Update
With the solar system installed and working I have moved onto the battery storage project. My primary goal with the battery storage solution is to allow for storage of excess energy from the solar production and use it during non solar production times. I also wanted to design a system that can also be used for off-grid power production in concert with a generator.
The use of a battery system can provide a significant amount of optimization to a generator off-grid operation. Without batteries a genset has to run 100% of the time that you want an active grid, regardless of actual power usage. This means you often have a generator running at very low load which is often a very inefficient operating zone. The addition of a battery system allows the genset to be ran only as needed to charge the batteries or provide peak power load. For example at night you can often run the entire night without a need for the genset to run.
I considered both the Tesla Powerwalls as well as the EnPhase EnCharge system but only then EnCharge solution supports generator integration. The Tesla batteries are really cool, but they are oriented towards a much less sophisticated setup. Given that I already have Enphase microinverters the use of the compatible Enphase battery system makes for a workable integration.
I am using 4 of the 10.5kWh EnCharge 10 units [a total of 42kWh], the EnCharge Smartswitch, and the IQ Combiner. The integrated into the existing ‘generator’ system I already implemented to provide backup power for those circuits. (which covers the majority of the house). My solar system us a 20kw system using 53 LG panels.
Before the battery install, and after the solar install. You can see the solar connection panel on the left side.
Parts arrive and get unpacked.
. Best of luck and thank you for being so documented with the process, it has been a blast getting to this point over several days.
