new powerwall project

[dali1972]

Hi All

My First post here, so hello to all.

Bit of background to start, i have been fortunate enough to get hold of a complete Tesla P85 battery - 16 modules.

I have a small holding, which has a small campsite with 3 16a hookups, my wife has a cattery which during the winter has electric heaters going 24/7, outbuildings that have various loads eg. welding, air compressors, and then our house with general stuff,eg fridge freezer, tv and lastly the big one, a 10kw shower. With all these loads the peak seems to be at or around 13/14kw for around 10/15mins (Its the shower !!!).

Im connected to the grid (3 phase), and would like to use that as and when the solar/battery is not capable of the supply.

I had thoughts on what i want, but want to asksome advice, thoughts on the best approach.

One approach is to connect the shower to one phase,and just take that out of the equation,and then run the solar/battery and use the connection to the inverter to one of the phases as the backup reducing the peak load on the inverter to more like 4 kw.

So one concernis with the inverter, and the other is with the BMS.

Option one.
Using a sigineer 15kwh inverter that has been made to cope with Tesla batteries, and a costly BMS by evtv. But the inverter has a 50 day wait at the moment, and then its got to be shipped from chine, so more time. Not thought what MPPT charge controller i would use, but expect it would bevictron.

Option 2
Using a complete victron setup - 15kwh invertor, cerbo GX, bluesolar 120/100 smart charge, victron shunt 500A 50mV, lynx dist board.

BMS is the concern with this setup, can go with the simp BMS, which uses existing tesla slaves, (But lots of build time) or using a Batrium wm5 and swapping out the slaves.

Option 3
using all option 2 but swapping the 15kwh inverter to a 5kwh

So this is where you lot come in, what setup route would you go orwould you suggest anything different/better?

Many thanks in advance.
John

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

>...but swapping the 15kwh inverter to a 5kwh
Scratching my head a bit with this statement. Maybe you could explain what you're thinking here? - and might help get better overall comments.
Specifically - it seems like if youneed a 15kwinverter - then how would a5kw be OK? Maybe you're thinking 3 x 5kw inverters to get 15kw?In my experience (I run dual AIMS 12kw inverters) if you can afford it, there are some significantpros to having 1 inverter instead of multiple smaller ones.

BMS - do you plan to parallel the Tesla units for balance/monitor or monitor each unit separately? I use Batrium WM4 with 84 packs (6 x 14s)and I can attest that it works well. Depending on how you hook things up - you might find it useful to see/manage into each Tesla unit independently andBatriumwould help facilitate that. I think they are 12s and you have X units... say 8. Batrium is well suited to monitor 8 x 12 = 96 'packs'. I do agree that hookup is some work - but i don't see how you can avoid that no matter what you do

 

[ajw22]

I think the best first step is to convert the on-demand 10kW water heater to ideally 2 water heater tanks. One always-on tank that is always ready to supply hot water, and a pre-heater tank to dump surplus solar power in.

Your whole equation will change dramatically with the 10kW load gone, no?

 

[dali1972]

>...but swapping the 15kwh inverter to a 5kwh
Scratching my head a bit with this statement. Maybe you could explain what you're thinking here? - and might help get better overall comments.
Specifically - it seems like if youneed a 15kwinverter - then how would a5kw be OK? Maybe you're thinking 3 x 5kw inverters to get 15kw?In my experience (I run dual AIMS 12kw inverters) if you can afford it, there are some significantpros to having 1 inverter instead of multiple smaller ones.

BMS - do you plan to parallel the Tesla units for balance/monitor or monitor each unit separately? I use Batrium WM4 with 84 packs (6 x 14s)and I can attest that it works well. Depending on how you hook things up - you might find it useful to see/manage into each Tesla unit independently andBatriumwould help facilitate that. I think they are 12s and you have X units... say 8. Batrium is well suited to monitor 8 x 12 = 96 'packs'. I do agree that hookup is some work - but i don't see how you can avoid that no matter what you do

3 phase grid supply, over all 3 phases i have a peak load of 14k. The main peak is due to the shower at 10k. By splitting out the loads over the phases i can separate out different parts.

eg system at moment
Phase 1 - supplies camp site
Phase2 - supplies garages - including welding
phase 3 - house including shower.

Eg each part has a single phase supply (using part of the 3 phase).

So by connecting shower to phase 1, i isolate that, and also the camp site. (not powered by solar/battery).

This was originally done to try and balance the phases, but having a 15kwh inverter would/could handle all load, but to continue 3 phase, i would still only have one inverter connected to one of the phases, eg phase 3, the other two still on grid power.

I could connect up a 5kwh to phase one, and another 15kwh to phase 2 to cope with welding... but not enough to warrant the spend/costs.

