- This is a SunSynk 3.6 kilowatt hybrid inverter,
something I previously described
as the Swiss Army Knife of solar inverters.
Because it is so much more than an inverter
it is the heart of the prosumer installation
or the way we'll probably all
be using energy in the future.
It is a home energy management system.
Now, this is the first time we've delved
into this topic on the eFIXX channel in any depth.
And we want your input because as we all always know
the best way to get the right answer
is sometimes to put the wrong answer out on YouTube,
on LinkedIn or any social media platform.
So please feed in your comments with this.
We've done quite an amount of extensive reshape.
We've bought all the books,
we've bought the, yeah, all the expensive manuals,
obviously cross referenced them back to the regulations.
The manufacturer's instructions,
the Code of Practice, all those expensive books
that you'll probably need to get
if you want to be in this market.
So at our expense, hopefully you can get some learning.
So in this video, we're gonna step through
the various system components we have here,
starting with this Sun Synk inverter.
Now this unit is referred to as a hybrid inverter
which is different to that traditional solar inverter
that has one job to take the energy
generated by solar panels
and convert that back into AC
and either use it in the property
or export it back to the grid.
A hybrid inverter, you can add a battery to it,
so that excess energy can be diverted to the battery
and then you can either choose to use that
when you're back at home and your power consumption's higher
or even export it to the grid.
But it also has another function,
so ignore the solar panels for a while.
You could just have this as a battery itself
and buy in cheap energy at the off-peak times,
and as we know, tariffs are all variable now.
Charge the battery
and then use that energy when grid energy is expensive,
so during peak hours, so imagine you're buying in energy
for, you know, a few pence during the evening
or when it's very windy and then reusing that energy
instead of buying in expensive energy
that can be, you know, 40, 50 pence a kilowatt hour
depending on tariffs.
And this box manages that process,
that's not something you have to worry about.
You can set it up when to import or export energy
or when to take solar energy from your panels.
Now first, it seems like there's enormous amounts of cables
and connections underneath these inverters
but they are really quite simple.
But if you've looked at those examples
on Instagram that are highly polished,
all of this is covered up
so you can't really see what's going on.
Or perhaps it should be covered up
depending on where it's installed.
I wouldn't suggest you want this in your home
where making your house look like a factory.
So we're gonna step through exactly the power floor,
starting with this end here.
So we've got an isolator back to our main's supply
and next to that a meter that's required
as part of the standards often to fit this
that measures the import or the export
from the system setup.
Of course, we're always,
if we're importing through this meter,
it means we're bringing in power from the grid
to charge the battery.
And if we're exporting,
we're either taking power back out of that battery
either to use in the home or sell back to the grid.
And of course, obviously exporting excess solar power
when we need to use it without charging the battery.
So, lots of different modes of operation.
From there, we'll also see this little thin wire here,
again, we've deliberately left out,
this goes to a current transformer
and we look at that a little bit later,
that's back at our meter end.
And then, so that's into there.
And then from here there's two wires here
that come down from the solar panels.
So these are high voltage DC
and again, there's lots of regulations
about how you should run those and label 'em.
So you've got some labels on there.
This goes through an isolator here,
so this is a special DC isolator.
So although it looks similar to the AC isolator
it has got characteristics to deal with DC,
so higher voltage.
And in this system the maximum limit is 450 volts DC
and DC current tends to be more difficult to interrupt
so that's been specially constructed to deal with that.
You can buy isolators with a black front,
doesn't necessarily mean it's a DC isolator.
Interesting question on DC isolators,
can you actually emit this
because the inverter itself has an isolator on the side,
it is compliant to the relevant standards
and then underneath two MC4 connectors.
So in theory you could disconnect this
so that the inverter's not taking any load
and then unplug the MC4 connectors underneath.
And we've certainly seen some examples out there
that don't have this isolator at the end.
And you think a lot of the slim line systems that are coming
where you have an inverter
and a battery integrated underneath,
so perhaps designed to go in the house or the hallway,
would you again want an industrial looking isolator
by the side of the unit?
So question for you there.
So this is the battery itself.
