WOW

Thanks to Barezzi

This thread is witnessing a discussion again.

bodejohn
Yes you are very right about the fact that the yield is a function of the demand from the load.
When I talked about Barezzi installation I was talking because I know the system very well. I was not just assuming. i was there when it was done and Barezzi himself being a technical man noticed some outstanding errors in the installation.

life707
Yes it's true that the cheap panels doesn't mean inferior. Most times when I talk about cheap panels I actually refer to the fake panels ratings that is common in Alaba. If you haven't been a victim before I have and I know what I am talking about. Also if you have followed my post before the forum went down you would have seen when I posted an excellent yield from a cheap solar panel from Alaba called DESMARK. I posted the detail yield and it was over 100% of its rated output. I remember writing extensively on the fact that as long as the specification sheet on the panel is correct, the silicon cells will deliver optimally if properly installed.

For your information, I am not a Solarworld rep. I am an installer. I supply Solarworld panels directly from their rep on discounted prices. I simply identify with Solarworld panels because of their outstanding performances/quality compared to most of the other ones I've seen and tested. If you know of any other product that can compare with the quality of the Solarworld Sunmodule Solar Panels that is commonly available here in Nigeria please let me know and I will buy and test it and post the result here.

I do not know what the performance of the SW panels will be yet in the Northern region you've mentioned. But if the common panels could deliver up to 120% output as you've mentioned, I will like you to try out SW panels in that region and give us feedback. Next time you want to buy Solar panels to install in those region let me know and I'll give you SW panels at the same rate with the alaba panels so you can compare and send feedback.

Joysolar, Yingli and the likes are very great panels with excellent peformance compared to the SW panels. But they still fall in some technical qualities that makes then stand down. I have had an experience of the frame of a yingli panel pull off when I attempted lifting it up by the frame. I posted sometimes ago how lightning shattered the glass of 10 panels in one site. These are not likely with SW panels.

Well, It is not everyone that must use solarworld so please stretch your hands to where you can reach.

MiCasa:


@All, what are the norms for solar panels? Can they be mixed, new and old, different size watts, model and/or manufacturers?

Yes you can

Barezzi:

Highest I've recorded in a day was 6.1kwh.
My array is 2.1kw.
These days, na 5kwh+...
I wanna upgrade my array to 3kw, and battery bank to 400+ Ah!

Oga that's not too good. Just as abunafiu has said you should be getting more than 10kwh. One of your problems is that your panels are too close to the roof. that makes the panels over heat especially in this period because there is no proper air circulation. The second issue is the quality of ur solar panels. You have a pro inverter and charge controller so you should enjoy.

I have a 9 255w (2295w) solarworld panels site that yields over 13kwh.
I have also posted a 3060w solarworld panels site that yielded 17.4kwh.
People should stop wasting their money on the so called cheap panels which are not cheap at the end of the day after all.

bodejohn:
Bursting the chart with the first ever >10kWhr a day harvest
Happy days are back...

congrats
what is the size of your solar panels again?

PROMO! PROMO!! PROMO!!!

PBASE SOLAR IS OFFERING A TWO WEEK LANDSLIDE DISCOUNT ON

SOLARWORLD SUNMODULE SW255 255WATT MONO SOLAR PANEL

Beginning today 5 December 2014 to 19 December 2014 you can pay

Fifty One Thousand Naira (N51,000.00) only for the above 255Watt 120% proven yield Solar panels.

(almost the price of China panels in Alaba)

Minimum Order Quantity = 4 Pieces.

Lower quantity prices are negotiable

LIMITED QUANTITY AVAILABLE.

We also offer discounted prices on the following Items:

PRAG 4KW (5KVA) Inverter/Charger = 215k
PRAG 6KW (7.5kVA) Inverter/Charger = 315k

Terms and conditions apply

contact:
email: promo@pbasesolar.com
phone/whatsapp: 08023033135, 08182218868

for more information about us;
visit/like our Facebook page 'PBASE Solar'
http://www.facebook.com/pbasesolar

Contact us for more products

HURRY WHILE STOCK LAST

PROMO! PROMO!! PROMO!!!

PBASE SOLAR IS OFFERING A TWO WEEK LANDSLIDE DISCOUNT ON

SOLARWORLD SUNMODULE SW255 255WATT MONO SOLAR PANEL

Beginning today 5 December 2014 to 19 December 2014 you can pay

Fifty One Thousand Naira (N51,000.00) only for the above 255Watt 120% proven yield Solar panels.

(almost the price of China panels in Alaba)

Minimum Order Quantity = 4 Pieces.