Hope that explains it?

---

I think the best first step is to convert the on-demand 10kW water heater to ideally 2 water heater tanks. One always-on tank that is always ready to supply hot water, and a pre-heater tank to dump surplus solar power in.

Your whole equation will change dramatically with the 10kW load gone, no?

Hi, Its a shower head unit, not a water heater, no option to change this, unless i put in a less powerful shower, (The boss would not allow that - The wife!!)

BrJohn

---

BMS - do you plan to parallel the Tesla units for balance/monitor or monitor each unit separately? I use Batrium WM4 with 84 packs (6 x 14s)and I can attest that it works well. Depending on how you hook things up - you might find it useful to see/manage into each Tesla unit independently andBatriumwould help facilitate that. I think they are 12s and you have X units... say 8. Batrium is well suited to monitor 8 x 12 = 96 'packs'. I do agree that hookup is some work - but i don't see how you can avoid that no matter what you do

I plan to make a 48v battery but its not quite 48v.
Two Tesla battery modules provide a nominal voltage of 43.2 volts and 237 ampere- hours for a backup capacity of 10.238 kWh

so 16/2 =43.2v @ 237Ah x 8 = 81.907kWh total (minus degradation)

Also the low end and high end charge point will also reduce the capacity and im not worried about that, as the battery is big enough and should last longer. (eg one of the minus points to victron compared to the sigineer inverter)

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

>Phase 1 - supplies camp site
>Phase2 - supplies garages - including welding
>phase 3 - house including shower.
[size=small]>The main peak is due to the shower at 10k.[/size]

I'm in the US with split-phase 120v/240v.While I understand what you're saying here... My inverters cooperate with 120v/240v split-phase because I switch back and forth between grid and off-grid using ATSs. Because of this - I would not plan to have separateinverters to power 'each phase'.

In your case - I'm guessing the same idea applies. Having a separateinverter for each phase probably isn't a good idea. But that's an uneducated guesswhere I think the key question is... how do you plan to interact with your grid power? Do you plan hybrid or 100% off-grid or ? If you can share your plans on this - I think that would advance the conversation as there are many excellent 3 phase type operators on this site that can give you good advice.


[size=small]>I plan to make a 48v battery but its not quite 48v.[/size]
Agreed - 2 Tesla 6s modules in series will make 12s - which is on the lower end of 48v nominal but will work with some inverters.

But to determine BMS recommendations,I was asking how you plan to wire the sense leads to monitor the parallel groups of cells. You said you have 16 Tesla modules - so that's 6s x 16 = 96 groups of parallel cells to monitor.

It sounds like you're planning a 2s8p Tesla module setup. You could parallel the sense leads between all 16 modules (of the 2s8p)which would yield 12sparallel cell groupsfor aBMS to monitor / balance. Each cell group would be the 8p(s) monitored as if they were 1p.Ifyou do this, you can't tell directly which Tesla module is the problem as things age.

I was just pointing out that with Batrium, you have the option to monitor all 96 groups of parallel cells individually - doesn't matter how your arrange them series/parallel for inverter power.

You could also do 8 individual BMSs on each 2s1p 'battery' of the 2s8p setup.

----------------------------------------
Sounds like a fun project!

 

[daromer]

dali1972 its kW and not kWh when you talk about inverters.

Splitting a 3phase unit to use to different places as single phase is not really a recommended way. Note that if you break 1 phase then your loosing all 3. For single phase units its better to buy single phase inverters if you ask me.

I would also look at removing the direct heater and add in a smaller tank. I run a 30Liter here. No you cannot shower endlesly but its enough for 2 showers in a row and it only uses 2kW.. Alot cheaper doing that then having a high power unit...

 

[dali1972]

>Phase 1 - supplies camp site
>Phase2 - supplies garages - including welding
>phase 3 - house including shower.
[size=small]>The main peak is due to the shower at 10k.[/size]

I'm in the US with split-phase 120v/240v.While I understand what you're saying here... My inverters cooperate with 120v/240v split-phase because I switch back and forth between grid and off-grid using ATSs. Because of this - I would not plan to have separateinverters to power 'each phase'.

In your case - I'm guessing the same idea applies. Having a separateinverter for each phase probably isn't a good idea. But that's an uneducated guesswhere I think the key question is... how do you plan to interact with your grid power? Do you plan hybrid or 100% off-grid or ? If you can share your plans on this - I think that would advance the conversation as there are many excellent 3 phase type operators on this site that can give you good advice.


[size=small]>I plan to make a 48v battery but its not quite 48v.[/size]
Agreed - 2 Tesla 6s modules in series will make 12s - which is on the lower end of 48v nominal but will work with some inverters.

