- hacker
- description
- Hacker minded Solar power setup with nice twists
- started
2017-09-14
Background
I have been really facinated about idea of making your own electricity and being bit more self sufficient for long time.. We live in pretty much middle of nowhere and because of that and long/old electric line, grid outages have been pretty normal here (during first few years there has been few even over 12h outages) . To over come those we build UPS backuped electric sockets to every room to our house (and garage) when we build our new house. Now as old UPS device looks like it could need a replacement, i was wondering could i merge these two things together.
I created simple list what i wanted:
- work as a replacement for current UPS system - solar input has to work even on cases grid goes down ( grid tied AC inverters will go down) - most of the work will be done by me - reasonable starting costs, but have to be extendable easily - in future ability to handle lifepo4 etc batteryes (powerwall etc 48v) - EMI, i am a also HAM, so no need for added radio pollution - extra points from opensource / ability to hack
When i was searching this kind of system i found out that there is thing called "energy storage for solar", and it is getting pretty big.. idea behind is that you could store your surplus solar energy to battery and use it when solar production is going low, so you are increasing your self consumed part from your solar production.. I instantly found out that this type of system could full fill most of my needs..
When compared different vendors and systems one stands up on many ways.. Victron. Company has started on building power system to naval systems, and is now doing also many kinds of solar related products and systems. one of the coolest thing is that they are truly making most of newst system open source and there is already community around victrons opensource things. they are example releasing full code for their "control unit", and actual image to run that software on rasberrypi if wanted.. All protocols and interfaces are well documented and some sample codes also in python! awesome!
I was also really lucky when i was asking products / prices on finnish suppliers, that one of the suppliers technical guys was A. Really got into deep on Victron world B. I did know guy from another hobby as well
So, with helping hand from suppliers guy, we did some specifications for upcoming system.
victron ESS system (inverter+charger(multigrid)/controller(venus)/dc solar controller(mppt) about 2kw of solar panels big cheap 48v set of batteries (12kwh) (i did have source for lightly used ones)
https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ess:design-installation-manual https://www.victronenergy.com/live/open_source:start https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:root_access
So with this setup i could full fill all my planned features plus it allows few extra: - selling surplus energy back to the grid - acting as solar energy storage, so actively using some percentage of battery capacity for ess
Actual list we ordered: 1 Kpl ?MultiGrid 48/3000/35-50 PMP483024000 1 Kpl VenusGX BPP900400100 1 Kpl VE.Direct Cable 0,9m ASS030530209 1 Kpl ?BlueSolar MPPT 150/35 SCC020035000 1 Kpl 48Vdc 125A Mega CIP136125000 2 Kpl Fuse holder for Mega. CIP000100001 1 pc Energy meter ET340 REL300300000 6 kpl Recom 270 Poly panel + mounting gears cables for connecting panels to MPPT Cables for batteries some AC cable and fuses few MC4 connectors safety switch outside (this is needed if connected to public grid in Finland)
Actual installation was pretty straight forward.
<pictures>
On software side i did want to integrate all relevant data feed to my emonCMS system what i have used since we moved to our new house.