Lower quantity prices are negotiable

LIMITED QUANTITY AVAILABLE.

We also offer discounted prices on the following Items:

PRAG 4KW (5KVA) Inverter/Charger = 215k
PRAG 6KW (7.5kVA) Inverter/Charger = 315k

Terms and conditions apply

contact:
email: promo@pbasesolar.com
phone/whatsapp: 08023033135, 08182218868

for more information about us;
visit/like our Facebook page 'PBASE Solar'
http://www.facebook.com/pbasesolar

Contact us for more products

HURRY WHILE STOCK LAST

JUO:
I can't believe dust was responsible for my solar panel low output. Behold after I used water to wash the surface, the performance improved by 30%. Please go and wash the surface of your solar panels

if you live in a dusty area, this season is going to be bad for you if you don't clean your solar panels. 5he heat and the dust is going to play negatively on your system

Unionised:
Hello Guys,

I just got a 20kv UPS for next to nothing.

Would you advise i use this at home instead of an inverter?

My energy needs can't be above 2.5kva (and thats if I decide to power my deep freezer, hot plate, pressing iron and washing machine).

A UPS or an Inverter? The Pros and Cons.

And how many hours on full charge can a 20kva UPS carry a load of 2,000 watts?

Advice, anyone?

One off the reasons you have not received attention on this post is that you have not given the complete details of the required specifications. Another reason is that this kind of question is all over Internet so a little Google search would have given you an idea of what you need.


Well, without going into too much details on the technical differences between UPS and INVERTER/Charger design, I'll attempt a response to your post.

An inverter is what you basically need at home though.

UPSs are designed to do basic back up for few minutes to few hours and are not designed to function as a source of power.
- They are not designed for extended run duration on battery like inverters. Most come with inbuilt battery and you cant extend the bank without damaging the charging unit by putting too much demand on it.
- They are not designed to start higher capacity loads (like electric motors, compressors, etc) beyond their rated power as in the case of inverters.
- Their charging current is always very low which is a very serious disadvantage.
- They have very poor efficiency and as such drains battery very fast even if there is no load.
- Lastly, the input voltage range of a UPS is very narrow compared to that of inverters. So if you have a low voltage the ups will switch will inverters will tolerate to a certain extent.

That's how much I can remember for now.

As such a 4kw inverter/charger will power all your above listed appliances more effectively with fewer batteries than the 20kva UPS.

The back up duration is a function of battery WH which you did not provide and not a function of the UPS power rating.

Hope this helps you

schneid:
Hello Prof richmon74,

Is this system an off-grid system? If it is, then for a hybrid system, how many panel will you recommend since power from the utility will compensate for charging too(at night).

Good work you are doing here! I ll love to visit you soon.

More grease!

Hi Oga schneid

The system was originally designed to be a hybrid system but there is no power from the grid in that area as there is no transformer yet. As such they are living off-grid unconditionally and not actually by choice.

With the size of batteries they are using right now and their existing load, if they were to be truely off-grid they would have needed minimum of 18 of the 255W Solarworld Solar panels. The 12 they are using now was for hybrid but it has been able to generate up to 17.4kWH of energy daily as at my last site inspection. Also the system was able to pull 3654W from the 12x 255W Solarworld panels which is about 120% of the solar panel rating. i.e.12x 255w which is 3060w. Pictures below.

So you can start with any number of panels you can afford (even if you want to start with 2 pieces as Oga George always says) and upgrade later at your convenient. But make sure it is Solarworld Sunmodule if you want to enjoy your money.

JUO:
My oga i think the installer used a wrong wire. the wires are too tiny i think...

It was the inverter itself that got burnt not any external component

more PRAG

My previous post was not supposed to mean that there is any thing wrong with the PRAG inverter. I have installed a hand full of them in different locations and for different applications without issues.

See the pictures below

Here is a piece of advice to people who install their system without necessary protections and also overloading your system, make sure you have a fire service station near your installation location. The pictures below is that of a 4kW prag inverter that was constantly and consistently overloaded.

The system was powering 1 old model 1.5HP Window unit AC, 2 500W halogen lamps, 2 Deep freezers, 1 Refrigerator and the other normal house loads.

The pictures explains enough what happened to it.

Now the question is, was this system overloaded? I will quickly answer NO. The inverter was simply running t between 85% to 100% of it's rated capacity.
So why did the inverter burn out? Because this inverter allows battery to run down to 10v before it switches off and at that voltage the current in the system is ridiculously high since power is constant (P=IV) and the high current there produces more heat than what the system could handle and prolonging it melted the wire and the rest of the story follows. I will explain in details the difference between the current in the system when your battery is low and when it is fully charged in my upcoming blog soon.

