Newbie - First DIY Build

Hi all,

So I am very keen to kick off my own DIY battery build for my house & have done a little bit of research, but was hoping that the community here might be able to steer me in the right direction.

I currently have a large solar array on my house which consists of: 48 solar panels configured as 7.2KW and 6.6KW feeding into 2x Fronius Symo inverters (8.2KW and 6KW respectively) with the 8.2 Symo being the primary inverter. I also have the fronius smart meter installed.

So with that in mind I don't know where to start. How much of an undertaking is it? Will I need a second inverteror would a charge controller be all that is required? (just trying to understand scope / costs).

Would love some high level advice or reading material if possible. Just starting my journey so it's is all very new to me though I am "ok" with electrical work.

Thanks,
Matt

Whats your goal first of all? To be off-grid? To just supplement the load during the night?

To supplement the load during nigh the easiest way is to buy a prebuilt unit that do that.

To build an off-grid system or hybrid that utilizes grid-tie with battery you will need to swap out gear yes. Your current setup is grid-tie only.
You can of course add a ac-battery charger and only charge on surplus and then use inverter during the night to feed but the losses doing so are high and you will not save any money im afraid.

So please tell us a bit more of your actual goal

Goal is eventually to 100% self sufficient (currently 50-60%). I am not necessarily looking to be 100% off grid but my goal is just to not buy any (or at least reduce my purchasing of power to 20% of what it is now). I imagine that at first I will start small (maybe 1kWh) then slowly ramp up. End goal would be 20kWh of storage.

Given the size of my system when it is sunny I have more than enough to power my house with lots to spare, however when it is raining or dark all that power I generated the day before is already sold, where I would prefer to be using it - rather than buying it back at a premium.

Drivers are environmental (all our power is coal powered), hobbyist (I love projects like this) & monetary.

You might find my system interesting. It's all add-on without changing any previously installed house wiring / solar inverters. Kicks in only when drawing power from the grid, reducing the draw to just a few dozen Watts.
Easiest to install if you can put up more PV panels... otherwise you'll have to rewire some of the current panels to <150V DC. Or you could use a AC->DC charger and switch it on/off with a microcontroller (eg. raspberri pi & IotaWatt) to charge with surplus power.

Whatever you do, certification and insurance will be an issue, so put it someplace where it can't do much damage.

My system is off-grid and works thru ATSs in cooperation with the grid. I'm 3 yrs in and have achieved a 12.8kw PV array (45 x 285w panels) + 80kwh 18650 battery bank + 2 x 12,000W AIMS inverters. Here's the link to my 'build' page with pictures -https://secondlifestorage.com/showthread.php?tid=8514

As @Daromer's asks - what's the plan? It looks like your grid-tie - do you plan to add a battery and go hybrid or off-grid? Building a DIY battery bank has been the largest effort of the overall system for me.