But to determine BMS recommendations,I was asking how you plan to wire the sense leads to monitor the parallel groups of cells. You said you have 16 Tesla modules - so that's 6s x 16 = 96 groups of parallel cells to monitor.

It sounds like you're planning a 2s8p Tesla module setup. You could parallel the sense leads between all 16 modules (of the 2s8p)which would yield 12sparallel cell groupsfor aBMS to monitor / balance. Each cell group would be the 8p(s) monitored as if they were 1p.Ifyou do this, you can't tell directly which Tesla module is the problem as things age.

I was just pointing out that with Batrium, you have the option to monitor all 96 groups of parallel cells individually - doesn't matter how your arrange them series/parallel for inverter power.

You could also do 8 individual BMSs on each 2s1p 'battery' of the 2s8p setup.

----------------------------------------
Sounds like a fun project!

Im gonna try make up a diagram with as much detail as possible, as i agree this is the best way to describe what i want...wether its possible is another matter I can then come back with replies, rather steep learning curve for me ....

 

[dali1972]

dali1972

Took a while to get all the info ... but here goes.





This is the schematic of the system, minus the BMS






I had thought about the BMS by evtv, or even simpBMS and batrium, but in the end i went with Bpath energy's BMS

In the meantime, ive also designed a simple solar panel mount, made from scaffold tubing, and off the shelf clamps. This simple design gives me a chance to alter the tilt of the panels for each of the seasons. I can try and make it look better, or send via pdf if anyone else wants it.





This schematic above is my plan...hope it explains what im trying to do, now i guess its down to you clever people to pick it apart and give your advice on improving it, making it better.
Many thanks John

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

Nice drawings - I think you'll find they help you organize / check off your work.

- PBPath (Tesla) Battery Module Controller - looks very cool / professional /plug-play. Look forward to hearing how it works for you but it looks fantastic / full featured and fully expandable.
- Solar Array - Adjustable tochange the panel angles the the year... nice....you just need to motorize it . Mine are fixed at 25deg and 22deg respectively as I'ma bit worried if I stood it up at a 45deg angle for winterthe neighbors would come down on me as its too visible... AND because I'm just to lazy to change it thru the year
- Didn't see any surge protectors - you might consider one at each combiner box if you haven't already.

Looks like you're on your way big time - congratulations - look forward to some pics / progress updates !

 

[dali1972]

Nice drawings - I think you'll find they help you organize / check off your work.

- PBPath (Tesla) Battery Module Controller - looks very cool / professional /plug-play. Look forward to hearing how it works for you but it looks fantastic / full featured and fully expandable.
- Solar Array - Adjustable tochange the panel angles the the year... nice....you just need to motorize it . Mine are fixed at 25deg and 22deg respectively as I'ma bit worried if I stood it up at a 45deg angle for winterthe neighbors would come down on me as its too visible... AND because I'm just to lazy to change it thru the year
- Didn't see any surge protectors - you might consider one at each combiner box if you haven't already.

Looks like you're on your way big time - congratulations - look forward to some pics / progress updates !

Thanks...im starting to get excited ...by all the hard work ahead !!!

The schematic of all the Victron stuff was by the people who sold the equipment to me, so big praise to them, they have been great, and allowed me to post the pic. It was a small additional charge, which i decided to go with, as i knew it would save me hours.

The BMS pic is also made by Bpath, and it's very simplistic, but simple works for me. I did do the solar mount one thou !!!!

Ive so far got all the land for the panels all graded/prepared, and have placed weed control over the whole area. I have superweedsthat grow so fast !!!!!! , so want to prevent them from affecting the panels, and minimize the maintenance.

Im sureyou are joking about placing a motor on the mounts ... but i did think about it!!!! (and gave up thinking about it)

Yes the BMS looks great, I have spoken to the guy who owns the company Brend Pieters, Lovely guy, and very knowledgable. I will definitely let you know what i think about it, set up, good/bad points.

Surge protection, i will look into that, thanks.

Im gonna try document it all as best as possible, and hope to post a few youtube vids of it all... if i get time of course. (i just hate the sound of my own voice on videos...which is not good :blush

BR
John

 

[dali1972]

- Didn't see any surge protectors - you might consider one at each combiner box if you haven't already.

Had a look at the specs on the victron

PART -PVC-STRINGCOMBINE-6-MC4
Description
Weatherproof enclosure to combine 6 PV strings. PV
inputs via external MC4 connections , fuses for all
strings and 63 amp output MCB and type 1 surge
arrestor - 480x440mm (WxH). Replacement Fuse =
FUSE-10X38-PV-15A. 250V max solar string voltage

So it looks like it has a 63A MCB and a type1 surge protection already - Its Victron, well built, and designed kit.

