneider all of that day time would be at 89% efficiency.

 

[robby]

Average 2a.
Rarely over 5a, momentarily.

I mean yeah that is pretty low consumption, I would not expect it to get hot.
During the POZ video he said he could touch his but could not keep his hand on it. (Talking about the Transformers )

 

[niktak11]

The comparison table here shows that the XW Pro PV to AC efficiency is only 88.5%.:

Sol-Ark 12K All-In-One

Sol-Ark® 12K-2P solar hybrid inverter is a powerful personal power plant that is scalable, plug-n-play, and a reliable home backup. Learn more.

www.sol-ark.com

If accurate then that alone would be enough for me to never consider it for a serious home system.

 

[mvonw]

It is very rare that my PV cannot full power my house in the day. Even with heavy cloud coverage I will get at least 2-4KW off of the array. One condition that is bad is dark grey rainy clouds, that will kill the PV production down to a few hundred Watts. On typical overcast days my biggest issue is getting enough excess PV to charge back the batteries fully. Not powering the house.

Here is the worst day I have had since I put in the system a year ago:
View attachment 108100
If you look at is the batteries only came on for periods between 11am and 1pm. The rest of the day from 7am to 5pm the PV powered the house. You can also see the SOC never got past 40% so I only got battery power from 10pm until about 1am.

Here is a typical day
View attachment 108102
As you can see batteries powered the house from 10pm until 7:30am. PV then powered the house from 7:35am until 6pm with only two minor battery assists at 4:20pm and 5:25pm. Just about 99% of my power on a typical day is direct PV to Grid conversion at 96.5% efficiency. On the Schneider all of that day time would be at 89% efficiency.

I can definitely see how those incremental percentages make a big real-world difference. I'm lucky. I have unlimited space for panels, and I take advantage of it. My batteries are at 100% from 7am to 7pm almost every day (no grid), even on cloudy days.

 

[robby]

The comparison table here shows that the XW Pro PV to AC efficiency is only 88.5%.:

Sol-Ark 12K All-In-One

Sol-Ark® 12K-2P solar hybrid inverter is a powerful personal power plant that is scalable, plug-n-play, and a reliable home backup. Learn more.

www.sol-ark.com

If accurate then that alone would be enough for me to never consider it for a serious home system.

Yeah that is accurate. It's the double conversion that is killing the efficiency.
I still think the Schneider is a beast of an Inverter but the Price for a complete system is the same or more than a Sol-Ark 15K which will start those same loads and more plus has more than twice the constant running power and is ten times easier to install plus has great service.

My main issue was with Ben's BS emotional shock of it handling the load. Especially after making three videos bashing the Schneider.

 

[ChrisG]

Yeah that is accurate. It's the double conversion that is killing the efficiency.
I still think the Schneider is a beast of an Inverter but the Price for a complete system is the same or more than a Sol-Ark 15K which will start those same loads and more plus has more than twice the constant running power and is ten times easier to install plus has great service.

My main issue was with Ben's BS emotional shock of it handling the load. Especially after making three videos bashing the Schneider.

Just added up additional items like RSD and arc fault to Schneider. It’s all about the same price so that should never be a factor.

I’m still not clear on the Sol-Ark efficiency. How is the Sol-ark PV DC to AC more efficient. The Schneider is putting the DC to the battery ‘bus’ but not into the batteries if loads need to be filled.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

As you can see batteries powered the house from 10pm until 7:30am. PV then powered the house from 7:35am until 6pm with only two minor battery assists at 4:20pm and 5:25pm. Just about 99% of my power on a typical day is direct PV to Grid conversion at 96.5% efficiency. On the Schneider all of that day time would be at 89% efficiency.

