ES

ES-Hybrid family

This product family is designed for 7-40 kWp. The installation is more challenging and you have to deal with high voltages because panels are connected in series and the battery also operates at a high voltage. It requires a professional electrician at least for the installation of energy meters and fuses, for final inspection and grid connection.

All panels should have free access to sunlight. You can have two groups of panels (“strings”) facing into different directions.

The overall system efficiency including energy storage is around 95%. This product family always comes with a modern battery. You can integrate used panels if they are all of the same type. Energy feeding into the grid can be controlled. Off-grid functionality is an integral part of the ES-Hybrid family.

Your ES-Hybrid devices will come preconfigured so that they work out of the box. If you do not object, we will occasionally have a look at the production data of your system. With your permisssion we would also like to publish your production data in anonymized form on our website. In case we see any problems or if firmware updates are necessary we may be able to help you. Of course you have admin access to your system and can monitor all data via browser or via an app on your mobile device. Monitoring is related to strings, not to individual panels.

ES-Hybrid is based on Growatt products. For example, an ES-Hybrid-10-15 system consists of the following components:

  • 2 strings of solar panels (14 kWp in total)
  • MOD-10KTL3-XH BP inverter
  • SYN50 XH 30 backup box
  • Shine RF Stick and LAN Box
  • Smart Meter TMP-CT-E or classic energy meter TPM-C
  • APX battery stand
  • APX BMS
  • 3 APX battery modules (5 kWh each)

The first number “10” is the rated power limit of the inverter in kW, the second number “15” is the real usable battery capacity. Typically you will connect panels with a significantly larger peak power sum to get the most out of your inverter. In the example above: 14kWp. An inverter rated at 10kW can handle excessive power as this usually only occurs during short periods of the day (if at all). The batteries of ES-Hybrid can be discharged to zero, which means that their nominal capacity is fully usable.

Terms and Definitions

At the top of the hierarchy is the USER, who can own one or more PLANTS, which consist of DEVICES. In our case by default the USER NAME is identical with the first PLANT belonging to that user.

INVERTERS are SOLAR DEVICES and ENERGY METERS are METERING DEVICES, wheras the BATTERY is seen as a part of an INVERTER. A Plant can have one or more DATA LOGGERS. In our case a DATA LOGGER is a Shine LAN Box, which may connect to several RF_STICKS which are part of the INVERTERS.

The general structure is like this:

easy-solar.eu
     user_A                         USER
          plant_B                      PLANT
              device_C                     DEV:INVERTER
                  bat_C                        BATTERY
                  stick_C                      RF_STICK
              device_D                     DEV:INVERTER
                  stick_D                      RF_STICK
              logger_E (->C1,D1)           LOG:LAN_BOX
          plant_F                       PLANT
              device_G                     DEV:INVERTER
                  bat_G                        BATTERY
              stick_G                          RF_STICK
              logger_H (->G1)              LOG:LAN_BOX
              meter_I                      DEV:ENERGY_METER
     user_J                         USER
          ...                          ...

Because many users will have only one plant with one inverter we take the ID of the inverter and use it also as the name of the (first) plant and as the name of the user.

The operating mode

The idea is to use as much as possible of the harvested solar energy ourselves. This is mainly due to the fact that the revenue for1 kWh we feed into the net will typically be much less than what we have to pay for 1 kWh which we import from the grid.

Apart from protection against grid failure this price difference is the main justification to have a battery. Its size should be sufficient to satisfy the energy consumption of our building during non-sunlight hours for at least nine months. We are talking about nine months only because in winter there will not be enough energy to store. The battery will stay asleep for longer periods in that season – although there may be some wonderful sunny days in winter where the battery will be fully charged over day and discharged over night.
So “store for later use” is more or less identical with “store for using overnight”.

However, there are some countries which apply a “net metering principle” to their grid customers. In that case the only purpose of a battery is protection against grid fault and battery size should be chosen according to the expected duration of off-grid periods.

Wiring diagram

The following diagram shows the connections between the components.

Please study the diagram carefully. The DC cables from the panels are one or two pairs of red/black cable. The DC cables fro the inverter to the battery are red, blue and neutral. The AC cables are all 5 wires (3 phases, neutral and protectice earth). The blue lines are control cables using RS485 protocol (24V DC). Except the one that connects the Datalogger to the inverter (which is USB). The upper right part of the diagram is somewhat simplified. In reality you will find there also the Growatt LAN box connected via etherent cable to your internet router.

The following diagram is essentially the same but a little bit more technical. Your electrician will underdstand it.

State Changes of an ES-Hybrid System

There are several factors which influence the state and behavior of an ES-Hybrid system.

  • Whether there is sunlight or not
  • Whether the power grid is available or not
  • Whether the battery is charged or not
  • Whether the loads need more current than the solar panels can deliver
  • Whether the loads need more current than the battery can deliver
  • Whether the loads need more current than panels and battery can deliver together
  • Whether the battery can take more power for charging than the difference of solar power and load demands
  • How much grid feeding is allowed
  • .. and others …

The basic strategy is to use solar power whenever possible and use it according to three priorities: (1) fulfill load demand, (2) charge battery, (3) feed surplus into grid.

Events like grid failure and grid return change the state of the system. The following diagram gives an idea of what can happen:

Installation

Inverter and Meter:

Backup box:

Battery: