jonescg's home battery storage system

[jonescg]

Called it at 17.2 kWh on the AC side.
If the two lowest cells had a bit more in them it might have pushed out to 18 kWh easy enough. Still, a useful amount of stored energy for a warm night.

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[jonescg]

Some progress to report on my home storage setup.
The patio is up, and after many tears and cuss words, painted.
According to AS5139, the battery must be at least 600 mm away from a window or doorway, so it will sit in front of the old chimberley stack.

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The slab will easily support the B&R enclosure full of AVASS ex-bus cells, and power is taken from below the box. I'm using dual 32 mm conduit for the 48 V DC cables.
DC isolator and shunt trip will be mounted next to the PV isolator.
Also, I made a start on the conduit for the EV charge point. It's going to be supplied with 2C+E at 6 mm2 (32 A max) but I will probably tell the car to draw well less than that most days. The solar might only max out at about 5 kW in the middle of the day anyway.

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[Leonford]

Looking good Chris

[jonescg]

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A little concrete mixing to end the day.

[nuggetgalore]

Slab poured.jpg

A little concrete mixing to end the day.

Well done.
"A hard earned thirst....
you can get it pouring a slab....."
But with that size slab you only earned a stubby, not a slab .

[brendon_m]

I can't see any initials carved in it, where's the diy professionalism?

[jonescg]

I can't see any initials carved in it, where's the diy professionalism?

As I always say whenever I do concreting work - You don't need to see my initials in it to know that my name is written all over the workmanship

[jonescg]

Patio is approaching completion.

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Batons are up, which means the roof is next. I'll have to get the parapet flashing installed first though. Should be a fairly waterproof battery by then!

[T1 Terry]

download/file.php?id=2427
Where did you find the two Junsi loggers? I've been searching for a supplier for over 12mths with zero luck. The factory stopped making them over 2yrs ago and all my usual supply contacts have run out of stock.

T1 Terry

[jonescg]

download/file.php?id=2427
Where did you find the two Junsi loggers? I've been searching for a supplier for over 12mths with zero luck. The factory stopped making them over 2yrs ago and all my usual supply contacts have run out of stock.

T1 Terry

From when I bought them about 4 years ago I have a BC168 balance charger I guard jealously too - can't buy them for love nor money. I bought my first one from @Hyena and the second one from eBay, but the first one eventually failed. I worked it bloody hard though.

[paulvk]

I have boards that could do the job , one has a 12 port 12bit I2C ADC then all that is needed is a micro and sd card
I have an atmel avr showing the current on 11 banks via hall sensors if interested let me know.

[T1 Terry]

Thanks for the offer Paul, but the BMS control boxes we make are designed around the functions of the Junsi cell log and its alarm feature. Looks like I'll be redesigning the whole set up to use a different cell monitor and I'll upgrade it to communicate via Bluetooth to a smart phone. The copy one that is near twice the size doesn't seem to work the same and its reliability leaves a lot to be desired.

T1 Terry

[jonescg]

Patio is up. So now the battery can be kept dry!

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[brendon_m]

That's looking flash

[jonescg]

Bought the GW5048D-ES hybrid inverter - will pick it up next week.

I also bought the GM3000 EzMeter so I can push as much power out as I draw in across all phases. Once I have the bulk of the hardware in place I'll give Brendan a call

[jonescg]

Box is in position now. However I snapped the 8 mm square key trying to close the cabinet. Now I need to find a steel replacement.

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I'll use the old vacuum cleaner and a rag on a string trick to get the cable through (and mop up any water that may have collected in there before I putt he patio roof up).

[jonescg]

The last few pieces of the puzzle.

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[jonescg]

Isolator is in.

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I also installed the bracket for the inverter which called for "10 mm holes in the masonry". So I wail on it and pump 6 holes in the wall, only to find they actually supplied me with 8 mm inserts... So off to Bunnings I go to pick up some Ramset inserts. Just as I park up do the heavens open up! Got totally saturated on the way back, and learned where the silicone hadn't quite done it's job.