From 17:45-22:00 are you using grid power for your loads on a typical day? Why didn’t the batteries start slowly adding to the pv power when there started to not be enough pv power to fully supply the load and then battery would fully cover the load once pv power was no longer available at all? Do you have the battery set to only come on at a certain time? if so the 96.5% efficiency doesn’t matter that you were getting earlier because you were using grid power later.
When your battery is taking over randomly from 11am-1pm what is happening? Is your inverter going into offgrid mode? Or is it adding battery power to whatever pv power is available? If it’s using battery power I’d want it to stay on grid tie mode (not offgrid mode) so that surges (that cost basically nothing from the grid) are handled by the grid and not by the batteries and the inverter because surges are hard on inverters and batteries shortening their life.. I suppose your not using Cts on your homes mains wires to prevent the battery from being discharged into the grid so your inverter is most likely going into offgrid mode when the batteries are used..
So yeah with my system I only have 5660w of solar so that wouldn’t fully cover all of my loads all the time so I need the battery their to add to the grid tie inverter/pv powers output.. but as soon as there’s not enough pv the battery starts adding on to available pv so that I don’t use grid power at all 24/7 unless of course it’s summer time and there a really high air conditioning need.
I guess I’m asking all these questions because I’m trying to figure out if the efficiency you describe from SolArk is actually due to the way the SolArk “manages power” or if it’s due to the way you use the SolArk in your situation. There’s cloudy times where my 5.66kw array can only give me like 250w so the battery would always need to be adding to pv power when in grid tie mode to keep the grid from powering my loads so I’m not paying for power.. I suppose if anyone had a large enough array they could basically always supply the homes loads directly from pv (pv to inverter to get the high percentage efficiency you speak of) But even with an array double the size of mine (11kw) there would be many cloudy times when I would only get roughly 500w and the battery would be needed and also many times when my homes loads are over whatever’s available from the pv array.
So yeah maybe your what I’d call oversized array (I guess depending on your homes 24hour loads) can most of the time supply all your loads via pv to inverter to be able to utilize the 96.5% efficiency but you had to spend the extra money up front to have an array that large to do that and even on a typical day you are still using grid power from what I can see on your graphs. I’m wondering if using the Cts/zero export/grid zero (also allowing grid to handle surges) and having the battery always available and helping pv and having a smaller array would still have the 96.5% efficiency or would the battery constantly helping the pv input make the efficiency go down closer to the Schneider. Even if the efficiency was lower when using the SolArk to stay in grid tie mode with Cts and battery (not switching to offgrid mode), with battery helping pv to supply load, the efficiency loss is made up by not needing to purchase such a large array and the less wear and tear on the batteries/inverter due to the grid supplying the surges. Also the efficiency loss would be made up by not needing such a large battery bank to cover the surges. If the SolArk only gets 93% when it’s in grid tie/ct with battery assist mode and the Schneider gets 89% then that 4ish% loss is acceptable imo to have a low frequency most of the time meaning better made inverter..
But anyways good chat, there’s lots of ways to look at it. My typing (without actually hearing the emotion with the words) sometimes sounds like I’m being an a** or trying to prove you wrong but I’m not, just trying to have a chat and learn. I’d like to see a diagram showing the power flow inside the SolArk showing the lack of a “double conversion” in all modes of operation and compare that to the Schneider.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

The comparison table here shows that the XW Pro PV to AC efficiency is only 88.5%.:

Sol-Ark 12K All-In-One

Sol-Ark® 12K-2P solar hybrid inverter is a powerful personal power plant that is scalable, plug-n-play, and a reliable home backup. Learn more.

www.sol-ark.com

If accurate then that alone would be enough for me to never consider it for a serious home system.

I’m not seeing anything about the xw on that link. I’m probably just not looking good enough

 

[robby]

Just added up additional items like RSD and arc fault to Schneider. It’s all about the same price so that should never be a factor.

I’m still not clear on the Sol-Ark efficiency. How is the Sol-ark PV DC to AC more efficient. The Schneider is putting the DC to the battery ‘bus’ but not into the batteries if loads need to be filled.

Because stepping up and converting 51.2Vdc to 240Vac is a lot less efficient process than converting 300-500Vdc to 240Vac.

 

[robby]

I’m not seeing anything about the xw on that link. I’m probably just not looking good enough

 

[timselectric]

I mean yeah that is pretty low consumption, I would not expect it to get hot.
During the POZ video he said he could touch his but could not keep his hand on it. (Talking Transformers )

That much heat is a lot of lost efficiency.
I designed everything to remain at room temperature.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

View attachment 108151

I got ya, I’m seeing that when the SolArk is bringing the high pv voltage to grid voltage it is obviously more efficient. All the efficiency stats between the two inverters look fairly close (accept AC to battery) until comparing the efficiency when the SolArk converts the high pv voltage directly to grid voltage compared to the Schneider (due to having an external charge controller) converting the pv voltage all the way down to battery voltage and then back up to grid voltage because it doesn’t have an option for the high voltage to bypass the charge controller.
so is that 7% for SolArk and 12% for Schneider off of 100%? I’m not seeing an efficiency percentage for SolArk showing it in grid tie mode and using batteries at the same time.. it shows offgrid/time of use.. would time of use be the same as grid tie using batteries?

