Current Situation
Solar system is AC coupled to Home Breaker Panel. Unused excess solar is exported to grid.
fig1
I purchased the Sol-Ark from a gentleman up in Wyoming who bought it 5 years ago but never unboxed it. His plans changed and it has never been connected to anything. I got it from him a month or so ago. I called in to Sol-Ark and the wifi dongle on it was so old they didn't know how to add it to their system. Sent me a newer dongle that has ethernet/wifi and yesterday they were able to connect to it and "it's all up to date".
Goals using Sol-Ark 8k 48 ST
- Collect as much excess solar as possible, save to batteries.
- Batteries full? excess solar continues to export to grid.
- I DO NOT want to export from batteries to GRID, ever.
- Not too interested in a critical loads panel (but can/would do it)
- Grid down is rare, not too concerned about that.
fig 2
I have connected equipment up like this diagram.
I've not yet enabled any settings related to:
- TOU
- charge settings
- discharge settings
'Limit to Home' is checked. What I'm trying to do is learn as I go and see the results to prove what I'm doing is working the way I intended them to.
The batteries are running the Sol-Ark and nothing is coming in from the grid, which makes sense as there is no load on and I've not told it to charge the batteries.
Before I made further changes I wanted to see if the Sol-Ark is seeing what is happening between the meter and the breakers.
Issue:
- I don't see any CT data on what is going IN/OUT of my home breaker panel.
- Inspected the CTs and they are connected with the L pointing toward the meter.
- Connected a multimeter to the CTs and see changing reading depending upon how much power is being imported/exported right now.
- Called Sol-Ark Tech Support and they tell me that the CTs will not read in this setup.
Solution from Sol-Ark
I need to route the Solar, AC Coupled, into the GEN port and enable 'Limited to Home', which is a setting that I'm aware of. I do not want the Sol-Ark to ever send to the Grid from the batteries. I do have an export agreement, but I don't want them getting power outside of those hours that I have excess solar being produced. I especially do not ever want power from the batteries to go out to the grid.
From what I was told my revised diagram should be like this below:
fig3
I was wondering of those of you that are doing the same,
- saving excess solar to battery
- using stored power saved to battery for loads until solar is back
what have you found to be the best solution?
If I HAVE to bring the AC solar into the Sol-Ark then I might just make a Critical Loads panel and move over circuits that I want out of the Main panel.
fig 4
I'm lazy. I want this to be simple. If my inverter suddenly stops working I want to have power in the house the way I have it now.
Solar system is AC coupled to Home Breaker Panel. Unused excess solar is exported to grid.
fig1
I purchased the Sol-Ark from a gentleman up in Wyoming who bought it 5 years ago but never unboxed it. His plans changed and it has never been connected to anything. I got it from him a month or so ago. I called in to Sol-Ark and the wifi dongle on it was so old they didn't know how to add it to their system. Sent me a newer dongle that has ethernet/wifi and yesterday they were able to connect to it and "it's all up to date".
Goals using Sol-Ark 8k 48 ST
- Collect as much excess solar as possible, save to batteries.
- Batteries full? excess solar continues to export to grid.
- I DO NOT want to export from batteries to GRID, ever.
- Not too interested in a critical loads panel (but can/would do it)
- Grid down is rare, not too concerned about that.
fig 2
I have connected equipment up like this diagram.
I've not yet enabled any settings related to:
- TOU
- charge settings
- discharge settings
'Limit to Home' is checked. What I'm trying to do is learn as I go and see the results to prove what I'm doing is working the way I intended them to.
The batteries are running the Sol-Ark and nothing is coming in from the grid, which makes sense as there is no load on and I've not told it to charge the batteries.
Before I made further changes I wanted to see if the Sol-Ark is seeing what is happening between the meter and the breakers.
Issue:
- I don't see any CT data on what is going IN/OUT of my home breaker panel.
- Inspected the CTs and they are connected with the L pointing toward the meter.
- Connected a multimeter to the CTs and see changing reading depending upon how much power is being imported/exported right now.
- Called Sol-Ark Tech Support and they tell me that the CTs will not read in this setup.
Solution from Sol-Ark
I need to route the Solar, AC Coupled, into the GEN port and enable 'Limited to Home', which is a setting that I'm aware of. I do not want the Sol-Ark to ever send to the Grid from the batteries. I do have an export agreement, but I don't want them getting power outside of those hours that I have excess solar being produced. I especially do not ever want power from the batteries to go out to the grid.
From what I was told my revised diagram should be like this below:
fig3
I was wondering of those of you that are doing the same,
- saving excess solar to battery
- using stored power saved to battery for loads until solar is back
what have you found to be the best solution?
If I HAVE to bring the AC solar into the Sol-Ark then I might just make a Critical Loads panel and move over circuits that I want out of the Main panel.
fig 4
I'm lazy. I want this to be simple. If my inverter suddenly stops working I want to have power in the house the way I have it now.
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