So what could've been done to avoid this situation?
Various answers

1. Standard Breaker Sizing: Circuit breakers would be a nice solution but there is a problem. The problem is that output cct breakers are always rated to allow loads like compressors to start at higher power than the inverter rated power and as such in this kind of situation they won't be of any help since the system load was under the inverter rated power.
2. Breaker Undersizing: If you under size breaker to protect your inverter the danger is equipment that uses electric motors and compressors like your refrigerators would not be able to start.

N/B: I have to mention here that fuse and circuit breakers are comes in to operating modes; the fast operating and the slow operating modes. The slow operating types which are the commonest and the cheapest types available tolerates slow rising current beyond it's rating up to a certain degree before is it trips while the fast action types (like the Midnite Solar MNDC) trips at any slight increase in current beyond it rating. So the choice of which one to use depends on application.

So now what is the best thing that they could have done to prevent the menace? It's simple, give safety room (up to 30%) when sizing your inverter vs load especially when using this average level inverters. The Premium inverters are designed to take care of this kind of situations without any headache.

another

you can even stack (connect more than one in parallel) for higher power as shown in one of the pictures below

For those who wants to venture into renewable energy but budget is an issue, here is a good news for you.
I had introduced a particular inverter sometimes ago before nairaland went down. Unfortunately I can't go back to the whole details.
It is a Hybrid Inverter/Charger/Solar Charge Controller system.
It comes at a price that is almost equivalent to one charge controller only thereby cutting down a more than half of your original budget if you were planing to buy an inverter/charger and a separate charge controller.

It is the simplest system to install especially for the DIY guys. All you need is to connect you solar panels and your batteries to the hybrid inverter and you are done.

Over time now we've tested and have installed them in various locations for various applications ranging from domestic to office to hotels and can say categorically well that they are dependable and we can now recommend them to you.

The come in these specs:

5kVA 48V 60A MPPT Solar Charge Controller
3kVA 24V 60A MPPT Solar Charge Controller
5kVA 48V 50A PWM Solar Charge Controller
3kVA 24V 50A PWM Solar Charge Controller
1kVA 12V 50A PWM Solar Charge Controller

I'll share some of the installations we've carried out using them.
For more details go to our Facebook page 'PBASE Solar'

Unionised:


Hello,
Can you give me a breakdown and cost of installing for a small household:

Total consumption less than 1,000watts.
I want magnum inverter and Trojan batteries.
A system that I can integrate solar panels to at a later date.
A system that can power twice my energy needs.
That can sustain for at least 12 hours at 70% charge.
Thanks.

Hi Unionised and DUNKA
We don't discus prices on this thread because of some reasons.

One reason is that this thread is actually a DIY forum and not a market place. We only post our work here to inspire and encourage people in renewable energy. Also we share some of our experiences as part of our humanitarian services to help ppl who want to install solar by themselves to learn.

The second reason is that there are a lot of factors that we consider before we give you price. factors like location, mount type, your energy needs and lots of other factors . This is why we always advice you to contact us outside this thread using any of our supplied contacts. We will help you achieve an efficient system at a comfortable price.

One more reason we don't post our prices is that most of our suppliers do not permit us to post them since our prices are far below their own advertised prices. Our discounts was primarily meant for our installations not for sale so we are offering you those ridiculously low prices just to encourage you so we can make our money if you need us to install for you. As such the don't want to look as if the are doing favoritism because most of them monitor this thread.

Lastly, our prices keeps coming down and we don't want our previous clients to feel they would've waited or that we weren't considering them.

If you are still interested you can use any of our contacts below to get to use and we will make sure that you can't get any better offer somewhere else.

phone| whatsapp: 08023033135
email: contact@pbasesolar.com
BBM PIN: 7950AD1E

MiCasa:




@Richmon74:
Thanks for the correction on my 19200wh battery bank. The listed price for Sunmodule 275w at solarlanelstore.com is [b]$297 [/b]and not $279, my mistake. That is FOB their warehouse and does not, of course, include shipping to Nigeria. You recommended 14 to 18 x275w but I want to start with half, that is 9 and add-on later. I didn't know that you sell Solarworld panels. If I cannot get the 275w from you for your "world's best price", at what price can I get the 265w?

We have Solarworld Sunmodule SW255 (255W) & SW265 (265W) available for now at very good prices.