 

[robby]

From 17:45-22:00 are you using grid power for your loads on a typical day?

From 5pm to 10pm I am on the Grid and whatever PV is left. PV on a good day will power the house until 6pm.

Why didn’t the batteries start slowly adding to the pv power when there started to not be enough pv power to fully supply the load and then battery would fully cover the load once pv power was no longer available at all? Do you have the battery set to only come on at a certain time?

Exactly. I set the TOU to use Zero battery power after 5pm. The reason is that the most annoying power outages we get are at like 1am or later.
I have a Salt Water Aquarium and have to get up and start the Generator then check to see that everything is fine in the Aquarium.
With a 10pm until Daylight setting I know that when I go to bed I will not be disturbed.
A KWh is a KWh so it doesn't matter when I use the Batteries. If I get one more pack then I will change Grid usage to 5pm until 8pm.

if so the 96.5% efficiency doesn’t matter that you were getting earlier because you were using grid power later.

I have to use Grid power at some point because the I am short about 10KWh of batteries for 24 hour Operation.
Not sure I follow, how does this effect or change the 96.5% efficiency I was getting for 10 hours of day.

When your battery is taking over randomly from 11am-1pm what is happening? Is your inverter going into offgrid mode? Or is it adding battery power to whatever pv power is available?

Yes, if clouds pass over and PV power cannot cover the load and I have told it that it is OK to use the Battery up to 3KW Max and it will combine the two. Those little peaks you see are probably because the Wife is using the clothes dryer and clouds are passing over.

If it’s using battery power I’d want it to stay on grid tie mode (not offgrid mode) so that surges (that cost basically nothing from the grid) are handled by the grid and not by the batteries and the inverter because surges are hard on inverters and batteries shortening their life.. I suppose your not using Cts on your homes mains wires to prevent the battery from being discharged into the grid so your inverter is most likely going into offgrid mode when the batteries are used..

The Inverter never goes into off grid mode! It can use the PV, Batteries and the Grid simultaneously to power the Load.
Yes I have CT's on the Mains. If I tell it only to use a Max of 3KW from the Batteries between 1pm and 5pm and PV is producing 6KW and then suddenly 14KW is needed by the Load it will draw the extra 5KW from the Grid.

So yeah with my system I only have 5660w of solar so that wouldn’t fully cover all of my loads all the time so I need the battery their to add to the grid tie inverter/pv powers output.. but as soon as there’s not enough pv the battery starts adding on to available pv so that I don’t use grid power at all 24/7 unless of course it’s summer time and there a really high air conditioning need.

I could set mine like that but I honestly just want the piece of mind that knowing when I put my head on the Pillow that nothing is going to disturb my sleep. In order to achieve that with 26KWh of batteries I had to set the TOU this way to make it happen.

I guess I’m asking all these questions because I’m trying to figure out if the efficiency you describe from SolArk is actually due to the way the SolArk “manages power” or if it’s due to the way you use the SolArk in your situation.

It's the way it manages power. It's converting high voltage DC to high voltage AC directly.

There’s cloudy times where my 5.66kw array can only give me like 250w so the battery would always need to be adding to pv power when in grid tie mode to keep the grid from powering my loads so I’m not paying for power.. I suppose if anyone had a large enough array they could basically always supply the homes loads directly from pv (pv to inverter to get the high percentage efficiency you speak of) But even with an array double the size of mine (11kw) there would be many cloudy times when I would only get roughly 500w and the battery would be needed and also many times when my homes loads are over whatever’s available from the pv array.
So yeah maybe your what I’d call oversized array can most of the time supply all your loads via pv to inverter to be able to utilize the 96.5% efficiency but you had to spend the extra money up front to have an array that large to do that and even on a typical day you are still using grid power from what I can see on your graphs.

Very little to no Grid Power on a typical day. Here is the same typical day I posted above just Showing Grid Usage only.

I’m wondering if using the Cts/zero export/grid zero (also allowing grid to handle surges) and having the battery always available and helping pv and having a smaller array would still have the 96.5% efficiency or would the battery constantly helping the pv input make the efficiency go down closer to the Schneider.

On a Typical day the battery only pops in and out for maybe 30 minutes in total and the amount of assistance is not typically all that high.
I would classify it as having a Trivial impact on efficiency.

