So with the installation of the Daikin ducted RCAC, water & sand filter pumps and the Reclaim 315l heat pump hot water we are finally able to draw some reasonable power from the solar system and start testing things.
SMA – Sunny Boy/Sunny Island Inverters
SMA have been very unimpressive to deal with.
In Australia, registering your inverters extends the warranty to 10 years provided you do it within a year of installation. I registered after 1 had already failed and been replaced. Got the 10 years on the original 3, but despite numerous emails and documentation I could not get it on the replaced one – I only wanted it from the date the first one was installed. They tried to tell me I had to pay for it. Round and round, closed tickets etc. Finally referred me to Germany – who granted it within an hour, from the date the replacement was installed.
Their apps are terrible. There are multiple, none of which are any good, and some of which give different readings. SMA says not to worry, they’re working on them. Set up was difficult and not intuitive. The best appears to be web based Sunny Portal powered by EnnexOS. It still does not fully reflect my system, I guess this is our installer’s fault so I need to chase it up with them – I could only fix some of it.
The forecast power production on their SMA energy app is terrible. I was really worrried that we were going to run into major power shortages if the forecast was accurate, but with some power now being used it seems to be predicting only about a third of what we can actually produce on a bad day. Haven’t drawn enough power to see how accurate good days are.
Tried to join sunny places to add my results to their system in the hope that it would improve the forecast. Can’t do it. Don’t get the menus that they say I should have – only for installers again?
Seem to have self consumption of about 2.2 kWhr/day from the system.
BYD batteries
All good so far. It’s been set up as 28.6 kWhr in the SMA apps, not sure why. Also installer said they’ve set the generator to come on at 30% off at 60% state of charge. This seems odd for a LFP battery, and means that I don’t have 30 kWhr useable storage, only 20kWhr. Have contacted local BYD agent to request settings, but have not received a response. Will try again tomorrow.
Reclaim Heat Pump
The Reclaim heat pump is set to charge between 10am and 4pm so that is uses solar directly. Surprisingly, it seems to use around 2.2 kWhr just keeping itself warm. eg we’re not using any hot water at the moment. Bit nervous about how much power it will use when we are actually using hot water. It’s very quiet.
We bought the unit in December (cause we were supposed to be in by Feb) and Reclaim have updated their controller in Feb – and haven’t left instructions for operation of our controller on their website. I had to use youtube to figure out how to set it up for solar only. Ridiculous.
Daikin Premium Ducted RCAC
The Daikin has a rated power of 4.9 kW, but actually seems to be drawing closer to 6kW, not sure how that works. So looks like we won’t be using in much in winter. Nice intuitive controls, would love to use it all the time. Very quiet.
Or are both these power results poor reporting by SMA?
Blue Diamond 10kVA Silenced Diesel Generator
The Blue Diamond gen set developed a fault on the cooling level sensor, and would only run with an incredibly loud alarm. Despite several phone calls, 4 months later, I’m still waiting for a replacement part, that apparently I have to fit myself even though it’s under warranty. To get over the problem, they’ve just had me disconnect it. It does apparently have a high temperature shutdown feature so they’re not fussed. Not good enough. Minor corrosion also occuring.
Their operating manual is useless – it too doesn’t have our control panel in it. So no indication how to set it up to turn on automatically. The two panels in the manual are completely different (no autostandy function). I had to look up the control panel manufacturer and create an account on their website to access the instructions. And boy did they have tight security protocols – to access a manual!
We ran the Daikin for an hour Friday night so that the batteries were drawn down enough for the routine 5 minute generator run on Saturday morning to allow the generator to sync on to the system. All went well. Wanted to test that before we needed it to supply power. With fully charged batteries, it couldn’t sync on, since there was no load required.
Pumps
Pumps are not causing any problems. With pumps potentially spiking at 6 times their rated power, I was a bit concerned that we might run into issues with inverter capacity. But with daikin and reclaim pulling power, we can start the water pump (turn on a tap) with no problems. So all good.
On heavy rain, the sand filter pump has turned on, but only very briefly.
Off Grid Living - Building the Dream 