---

I think the best first step is to convert the on-demand 10kW water heater to ideally 2 water heater tanks. One always-on tank that is always ready to supply hot water, and a pre-heater tank to dump surplus solar power in.

Your whole equation will change dramatically with the 10kW load gone, no?

Hi ajw22, Its a 10kw shower unit, that sits on the wall and plumbed in, has a cold feed/water supplyonly. This cant be changed to a tank supply. I wish i could change it, but to much work, unfortunately.
BR
John

---

dali1972 its kW and not kWh when you talk about inverters.

> Thanks, still a newbie...fingers get happy typing to much before brain works

Splitting a 3phase unit to use to different places as single phase is not really a recommended way. Note that if you break 1 phase then your loosing all 3. For single phase units its better to buy single phase inverters if you ask me.

> Agreed, But its an old farm, and the supply is 3 phase. In the old days when it was running as a dairy farm, they had the need for the 3 phase for motors. We dont have anything running off 3 phase, so we adopted the system to work for our needs the best we could. When we made up the system, we used a 3 phasedistributionboard, which then feed each of the phases to single phase consumer units. At the time we tried to balance the loads over each of the phases, and it seems to have worked very well for us.
But 100% agree, if we loose one phase, we loose the lot. One of the benefits of the distribution board is that we can shut one phase off, and work on that particular string without affecting the other two.

I would also look at removing the direct heater and add in a smaller tank. I run a 30Liter here. No you cannot shower endlesly but its enough for 2 showers in a row and it only uses 2kW.. Alot cheaper doing that then having a high power unit...

> as mentioned in reply toajw22, Its a 10kw shower unit, that bolts onto the wall, and plumbed in with a cold water supply. It would mean major alteration to a tiled bathroom, thats not reasonably practicle to do.....unfortunately. By the time i had to pop a new shower unit in, buy a new tank, alter the tilling (which i cant buy now!!) it woud probably not save me much, plus its less work this way.

 

[dali1972]

- Solar Array - Adjustable tochange the panel angles the the year... nice....you just need to motorize it . Mine are fixed at 25deg and 22deg respectively as I'ma bit worried if I stood it up at a 45deg angle for winterthe neighbors would come down on me

Hi OffGridInTheCity

My winter setup gives me a 53degrees title angle, but i have some adjustments that i could do..





eg...just dig a little ground away where it touches...

Do you think i will get much more out of the panels... maybe able to get a few more degrees angles... is the extra few degrees gonna make much of a difference do you think?

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

Do you think i will get much more out of the panels... maybe able to get a few more degrees angles... is the extra few degrees gonna make much of a difference do you think?

Tilt will definitely allow you to better optimize incoming power. Here's a serious looking Google search page that discusses it to give a perspective-https://www.solarpaneltilt.com/#:~:text=Books%20and%20articles%20on%20solar,this%20%2D%20about%204%25%20better.

 

[507PowerWall]

>...but swapping the 15kwh inverter to a 5kwh
Scratching my head a bit with this statement. Maybe you could explain what you're thinking here? - and might help get better overall comments.
Specifically - it seems like if youneed a 15kwinverter - then how would a5kw be OK? Maybe you're thinking 3 x 5kw inverters to get 15kw?In my experience (I run dual AIMS 12kw inverters) if you can afford it, there are some significantpros to having 1 inverter instead of multiple smaller ones.

BMS - do you plan to parallel the Tesla units for balance/monitor or monitor each unit separately? I use Batrium WM4 with 84 packs (6 x 14s)and I can attest that it works well. Depending on how you hook things up - you might find it useful to see/manage into each Tesla unit independently andBatriumwould help facilitate that. I think they are 12s and you have X units... say 8. Batrium is well suited to monitor 8 x 12 = 96 'packs'. I do agree that hookup is some work - but i don't see how you can avoid that no matter what you do

Damnnnn
84 Packs

Im still harvesting my first pack

 

[dali1972]

A little help needed, please.



Anyone know what torque setting i should use on the battery terminals.

 

[Korishan]

I think 10 - 20 foot pounds is pretty common for those.

 

[dali1972]

I think 10 - 20 foot pounds is pretty common for those.

Thanks - all bolts now torqued up to 10-foot pounds. They were as expected of varying torque.

Wonder if i get an infrared thermometer, and check it all out after switching it on. or is that going too far?

 

[floydR]

Peace of mind knowing the battery is connected well, I say go for it. Can't hurt i would check it once when you turn it on then when you have a heavy load on it, then rest easy if all is well.

Later floyd