You can use our contacts on my last post above to reach us if you need it.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

We are offering a huge discount on our Solarworld Sunmodule SW255 (255W) Mono-crystalline Solar Panels.

You can get it for as low as NGN51,000.00 per panels depending on quantity

Contact us now for pricing on various quantities


Phone/Whatsapp: 08023033135
email: contact@pbasesolar.com
bbm pin: 7950AD1E

MiCasa:
Mr. Newbie here. I have read so much from this forum that I consider it my solar-reference-library, albeit I learned a lot especially from the likes of George_D, Richmon74 and others, there are some that I am still confused about. Without wanting to clog the progressive wheel of this forum too much, I need help with a little dilemma that is bugging me.

I have had (almost a year now) Su-Kam 5kva/96v pure sine wave inverter with charging current of 10A to a Saturn battery bank of eight ( 12v200ah connected in series.

While I always wanted hybrid renewable energy with solar array the cost of PV has kept me at bay. Solarpanelstore.com has SolarWorld Sunmodule 275w at $279 (N46,872) plus shipping and that has gotten me seriously thinking to add solar panels to my system.

My concern/confusion are as follows:

1. Are there other sources of lower priced quality solar panels?

2. How many of the 275w panels (if that’s the best I can get) do I need for my 19,200ah battery bank?

3. How many panels do I connect in a string of series or parallel?

4. Considering that the inverter is 96v, what size, type of Mppt Charge Controller do I need to complement my system?

Much appreciated.

I will attempt the answers serially;

1. I believe you can only get 275w Sunmodule solar panels at that price either by MIRACLE or by MAGIC. Solarworld is still the best value for your money since (as you can get from my previous posts) you can get a yield of more than 100%. There are other cheaper products in the market which you can work with though.

2. For you to effectively charge your 19,200WH (not 19200ah) battery bank from 0-100% within the available 5hrs of sunlight in a day you will ideally need 14 piece of the 275w panels. You must bear in mind that the max charging current of your battery must not be exceeded. Also for tolerance sake you might want to add 2 - 4 more panels to take care of the load in the house that'll run during the day. With this quantity you can live off grid.

3. This depends on your charge controller input voltage specifications and the panel's open cct voltage. You will definitely not be limited to 3 panels in series string especially considering the voltage involved in your system.

4. There is no premium products manufacturer that offers that voltage spec for charge controller.
There are tons of them available from china as c0ogumo already said but you need to be extra careful. You might want to try out the popular ZODORE on Amazon.


NB: If you eventually get the solarworld Sunmodule panels at $279 landing price in Nigeria please let me know and I'll buy off their remaining quantity but if you are unable we can offer you the best prices for our 255w and 265w Sunmodule. We still have this believe that our prices are the best in the world until someone proofs us wrong

GeorgeD1:
all,

a while ago, i decided to put my sukam to the test just to confirm it is still in good working condition. i hadn't really had the
chance to try it out ever since the faulty cooler fan was replaced. results? well, i was quite impressed that the old work horse
was back and kicking! needless to say, it is a welcome relief to know that i can always fall back to its use should in case the
magnum decides to behave funny.

i ran it over a week without any issues before putting it back in the cooler.

pics below:

From my experience, the Sukam and every other inverter will work perfectly well as long as you are not depending fully on phcn or gen for battery charging. This is because a greater percentage of the units that spoils easily on this inverters are the power input units. Even the MUST POWER inverters with their fragile mosfets can work for a very long while when used in off-grid or semi-offgrid system.

The system in the picture below is using a sukam 3kva which use to misbehave when the client was using inverter only system. When we came in to add Solarworld solar panels and Varta professional batteries the inverter became perfect overnight and the client which was preparing to buy our magnum to complete the system now pocketed that money. This is because the inverter is not doing anything anymore on the charging circuit because the client had cut off charging with public power since the solar panels is generating enough energy for him.

I stopped by a client's house at Unity road, Lekki today to check the performance of his system and I was impressed by the harvest. This client lives off grid as they are yet to complete transformer installation in that area. The only appliance he is not using are the A/Cs. Every other appliance including Fridge, freezer, washing machine and watter pump runs on the solar system.

The system configuration is:
3060W (12x 255W) Solarworld Solar panels
8x L16 Trojan Flooded batteries
4kw PRAG Inverter.

The 3060w solarworld panels was able to output 3458W as you can see in the picture below which is higher than the rated output of the solar panels. The log also confirmed that this system delivers up to 16kwh of energy daily.

These go a long way to confirm that solarworld solar panels efficiency is second to none. Also remember that the installation must be done professionally also in order to get this efficiency.

