We had a few power interruptions over the last few months.
I have a few home servers running and instead of putting a UPS in between, I hooked a hybrid solar inverter. It is hooked up to an 8kWh battery pack and the output of the inverter is feeding my 19" rack.
During the day I have a bunch of solar panels that charge the batteries.
The inverter is able to put the extra solar power back into the grid.
During a power outage during the day the solar will keep my batteries charged and provide power for the load. When there is no solar support, it will drain the battery bank. It is (imo) the ultimate UPS setup.
I currently have it hooked up to the load side of my service panel. During the day I now go negative on my load side, so I have no more âalways onâ popping up. When there is no sun, it pulls the power from the load & the overhead of the inverter.
If I were to connect it to the solar producing point, I would have a large usage during the 16 hours the sun isnât shining and when it does, sense is not measuring the generation because it basically compensates for usage first and only when there is a surplus will it go back into the grid (so far I have seen about 250-300 watt going into the grid).
I have to assume more people with hybrid setups are using sense.
How/where did you hookup the inverter?
Danny⌠We just got our solar system going late last fall. For years I have a âgenerator portâ on the outside of the house to plug in a portable generator. It is a 30 amp 220 twist lock plug. Now I understand this is what most people would do⌠And I donât care⌠hi.hi⌠I put up 5 kW of solar panels in the garden. Growing electricity now⌠Then I put up a separate shed⌠12 by 16 just south of the house for my solar equipment. Batteries and inverters (9kW) in the shed. Ran wire from the panels to the shed and charge controller etc⌠Ran 220 cable near the generator plug for the house. Twist lock cable from there to house as if it were a generator⌠My Solar generator⌠Have knock 60 percent off our electric bill last fall into winter the short time I have had it running. Can go into more details if there is interest⌠My 2 cents⌠Gerry
Good to hear you got infected by the solar bug and you are doing great.
I already have solar hooked up for 12+ years.
In fact I produce more solar than I use:
This includes driving an EV for 15k miles/year, heating, cooking & drying electric
This year I will replace the gas warm water heater (16 years old) with a hybrid electric one and after that I will be able to get rid of Natural gas. Looking forward to that!
I might have formulated my question not the right way.
Sense solar has 2 sets of CTâs: one for usage, one for solar generation.
Obvious what goes where.
But a hybrid solar inverter is both a user & a producer.
Where do you hook it up? production side or usage side ?
Currently I have it on the usage side but now my graph looks like this:
Danny⌠I just run the one set of cables⌠I donât have a second set⌠They would go on my generator in and canât see that yet⌠Maybe I will give it another thought later this summer⌠SorryâŚGerry
Danny, did you ever get an answer to your question? I have a hybrid inverter feeding my main panel. It can be either a producer or a consumer. I have several loads sitting off of a critical loads panel behind the inverter. I have my solar clamps on the main panel where the inverter ties in but sense is showing all my critical loads usage as solar generation.
No, no a real answer.
Majority suggested hooking it up to solar production CTâs but imo that is not an option.
So currently I am not measuring whatever solar is produced by my hybrid setup by sense.
It just offsets the usage on my critical load panel during solar production.
But I also have non-hybrid solar (micro inverter & string inverter) that is measured by sense with the solar CTâs.
Is your hybrid setup the only PV system at your location?
Iâve got two inverters. One is a grid tie and attaches via load side taps. My hybrid inverter is about 1/2 of my pv generation. I was hoping that sense could replace my TED 5000 ( which i cant use anymore because of a newly added surge protector which is confusing the powerline network ).
Im going to turn off all my essential loads and calibrate it in the morning when Iâm making more than Iâm taking.
I figure if Iâm right Sense will not see any production if im using more than im making.
It would be awesome if the CTâs would read DC current. Obviously sense isnât designed for multi mode hybrid inverters.
But try putting your main CTs on the hybrid inverter output then put your aux/solar CTs on your hybrid inverter output and also run the grid wires the backwards through the solar set of CTs⌠meaning multiple wires inside the CTs. This should subtract the gridâs current from those CTs.
I think that will get you the numbers your looking for if your wired how Iâm picturing it.
obviously the only place I can get total solar output is after the breakers where they both lead off to the main box ( or possibly in the metal gutter before they get to their respective breakers ).
If I hook up my solar CTs to the main box and I configure it while SOLAR > LOAD in the critical loads panel, I get the following:
If the solar output is greater than load at critical panel everything appears to work fine. If the solar output is less than the load at the critical panel the wattage goes negative in the app and the solar bubble disappears. I cannot see any usage on the critical loads panel ( presumably because the wattage is < 0 ). The app flow ( screen that shows the energy grid with the little arrows from the power company to the home and the solar ) work fine though.
If I configure it while LOAD > SOLAR in the critical loads panel I get exactly the opposite. I canât see any load at the critical loads panel when SOLAR is > LOAD and the wattage goes negative again. Iâm assuming this is because the app/server configures the CTâs native direction of flow and just changes when things go negative.
So I think at this point, there are two things I could do:
Run the SOLAR CTâs through an extension line to my critical loads panel and place them on the breaker with the solar grid tie inverter #2 It wonât get all my solar output but as of right now - itâs the only downside I can see.
Another thought would be to clamp both the wires coming from the grid tie inverters in the metal gutter before they get to their different breakers. The inverters are right next to each other on the wall and I could clamp their outputs in the gutter.
