Lux ac battery controller

mickyduck55

Stuart787 said:

Out of interest, has anyone had any experience of the Pylon 3.5kWh batteries as opposed to the seemingly more common 2.4kWh units?  Are the 3.5s newer?  Better value?  

Yes I have 3 as @EVandPV commented, my son also has 3.  So far we have had no issues so no idea if they are better or worse.  I did read somewhere that the DoD was not as good as the 2.4 but TBH with my Solar and Go Faster I very rarely get down to 10%.  @EVandPV checked mine recently and said they seem to be doing OK
I have the 3.5 because that is what was quoted.. I had no idea at the time that that was not a very common option

Stuart787

Brilliant, thank you both for the replies.  I'll factor that into my figures!  Going deep on my spreadsheet now!!

philologus

Questions questions....

I'm on the north east coast and in a Storm Arwen RED zone so could face power disruption.

This made me wonder if I would need to do anything different in order to use whatever the panels are generating and whatever is stored in the batteries if the Power Company turned our supply off in order to work on the problems.

If my batteries were fully charged and home use covered, anything extra the panels produced would be sent to the grid and could endanger anyone working on that cable.

Or am I overthinking?

QrizB

philologus said:

Questions questions....

I'm on the north east coast and in a Storm Arwen RED zone so could face power disruption.

This made me wonder if I would need to do anything different in order to use whatever the panels are generating and whatever is stored in the batteries if the Power Company turned our supply off in order to work on the problems.

If my batteries were fully charged and home use covered, anything extra the panels produced would be sent to the grid and could endanger anyone working on that cable.

Or am I overthinking?

Your inverter(s) will shut down if the grid fails. It's one of the requirements for certification.

If your storage inverter has a UPS / EPS output or similar, that will remain live and provide emergency power but isolated from the grid.

newbuilder

My understanding is that to use the EPS you need to create a new circuit in the house so that it has its own distribution board with the essential lights etc on it. The EPS would not handle a full house of electrics from the battery. Also if enabling the EPS you have to remember that the inverter will reserve this at all times. So you will not get full use of the batteries.

QrizB

newbuilder said:

My understanding is that to use the EPS you need to create a new circuit in the house so that it has its own distribution board with the essential lights etc on it.

Also if enabling the EPS you have to remember that the inverter will reserve this at all times. So you will not get full use of the batteries.

Surely all you need for a minimal system is a single EPS-supported socket on the wall that you can plug into?

Mine isn't a Lux but I get to set the EPS DoD separately; the system won't automaticcally reserve battery power for the EPS if I don't ask it to.

newbuilder

You would still need to protect the circuit with a breaker and DB. The breaker would need to ensure that it was EPS rated rather than say a Fridge or washing machine going into it. Again that is not good practice as I assume you would then want to increase with extension cables. 

EVandPV

QrizB said:

newbuilder said:

My understanding is that to use the EPS you need to create a new circuit in the house so that it has its own distribution board with the essential lights etc on it.

Also if enabling the EPS you have to remember that the inverter will reserve this at all times. So you will not get full use of the batteries.

Surely all you need for a minimal system is a single EPS-supported socket on the wall that you can plug into?

Mine isn't a Lux but I get to set the EPS DoD separately; the system won't automaticcally reserve battery power for the EPS if I don't ask it to.

That's exactly what we have with our Lux, a socket wired to the Lux EPS connection that we can plug into in the event of a power cut.
It's limited to 3.6kw but can use power from the batteries down to 10% DOD.

Solarchaser

We haven't had a power cut in around 15 years, and that has made me so lazy as to not wire up the eps on my lux's. 

I've always thought I'd get a 3 way isolator similar to this :-
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heschen-Universal-Selector-Changeover-Terminals/dp/B07L8SJXGV/ref=asc_df_B07L8SJXGV/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=232000808334&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17105415922189907613&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007336&hvtargid=pla-710268559801&psc:-1:

And switch off incoming mains at the 100a trip, and rotate the switch to cut off incoming mains to the inverters and essentially run as off grid until the grid is back up.
The advantage being that if the sun was up, solar should still work due to the eps.

However due to lack of power cuts I've never motivated myself past the idea to test the theory.... maybe next year

newbuilder

With 36 hours of power cut I wish I had been more motivated.