Ryushin
Solar Enthusiast
I have this exact disconnect and have an anecdotal story about it... Electrician was landing some circuits in the main panel (also the same exact panel as you). He was working live and with a slip of a ground wire, POW! It touched a bolt of the bus bar. After a bit of troubleshooting, we found it blew one of the 200A() fuses in the disconnect. One heck of a short circuit. Of course, this was Friday at 3:15pm, before a long holiday weekend. No area supply houses had that fuse in stock. Closest I could get was 150A, which at least got us running again. Note, we were able to run off-grid from the 15k, just couldn't use the grid, due to one leg gone.
^ Moral for me - Order one or two of those big fuses for backup. This stuff shouldn't happen, but when it does, it could be at the worst time.
Also Ryushin, I have been researching (and have posted a couple other places) for how to solve my needs. I have 22 more panels I'd like to AC couple to the 15k. Another inverter would be great for several reasons, including having a "backup" to the 15k. I couldn't find suitable inverters until I came across this thread. Thanks very much!
Here is what I am deciding between:
- Growatt MIN11400TL-XH-US: About $1000 after tax credit.
- Solis S6-EH1P11.4K-H-US-RSS: About $1400 after tax credit.
- Sol-Ark 15k: About $4150 after tax credit.
Main thing I don't like about the Growatt and Solis is that they are HV battery, with Growatt only theirs. Solis can do others. I have 48v Homegrid batteries now, so those two inverters could not charge my batteries. Of course, the 15k checks all boxes, but is $3k more.
As you did, I will run this by the home boss. Perhaps she'll just say "what the heck, just get the 15k."
Well, nice to know those fuses work! I have two spares fuses I keep in the wire trough under the fused disconnect.
Thing is, after I had bought everything, and installed it, then having the couple of issues with the two Growatt MIN (which got fixed), the CFO/wife who does not like to spend money and was very upset with how much I went over budget, came out of the blue and said I should have gotten a second Sol-Ark 15K. If she sees the wisdom of that, you're wife may too. Having the second Sol-Ark will not only give you redundancy, it will allow you to run twice the load in the house. You'll probably need another distribution block too which is listed on the first post.
Yea, if the CFO would have green lighted the second Sol-Ark it would have made things easier. Other thing is, I have 7 strings that would have to fit into that Sol-Ark and I could not make that work with my current layout. I'd probably have to loose a panel and figure out a different layout to make it balance in the 3 MPPTs. There is 17.6kW of PV going into those two Growatts.