bigrovar:
Around Q4 last year. I upgraded my solar panels from 9x 335 Yingli panels to 9x 600w Canadian Hiku7 solar panels. Bought panel from techland.

Here is a short performance review.

Installation. The panels are roof mounted with a 21 degree tilt. They face South East at 123 degree Azimuth.

The panels are paired with a 100A / 150v Victron smart solar charge controller. Total capacity is 5.4kw.
9 panels are connected in a 3SP3 arrangements. There is a 10mm2 shielded and UL listed cable between PV and charge controller. Cable length is about 10 meters.

Overall the system performance has been really good. I get an average of 4.5kw output which represents over 80% of panel PMAX.

One thing the panel is really good at is how it handles heat. It has a heat co efficiency of 0.34% and this shows in the performance. Yesterday ambient temperature (as pulled from my personal weather station) was as high as 43C, yet the panel was able to produce (consistently) north of 4400w.

During cloud edge events the panel has produced close to 110% of output which is 5.8kw of 5.4kw PMAX.

I attached 2 centrifugal fans to the Victron solar charge controller to help handle heat since I am using the controller close to it's limits.

FEGEITOK:
The other day my car died on me. It read 12.2 V on the multimeter.

Initially wanted to borrow or pay for another battery to jump start the car. Was too early for that.

So I switched off my solar panels, disconected the inverter batteries from the charge controller.

Connected the car battery to the charge controller. Switched the connection of the solar panels to the charge controller back on.

After about 10 to 15 minutes disconnected the setup took the battery to the car and it started right up.

Of course I had to reconnect the inverter battery back after I had returned.

Just sharing a story from the trenches.

bigrovar:
Around Q4 last year. I upgraded my solar panels from 9x 335 Yingli panels to 9x 600w Canadian Hiku7 solar panels. Bought panel from techland.

Here is a short performance review.

Installation. The panels are roof mounted with a 21 degree tilt. They face South East at 123 degree Azimuth.

The panels are paired with a 100A / 150v Victron smart solar charge controller. Total capacity is 5.4kw.
9 panels are connected in a 3SP3 arrangements. There is a 10mm2 shielded and UL listed cable between PV and charge controller. Cable length is about 10 meters.

Overall the system performance has been really good. I get an average of 4.5kw output which represents over 80% of panel PMAX.

One thing the panel is really good at is how it handles heat. It has a heat co efficiency of 0.34% and this shows in the performance. Yesterday ambient temperature (as pulled from my personal weather station) was as high as 43C, yet the panel was able to produce (consistently) north of 4400w.

During cloud edge events the panel has produced close to 110% of output which is 5.8kw of 5.4kw PMAX.

I attached 2 centrifugal fans to the Victron solar charge controller to help handle heat since I am using the controller close to it's limits.

Hybrid600:
🤣🤣🤣.
You're a smart man.
That was very fast thinking. Many that are not savvy with connections wont attempt this out of fear and while the savvy ones may not think to this direction of waking the battery up.
Good thing the battery showed itself while you was still home.

Has the battery misbehaved since after you panelled its life? 😁

FEGEITOK:
The other day my car died on me. It read 12.2 V on the multimeter.

Initially wanted to borrow or pay for another battery to jump start the car. Was too early for that.

So I switched off my solar panels, disconected the inverter batteries from the charge controller.

Connected the car battery to the charge controller. Switched the connection of the solar panels to the charge controller back on.

After about 10 to 15 minutes disconnected the setup took the battery to the car and it started right up.

Of course I had to reconnect the inverter battery back after I had returned.

Just sharing a story from the trenches.

oloet:

Cool story but this your trenches has a car and a solar inverter system I don go oooo!

bigrovar:
Around Q4 last year. I upgraded my solar panels from 9x 335 Yingli panels to 9x 600w Canadian Hiku7 solar panels. Bought panel from techland.

Here is a short performance review.

Installation. The panels are roof mounted with a 21 degree tilt. They face South East at 123 degree Azimuth.

samir101ng:


So, if the Senior Chairmen with Victron's and large LifeP04 banks arrive, say wetin go happen then ?