Stop littering your roofs with junks in the name of solar panels and also get a profesional installation.

Contact us for discounted prices on:

* Solarworld solar panels
* Trojan Deep cycle Lead-Acid Batteries
* Magnum Inverters
* Xantrex Inverters
* Outback Inverters
* Prag Inverters
* Outback Charge controllers
* Midnite Solar Accessories
* etc.

You can get more details about us on our facebook page PBASE Solar.

http://www.facebook.com/pbasesolar

For those who always call to say they are anti-facebook you can reach us on

Phone/whatsapp: 08023033135
email: contact@pbasesolar.com
BBM PIN: 7950AD1E

earthrealm: @Heisinme....its quite probable, though a dim possibilty, unless its in a remote/unattended location............its not just worth the stress..........climbing up the roof, dismantling panels no be beans...n how much would one even sell the panels?...

its just like stealing tyres off a parked car, its not a common crime nowadays...how much would u sell the tires?..and u face possible lynching and burning if caught.

if its in a residential area....go ahead and install ur pnels.....[make sure its on the roof of a normal building with normal hieght, u wudnt want it too low to tempt robbers..............

I have even come across a fallen solar panels pole with 4 130w solar panels on a road side which has been there for like 2 months now and no thief is thinking that direction. The stuff is in a very comfortable place that someone could just walk in and dismantle the panels by just loosening few bolts in the night but i wonder why the haven't.

Be very sure that the'll possibly go for battery faster.

HesInMe: By "sole inverter system" you mean without solar panels, or just one solo inverter? I'm trying to figure out what to start with, and I was wondering if this is the basic start-up kit, essentially. Forgive my limited knowledge. Newbie here...

Yes there is no solar panels that's why you didn't see charge controller in the setup.
The client lives in an environment that has reasonable public power supply and would add solar panels should the system change. That is why we went extra miles to give him standard products so that he wont be needing to change anything should he decide to add solar in future.

let us continue to keep the thread busy by posting some of our neatly done installations.

It's a 4.3kw Sole inverter system with

Magnum MS4348PE inverter
Magnum ME-RC50 Remote
48v 410AH Trojan L16RE Lead-acid batteries
breakers and bypass switch

here is a simple 8.6kw system we just did for a residence in lagos.
Rate the installation.

it runs on a 1202Ah 48v trojan INDV17 Batteries and a 6.36kW (24×265W) Solarworld solar Panels.

Barcholder:

Good installation pictures, and quite a large installation too of 13.5KW or thereabouts. We have just completed the installation of a 20KW system for a Filling Station in Abuja - 80 x 250 watt panels.

Pictures below.

That's good news. Solar awareness is growing.
But you are showing us the picture of the filling station only. You should show is the picture of the solar system instead

Even the physical design of the Solarworld solar panels is so rugged that it was safer to stand on it than on the fragile roof. Try that on any other panel you will know what's called value 4 your money.

fntekim:
Nice 1...
What about the inclination of the panels??

there is nothing to worry about the inclination. it's is perfect.

we have seen 6000w output from the 5300w on the other roof many times. that's is what happens when u use good quality products. Like in this case, Solarworld Solar panels on an SMA charge controller

you can get more updates on this installation on our fb page 'PBASE Solar'

Here is the completed installation of 51panels (265w each) on one roof.
The whole installation took a total of 6hrs. 4hrs on day 1 n 2hrs on day 2.

By my experience that roof material is the worst experience I've ever had - asbestos roof. it's so fragile and made the job duration longer than necessary.

This MINI-GRID installation is still ongoing. We've done 36 pcs of 265W Solarworld panels on day one (though it was a half day job) and the remaining 17 will be done the next day.

I appreciate every member of this thread that showed up at site to give us their moral support.

The details of the complete installation will be on our facebook page 'PBASE Solar'

We will welcome any reasonable question as long as it won't infringe on our business privacy.

fntekim: Wonderful! So this thread is still alive??
i thought the recent tsunami swept it away.

The rains/cloud cover has really affected me.
For the first time in months, i get an LBCO alarm/system shutdown @ 48v.
My array is 2000w, and battery bank of 200aH.

I suspect i need to double my array, and increase my battery bank to 520aH to escape history repeating itself.
What are your thoughts??

p.s: My base is Calabar, and i understand we have the highest rainfall in the country.

Since you are still connected to the grid and you have a good inverter I think you might want to do something to your battery bank. 9600wh is small for a home. At least 200ah more will do. You can add panels latter. Your charge contoller is at it's peak so you'll need another charge controller when you are increasing your panels