This is a five kilowatt system,
you can add additional batteries to it
so you can have more power storage
but in this inverter you can only discharge at 3.6 kilowatts
so that's an hour and a bit if you were
running everything full pelt across your house.
One thing you can't emit from the system,
we have seen people do this
is an overload device and isolator for the battery itself,
so that's specified in the IT Code of Practice.
And because we've integrated, obviously,
using the isolator and circuit breaker in one
as an over current device,
we think that it should be in a metal enclosure
to comply with BS76, 701.
Sometimes you don't see that.
Another thing to get your thoughts on,
the terminals themselves, we've seen lots of examples
and we made this mistake ourselves
when we did the first installation,
we had the battery upside down
with the terminals facing the top
but actually they need to be installed
with the terminals facing down to comply
with the Code of Practice,
that the surface is just like
if you're installing containment
should be IP4X-rated on the top surface,
and obviously there's no way you'd get that
with these connections here.
The battery itself,
so it's not just a regular battery system
it has communication back to the hybrid inverter
through this data bus here,
which is using a CAN bus system
and if you had multiple batteries,
you'd need to carry that on.
And that relays information about
the state of charge of the battery,
temperature and other parameters
that are important when you're dealing
with this level of power.
So I would say cabling there,
yes, very thick and chunky 'cause very high current.
Obviously you need to pay careful attention
to those terminations just because there are
what's seen as a extra lower voltage that do need respect.
And of course, all this equipment
is controlled by the inverter itself
and you can access lots of data via the touchscreen.
And I can report at the minute
we're generating an incredible 48 watts of power
from our solar panels in the car park.
And of course, if you hear in the background
it's raining, it's not the best day in the world
or the best time of year to start a series on solar power
but hopefully things will improve as we go through this.
And obviously, if we want to track performance over time,
then you probably don't wanna revisit this panel every day
to see how it's performing.
As with everything, you can get all this data
through an app and obviously everything is recorded.
That's just underneath, there's a little wifi dongle here
that allows this system to become smart-enabled,
and there's even an ethernet port
if you want a hardwired connection to that.
Now, other thing, when we look at here,
we'll see the all important protective conductor.
One thing we haven't connected to this system yet
is the fourth function.
And that is this system can operate in a standalone mode,
sometimes referred to as Island mode.
So say you've had a power cut
and you still want to use power from the battery,
to power critical appliances inside your property
you can do that with this system.
Now we're gonna look at that in a separate video
because it gets a little bit complicated
when discussing basically how you protect that system
in the event of a fault,
and we're gonna look at that in a little bit more detail.
So this is our complete home energy system.
Now we could change the arrangements,
we've done this so we can see it all in the camera
and we don't have to crouch down all the time.
There's one system component missing to make this work
and that's the current transformer
that's at the end of this wire.
One of the challenges installing a home energy system
like the one we have here
is you need to have a current transformer
around the incoming supply of the property
so you can tell how much energy's
being used by the home itself
and then obviously you can make a decision
whether to import or export energy.
So this current transformer clips around the tail,
so where we've got a single phase setup,
although, we've connected it to our three phase supply,
so it probably looks a little bit more complicated
than it would do in the average home.
And to get that additional pair of cables back here
for the current transformer,
we've used an EV-Ultra cable that combines
both the power and the data.
So originally developed for EV
but we think it's got great applications in this.
And of course, we have yet another isolator,
it is important because we have multiple sources of power
within this property that you're able to isolate them
should you need to do any work on this distribution board,
so that's what this isolator heres for.
And that final vital component in our system
is the solar panels themselves.
And now we've built a little demo installation here,
this is not intended to be permanent,
before you get in the comments about the cabling
and obviously the location of the panels,
but we've done this so we can demonstrate
what happens under different scenarios.
So we'll hear lots of talk about shading,
obviously the angle of the panel
in relation to the solar
and obviously we're in the far north here,
we'll be quite interested to see what happens there.
Another vital component on any solar system
are the connections.
Now there's only one type of connection
in major use on these and it's an MC4 connector.
If you're new to solar installation,
this is something you're gonna have to get right,
and we've found out a lot of things
that you really should know
and you'll find the answer to that in this video here.