Baba will grow from the trenches to a big mansion soon. His time will come

Dishtech:

My brother, the first option you gave can be used if the AC pipe is kept from contact with dust etc. But the second option is no go area because no matter how you filter water can not remove dissolve element that will react with your battery. Distillation and filtration are two different separation techniques which are used for different purposes.

ask4bk:


Hi,
Seems you know well about batteries ao pls let me ask you.

I've 6 lead acid batteries of 200ah 12v each I use offgrid. They are connected to use in 24v inverter.

Been using it for 1 year now without nepa or generator but fully solar and it's has never gone off.

Good thing is, it has never gone beyond 20% DoD. During the day it's fully charged. At night I sleep with it at 25.6v and by morning it's still at 25.0v-25.2v. Impressive. That's like over 90% charge before sun charges it again all day.

My question is, being lead acid and never hitting 50% Dod, do you think it can last me 5-7 years? I'm asking coz I was told no matter how you use lead acids, after 2-3 years they'll die or be weak.

samir101ng:


Six (6) lead acid 12v batteries of 200ah for a 24v battery system makes it connecting two (2) batteries in series to make 24v with the amp maintained at 200ah. You will get 3 battery banks. Then connecting those battery banks in parallel to increase the amperage to 600ah. That's a massive capacity upgrade for your 24v system. So, key things to note:

1. What type of lead acid batteries do you have ? Tubular or AGM ? This will affect your charging profile and usage to a large extent.

2. What's the charging specifications of the batteries as written by the manufacturer and are you hitting those numbers.

3. Temperature and storage of the batteries affects life span, so where you are keeping your batteries can affect them.

4. Finally, for me the DoD rule your following is very commendable. This is what actually kills lead acid batteries in Nigeria faster than the above mentioned issues i raised.If you can maintain this and your battery is from a reputable brand with good quality control and not those cheap Alaba knockoffs then yes, your batteries can last you that long. @bigbrovar is one of our resident long term user of lead acid batteries and maintained very good DoD for his batteries which made them to last long.

oloet:
Good evening sirs, please I need recommendations on a good timer switch, din rail 30 amps preferably

zeestone99:


25a available - 9k

Call/chat - 08117398294

tobennae:
May I ask how big your home is in terms of power usage?
Especially from a layman's perspective - family home of 2/3/4 rooms or office; AC's, pumps, freezer etc.
Also what do you mean by cloud edge event? Google didnt help much with that.
From your images, your batteries are 14kwh? Where did you source them and brand name?

earthrealm:


also curious to hear the difference in performance between the yingli and canadian...and the reason for the switch.

ask4bk:


1. It's not the tubular (those tall ones that they add acid) , so I guess it the AGM. Is tubular better and lasts longer? I think I've heard something like that.

2. Don't know the charging specifications. It's charged by a felicity solar charger with solar panels only. It controls the charging voltage/ahms. So I don't know if it gives it something beyond it's specifications.

3. We live practically in a desert só the heat is beyond too much in every room no matter what you do. The ventilation (windows) only let's in hot air like every other room and place in the desert.

4. I don't the brand to be able to tell you. The installer came in from sokoto sha.

I'm sorry I don't have enough details to give you now about it. It's because I'm in Abuja now but will return to my bush next week.

Do you think I can get 5-7 years out of it?

bigrovar:


I think your usage is fine. How long the battery would last though depends on many factors. The type and quality of the battery is one.

Heat plays a big role especially with lead acid batteries. I do suspect the reason many of our batteries die faster is because of the average ambient temperature. Batteries are designed to operate at 27C which is AC cooled room temperature in Nigeria. Anything above that an the battery start to degrade faster.

How you charge those batteries is also very important. If you want your battery to last, check to ensure they are being charged according to spec. Felicity (last time I used one in 2017) has some flexible charging param which you want to look into and ensure it aligns with battery charge specs which is usually in the label.