Getting there.

[jonescg]

Looking at the GW5048D-ES manual, it looks like the 'backup circuit' needs an AC isolator close to the inverter, likewise the main grid connection. Is it OK to use an RCBO for both of these in a small consumer unit? It would save needlessly complicating the meter box.

Speaking of complicated meter boxes, I'm wondering if a 40 amp RCBO would double as the main circuit breaker and residual current breaker. If allowed, it should mean I can minimise the number of additional RCDs in the meter box.

Finally, which phase should the grid output connect to? The one with the most loads? The one with the least loads? The one that's easiest to reach?

[jonescg]

Meter box is already pretty busy...

[deleted the image as it's a work in progress]

I gather the backup output from the inverter will need its own RCD, and the grid connection output just needs a circuit breaker. The output would wire into the output of the main grid isolator.

Likewise, the charger (being a 3-phase socket) can be supplied with a 32 A, three phase RCBO, saving an additional three spaces on the rail.

I realise all of this will be done by Brendan the sparky, but the more I can understand it the better, and the quicker his job will be if everything is sort of mapped out.

[paulvk]

Meter box is already pretty busy...

[deleted the image as it's a work in progress]

You will find now all circuits are to have their own individual RCBO

[jonescg]

Single line drawing is more or less done. I've been informed the shed can't be connected to the rest of the system due to phase imbalance, so it will remain an off-grid setup.

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I'm also making sure I have room in the consumer unit below the inverter to accommodate two three-pole breakers should I ever decide to change it all over to a three phase, high voltage battery system. Forward planning and all

[jonescg]

Isolator box mounted out the front. More or less done in terms of hardware out here, just have to mount the inverter and wire it up. The battery will go in once I have all the parts required for the BMS.

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I blasted a 25 mm hole through the brickwork so there's room for a couple of 4C+E cables should I ever get greedy and upgrade the system to a three-phase one.

Since added some PV connectors for the inverter. It's going to look pretty ugly with all these cables and stuff, so I might get a nice power-coated sheet metal cover to hide it all once it's done. The Earth wire (total 4 mm2) will ground to the side of the inverter, which is continuous with the PE terminal on the grid output block.

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[jonescg]

So my application with retailer Synergy is in, and now I just need to submit the plans to Western Power. I spoke to one of their solar engineers on the phone and she was enormously helpful (massive contrast to that of Synergy). She said because I'm adding a battery, I can have up to 8 kW of PV with my 5 kW single phase hybrid inverter, however the export limit is still set to 3 kW. It's not a straight through to approval application, so it will need some investigation at all stages of the process, but so far it looks good. She also told me that the shed solar cannot be connected up to the same system as a GTI, but probably could as a second hybrid system on a different phase. But that's all way to complicated so I will just revert the shed array to an offgrid system with a changeover switch. Eventually. No real rush, but I would have preferred to be able to smash as much power into the car as I can when it's sunny.

In other news, I'm now unemployed. Company decided to can the battery R&D project, right as WA is starting to invest heavily in battery manufacturing... Ah well, I'm sure it's for the best. I will need to find some regular salary before December though. Mortgage to pay and all.

Hope to have Brendan and Steve around to do the final hookup early September.

[brendon_m]

In other news, I'm now unemployed. Company decided to can the battery R&D project, right as WA is starting to invest heavily in battery manufacturing... Ah well, I'm sure it's for the best. I will need to find some regular salary before December though. Mortgage to pay and all.

Sorry to hear. Hopefully you will pick something up soon, but on the plus side as you said WA is starting to get its beak wet with batteries (we could be a world leader if the state government would think ahead) so there's probably a few opportunities out there to find in that sort of field.

On the plus side the install is coming along nicely, just in little red tape covered bureaucratic baby steps...