When choosing a solar inverter buyers need to be cautious about the misleading terminology some solar installers and manufactures are using. Calling an inverter “battery compatible” means a battery may be connected to it but it may cost up to several thousand dollars to upgrade the components inside the inverter.
Just like all petrol cars are gas compatable, they can be converted at a cost.
An inverter called “battery ready” is just that, ready to have a battery connected without any conversion or upgrade requited inside the inverter. Hopefully solar battery’s will fall in price soon but many existing solar owners will be very disappointed when they discover an inverter replacement is more economical than upgrading their existing inverter.
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You may be disappointed, a Lithium battery manufacturer I spoke to recently reckons prices are going up again next month. Apart from that, consumer battery prices have been generally rising over the past 10 years, despite numerous items in the media suggesting prices will come down.
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If Lithium battery prices don’t fall it will become increasingly difficult for Australia to transition to clean energy. The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) has also thrown in a “wild card” enabling power companies to charge solar homes for the power they export to the grid. This rule change was introduced without consultation to the Australian Parliament. Feed In Tariffs may soon become an additional source of debt to solar homes and add many years to pay off your solar investment. Energy companies, solar installers and politicians will most likely keep the ability to make solar homes pay for exported power to the grid very quiet until after the next Federal election. These new fees, if introduced, are supposed to enable energy companies to upgrade the grid. In 12 months time solar home owners could be faced with 2 choices;
- pay to export my excess power
- pay to buy expensive batteries.
There is a third choice which many will opt for. This is
- Setting the system so it doesn’t export.
A well designed system and management of domestic power use can still pay dividends to those with or install PV solar systems. The proposed changes won’t apply to systems that don’t export. Adopting the 3rd choice encourages those installing a new system to ensure it is designed for domestic use, rather and installing the biggest system possible based on available roof area (which will most likely export impacting on the local electricity distribution network).
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They are not the only battery storage technology available or at early stages of development. The CSIRO is also committed to a number of different projects including the Ultra Battery.
It’s worth a browse to get a better feel for the competing alternatives and their stage of development. These include batteries based on elements such as sodium, aluminium or other lithium free chemistry.
Household storage batteries or those used in Grid and Distributed battery solutions so not need to be as compact or light weight as EV batteries. This opens up the alternatives.
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The challenge with lithium suphur batteries is they will have limited application as they can be charged up to between 50-100 times (under real life conditions) before significant battery deterioration. There are some reports in controlled environment laboratory conditions, they have been able to achieve a 300 cycles. Whereby, current lithium ion batteries have charging cycles upwards of 1200 times and more suited to regular recharge and discharge cycles.
While there are prospective battery technologies being explored, many have limitations (such as durability) which still need to be overcome.
There are other available technologies such as Zinc-Bromide Flow Batteries which don’t deteriorate like traditional metal rechargeable batteries (near 100% recharge capacity can be achieved until the solution collapses after 3500+ charging cycles and needs replacement). Non-lithium based batteries also don’t face the future environmental challenges that mining of lithium in extremely ecologically sensitive environments face and challenging waste byproducts, to meet the anticipated demand for such batteries.
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I recently paid for my 4th solar installation and are somewhat disappointed with the advice I received.
Let’s hope that all solar installers give up to date advice about current and future trends to prospective solar buyers. Not just selling them the largest system that will fit on the roof, or selling an inverter that not really “battery ready”…larger solar system = most profit.
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The best advice will come from independent sources.
After reading the guides available on the main Choice web site, also consider the SolarQuotes web site. The site has a wealth of information. There is no need to use the quote service or sign in to access all the resources including comprehensive market assessments.
There is also the opportunity to ask our Community for feedback or suggestions.
With nearly 3 million customers with PV connected to the grid it’s a high risk strategy to selectively penalise those consumers who have invested in good faith. These include small business owners.
The future of our connected grid, connected resources and battery technology are all covered in other topics for those interested. Centralised vs distributed energy resources and a peak demand vs flat demand network design.
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I installed an Enphase system in 2017 using S230 inverters - the latest greatest things at the time - and did get the single phase monitoring which up until recently was only a ;party trick’ (look what my solar monitoring can do). Just after Christmas I checked the system and it advised me that the system was under performing. Had a look at the individual monitoring and saw that one panel was only producing about half the output of the rest of them. I’ve contacted the installer and suggested the dates and times he should look, he dialled in and confirmed the issue as well as supplying a movie showing the intermittent behaviour of the errant panel and has arranged for a service call.
The individual monitoring is a very hand feature.
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Since my original installation my system upgraded itself to individual panel monitoring. It is an excellent feature.
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Good to hear!
Micro Inverters also have benefits for the installer when needing to identify which panel in an array/string is faulty. It’s self diagnosing.
For the PV system owner there is a benefit in a faulty PV panel does not impact on the performance of the other panels, as might occur with a string inverter.
Whether the additional cost of micro inverters is justified,
For those looking to purchase a rooftop PV system, most reputable suppliers should be able to provide 2 quotes, when asked. One with a standard string inverter and an alternative with micro inverters.
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Many installers/seller use ‘shading’ as a litmus test for which to recommend. My house is only shaded by houses further up the hill, but from monitoring the individual panels I have come to realise the location of my evap cooler does some shading, as do clouds passing overhead, as well as birds congregating on a neighbour’s TV antenna. I am sold on micro-inverters unless the difference is a deal breaker because of financial circumstances.
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Out of curiosity, does each micro inverter have a connection to your local network (WiFi or ethernet) or are they connected via a more basic protocol to some central monitoring box at your house, which is then able to provide status / health information to your local network?
While not directed to me, Enphase ‘owns’ the microinverter business in a practical sense. The microinverters are connected to an ‘Envoy’ and the Envoy is connected to your internet via cable or Wifi or even mobile case by case. The Envoy reports in to an Enphase sever every 15 minutes, and each customer gets an account. If it does not report for more than a day one gets an email to check it.
It displays system production vs consumption in 15 minute intervals, and production for each panel for the day up to the current interval. There is also a monthly production email.
Hope that helps.
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OK, the first part answered my actual question.
Can you talk to the Envoy yourself to see health and status information? If the answer is “no” then this raises obvious privacy and data ownership issues. It may also raise issues if your internet is as unreliable as it is in some parts of Australia.
You can log directly into the Envoy. It has its own web services although meant for maintenance. It is not nearly so pretty as the Enphase site. Each has its own purpose.
The microinverters store up to 3 months of data each. They do not rely on the Envoy being live on the net. If the comms are ‘down’ for up to 3 months the Envoy has access to and will backfill the Enphase repository at about a day per hour until it catches up, according to the literature.
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