I am not a big fan of large parallel banks especially when it is lead acid. It is extremely hard and expensive to wire a parallel battery to ensure every battery in the bank are equaly changed and discharged.

Most times some batteries gets more charge / discharge more than others in the bank creating imbalances which eventually take down the whole bank. The imbalances is from some batteries dying from over charging while others die from being under charged.

If you want to do parallel proper, you need 6 busbar, 3 for the negative side of the battery and 3 for the positive side.

Each of the 2 batteries in series then connect to the busbar using equal length cable. This would consumption a lot of money considering a 35mm² flexible cables is now over 3k per meter. You might spend close to 70k.

In all you should get close to 3 years from them or more so fingers crossed.

ask4bk:

Wow. I see there are many things involved in this.

Do tubular batteries truly get you more years more than AGM batteries?

If I've the means I heard I could go lithium install and forget about it for 10-15 yrs, especially if I'm using it like I use these batteries today. True?

bodeface:
House, pls I need an panel installer in Ajah very urgently, I have panel that is almost falling off.

Please, help me.

Hybrid600:
Does it mean with time, solar generators are going to replace inverter machines?

FEGEITOK:


Based on the attached at 12.2V it seems you are at 60% DOD.

You would be at 50% DOD if the battery level got to 12.06V.

Hope this helps.

I would have preferred a 1.5kva 24v system to a 1.5kva 12v system.

So please consider upgrading in the near future and please listen to my able brother samir.101ng's suggestions above.

bigrovar:


Tubular Battteries share the same age as AGM, it all depends on how you use them. I tend not to recommend tubular for home or solar use, if you can afford go for AGM. you can charge them faster and discharge them at a higher discharge rate, all this makes them ideal for home and solar application. Tubular have too many point of failures, for one the tubular we get here in Nigeria have electrolyte of douthful quality since the electrolyte are usually mixed and filled here in Nigeria, you can not be sure of the gravity of the mix ratio and the quality of water used.

Then they is the issue of long time idle state, over 3 months in a ship from India and another 2 to 3 months in the shop waiting to be sold. All this means when you get a tubular it is already suffering from partial state of discharge and have issues with sulphation. AGM is less susceptible to above listed problems. The problem with AGM is cost. Good AGM batteries cost close to Lithium.

jonescosmo:


Thanks a whole lot Bros.
Just for people who might want to setup something similar, the space is 8ft x 8ft sha. I have ordered a 16Inch Extraction Fan from the USA, The fan is Temperature and Humidity Controlled, also has a mobile App for remote control and mmonitoring.

The "Tubular Gang" are meant to be decommisioned and sold off after fully testing the Lithium batteries and their capabilities. Those Tubular Batteries is going to be replaced by a 3rd 9.5KW Lithium Battery and the 2x 5KW inverters will be put in Parallel Mode (Teste this method already though) Or I would simply grab another inverter with 2 MMPT input Strings for my 10x 540W Panels and 8x 350W Panels, Felicity now has a New Model that has 2 MPPT Inputs , this:
https://www.felicitysolar.com/600v-10000-watt-3-phase-solar-hybrid-inverter-dc-to-ac-in-parallel_p129.html
and this:
https://www.felicitysolar.com/best-48v-5kw-hybrid-grid-tie-pure-sine-wave-inverter-for-home_p128.html

Hehehehe, That my Generator is a 3Phase 6.5Kva Birtoli Gen and was retired since almost 4 years now by my 4 Years old former Inverter (3Kva iPowerPlus) Which I have now installed for my mom in Lagos (Picture Attached Below). So the small Gen is just there rusting out.

This new setup is aimed at retiring my 20kva Mikano Generator for good. And ofcourse Nepa People are not happy with me ooo. They came last week to inspect my meter and I showed them the panels on the roof. Hehehehe. I told them the I had to sum up the monthly 100k I used to recharge for 3yrs and yet the electricity will still not be available when you need it most times. so i decided to demote Nepa Supply on my Priority list and go for solar energy.
The two Genertaors might be auctioned out after a year of fully testing this my potential off grid Installation.