A young lady that lives down the road said if the power is ever out for an extended period of time, she's coming to my place for a shower because I'll have hot water.
I thought the same until I bought my first Victron product. What's all the fuss about blah blah blah.
Then purchased one or two Victron products. Holy smokes this stuff actually works like it says on the tin! Holy smokes this stuff networks together and provides a wealth of information! I'm...
I have constructed two separate modest off-grid systems on my house. One system is using 3 Epever SCCs and the other system is using 2 Victron SCCs and a Victron smart shunt and Phoenix 12/1200 inverter.
Now having lived with both systems for a while, I feel the Victron gear is worth every...
Victron are fine with overpanelling relative to the output of the SCC. In fact they even recommend it.
Have a play with their MPPT calculator and be sure to click on the 'Allow oversizing above 130%' tab.
https://www.victronenergy.com/mppt-calculator
This is what they have to say about...
Yes if your panels are near a lot of trees, you could generate more on a slightly cloudy day than on a clear sunny day.
The light on a cloudy day is defuse and comes from multiple directions rather than just from the sun itself on a sunny day. A single shadow over a panel can kill a lot of...
Here's an example I'm running on a 12v system. 1200 watts of PV going to a Victron 100/50. 6 200 watt panels in a 3S2P configuration.
The 100/50 has a max output of 700 watts to a 12v system. But by giving it 1200 watts of panels to draw from, it can reach that 700 watts output for longer...
I'll start at the biggest energy savings from my home.
Stayed single.! Purchased a small modest but well insulated house. No spar pools or swimming pools. Do all my laundry in cold water and dry outside on a clothesline. I just couldn't imagine running a 4kw clothes dryer when free solar...
When you've got a decently sized battery bank, the time of your solar production isn't as critical. The total solar production for the day is what counts.
I don't see the slight increase in the shoulders of the daily curve making up for the large dip in midday production when your number one...
I've done that on the two arrays that I oversized by 200%. I have a 150/60 set to 50A and a 100/50 set to 45A. They run significantly cooler that way and the bus bar that they're attached to isn't getting as overloaded. (It has other SCCs going to it as well)
The benefit of oversizing PV...
Even something like their 150/45 can be overpanelled on a 48V system.
At 48V it has a max output of 2600 watts. Entering the details of a particular panel I use, I could build an array of 6240 watts. That would be 240% overpanelled.
As I have been upgrading my SCCs from Epevers to Victron SCCs, I came to realise that the drive for more efficient PV panels is pretty small gains compared to the big gains of more efficient SCCs. They can make a big difference in PV array performance.
Just pointing out as the other poster was trying to imply that they can be overpanelled on a 12V system because they are also capable of running 48V systems.
Yet they can be substantially overpanelled on 48V systems as well.
Not that I'm aware of. They always seem to be doing a very good job of getting every watt that the light will allow.
They typically start off at 1 watt in the morning and will follow a bell curve until they hit charge voltage.
I have two separate lifepo4 battery banks at my place with 4 Epever SCC'. (2 strings on each bank)
I did notice those occasional days when a SCC just couldn't be bothered putting watts into a 80% SOC battery when there was full sun in the sky.
I have independent bluetooth voltage recording and...
The lounge system that had 3 strings going to 3 Epever SCC' is now being upgraded to Victron SCC' one at a time as the budget allows.
One string is 520 watts, 780 watts and one is 1500 watts PV.
I replaced the 520 watt PV string with a Victron 150/45 SCC. All strings are on the same roof...
I've had the same experience. Swapped out all my Epevers to Victron SCCs and my system is performing so much better now.
Plus much better data logging.
I have a big battery bank relative to my PV. 9.2:1. 2.8kw of PV to 25.8kWh of LFP batteries.
Knowing I'll still be on around 90% SOC in the morning is nice. Three or four days of bad weather still sees me on around 50%
In normal good sunshine days back to back the battery bank will be fully...
They're big enough to cover 5 or 6 days easily. Which is more than enough to cover 95% of the usual weather patterns where I live in New Zealand. It's going to be different for everybody.
My point is I'm content when the batteries are full and the solar has rammed down just to cover...
I'm happy enough just using PV to a decently large battery bank and then using a dedicated inverter (I'm only on 12v) to run my hot water cylinder with its standard 2kw AC element and thermostat. The reason being is that I can unplug it from the inverter and plug back into the grid whenever I...