Even if the efficiency was lower when using the SolArk to stay in grid tie mode with Cts and battery (not switching to offgrid mode), with battery helping pv to supply load, the efficiency loss is made up by not needing to purchase such a large array and the less wear and tear on the batteries/inverter due to the grid supplying the surges. Also the efficiency loss would be made up by not needing such a large battery bank to cover the surges. If the SolArk only gets 93% when it’s in grid tie/ct with battery assist mode and the Schneider gets 89% then that 4ish% loss is acceptable imo to have a low frequency most of the time meaning better made inverter..

Last time I worked out the math on one of my average days it was not 93% but 96%. That would be a 7.5% advantage which is pretty big.
Keep in mind that a Sol-Ark 15K is not all that much more expensive than the 12K. So if you have doubts just spend the extra $1500.
For a comparison a Schneider 100A SCC is $1100. And the 15K has 275A SCC. So that alone can easily justify spending the extra money.

But anyways good chat, there’s lots of ways to look at it. My typing (without actually hearing the emotion with the words) sometimes sounds like I’m being an a** or trying to prove you wrong but I’m not, just trying to have a chat and learn. I’d like to see a diagram showing the power flow inside the SolArk showing the lack of a “double conversion” in all modes of operation and compare that to the Schneider.

I did not take any offense, I always see you as a guy like me who is trying to learn more about what is out there. I also like to follow threads on other equipment so that I learn stuff.

 

[Hrschk]

Since this thread is focused on the higher end inverters would like thoughts on these SolarEver 455w panels. Few places have them now for a reasonable price.

New SolarEver 455W 144-Half Cell Mono Solar Panel

New Solarever 455W are in! They are great for your solar grid application system. Get yours today by clicking on the link!

store.santansolar.com

I got 24 QCell 425 half cell panels from SanTan. Really like those guys. And, I like my panels. We're having a long monsoon season right now and the system didn't get put together until the cloudy/rainy weather started. I'm super happy with their performance right now.

 

[Cheap 4-life]

The Inverter never goes into off grid mode! It can use the PV, Batteries and the Grid simultaneously to power the Load.
Yes I have CT's on the Mains. If I tell it only to use a Max of 3KW from the Batteries between 1pm and 5pm and PV is producing 6KW and then suddenly 14KW is needed by the Load it will draw the extra 5KW from the Grid.

Ok so your getting that 96.5% efficiency throughout the day as long as the battery isn’t being used.

I have to use Grid power at some point because the I am short about 10KWh of batteries for 24 hour Operation.
Not sure I follow, how does this effect or change the 96.5% efficiency I was getting for 10 hours of day.

well I just meant that since you were using grid power for part of the day then you were paying for power everyday so the money you are saving thru the inverter efficiency is put back into paying for power. Not that a different inverter could change that.. can only go so far with the kWh battery available

It's the way it manages power. It's converting high voltage DC to high voltage AC directly.

Right but 96.5% efficiency wouldn’t happen for everyone as often. If the array was smaller than your due to the homes loads being less or homes daily loads not being high enough to justify a large array like yours, then the excess not used by low amount of loads during the day would go into the battery to be used more frequently throughout the day and night. The user could have a large enough battery to keep their low amount of loads running 24/7 which would lower the efficiency due to using the battery more often however they would never be using grid power to make up for the lack of using pv to load/inverter as much as you do..

Last time I worked out the math on one of my average days it was not 93% but 96%. That would be a 7.5% advantage which is pretty big.
Keep in mind that a Sol-Ark 15K is not all that much more expensive than the 12K. So if you have doubts just spend the extra $1500.
For a comparison a Schneider 100A SCC is $1100. And the 15K has 275A SCC. So that alone can easily justify spending the extra money.

So what is that 7% for time of use about on the above chart?
The 12k is already much larger than I need. I atm use two 2kw grid tie inverters that cover almost all of my loads 24/7.. also was thinking more about getting the Schneider because I already have an Outback fm80 chargecontroller which I like and want to continue to use. Also that would save me a good bit of change not needing to buy a charge controller for Schneider or pay for a SolArk to have an integrated charge controller.. I currently only have an 80amp controller which is perfect for my situation, definitely wouldn’t need 275A. If a rare power outage occurs or an apocalypse I will be grateful to have a small critical loads panel running off my small 4kw offgrid inverter charging my 18.6kwh battery with 80amps..

I did not take any offense, I always see you as a guy like me who is trying to learn more about what is out there. I also like to follow threads on other equipment so that I learn stuff.

thanks for taking the time to converse. I do clearly now understand why the SolArk is more efficient than the Schneider. However I am still trying to figure out that 7% and 11% stuff from the chart..