Offline Capabilities and general review

[prebu]

Hey together,

i am planning a PV setup for my garden. Theres a building with a 66° roof, faced to south - so in general, perfect conditions.

I want to put 5 panels in a row (Solyco 500Wp R-BG 108h.5) and connect them to a FoxESS H3-6.0-Smart Inverter with a FoxESS EK6 Plus Battery. The 6.0 inverter is necessary, as i need 2kW output per phase for making warm water in the kitchen. I have a 24/7 load of ~60W and like i said, sometimes peaks for e.g. heating water or in winter the heater, that prevents freezing of the water pipes. 3 phase power connection is there and i also distributed all fuses/power circles across those 3 phases.

So my first question is: What do you think in general about this setup?

The second question, which is maybe also more important: I do not have internet in my garden. A local wifi for inter-communication of devices shouldn't be a problem, but connection to any cloud services is not possible.
I know, that i cannot use the App, Cloud Services, whatever of the FoxESS products under that condition, but are FoxESS products in general able to work under such conditions? E.g. with a local web interface or something?

And: How does the Inverter know, how much power it should release? Is there any "magic"? Or is there something like an local API? I can get all relevant data via ModBus from the electricity meter (ABB) with an Raspberry Pi and could feed a local API, if thats possible in any way... maybe somebody can tell me, how the mentioned Inverter works.

Thanks so far and best regards

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Do you have existing Solar setup on your main house?

Not sure of where you are, but there are Solar Water heater panels that could do all of this minus the electrical fuss, apart from wiring in a pump to circulate the hot water into a storage cylinder?


Without WiFi, you could if needed to do the initial setup via a phone hotspot. Once the system is programmed it will keep working, odds are you just set it to "Self-use" work mode and walk away.

The next issue you face refers to your question about how does it know how to release the energy, that is where the CT Clamp(s) comes in. You need to have this wired back to the water heater, so it can feel the flow of energy and produce power to feed that circuit.


I am sure to have missed plenty of things there, but this is a "rabbit hole" type of question that leads to many more questions/problems.

[prebu]

this is a "rabbit hole" type of question that leads to many more questions/problems

Thanks for your response.
Well, yes, thats why i came here and asked for some opinions and experience.

Do you have existing Solar setup on your main house?

My bad, i provided not enough details: There is no main house, the garden is more like a holiday garden with a small house on it, far away from my normal house. We have 3 phase electricity there, but its quite expensive due to the location etc., which is why i want to cover most parts of my electricity usage with my own electricity.

For warm water: We're only talking about a 5 liter boiler which is located below the sink in the kitchen. Not big at all, but it wants its 2kW of power - not permanently, but "peaky". Its not a big water circle at all or something, that you would expect from a normal house. Theres also no shower, heaters or anything similar that needs hot water. Only for cleaning hands and a few dishes.

But thats only one consumer, theres also the fridge, some lights, typical garden devices, charging phones and laptops, etc. - thats why i wanted a setup that can put the power to all of the 3 phases.

But if i got you correctly, i put the mentioned CT clamps around the main power line coming in (e.g. directly after the electricity meter) and the inverter gets its required information from the measurements of the clamps? Are these clamps directly wired to the inverter or how are they communicating with the inverter?

Without WiFi, you could if needed to do the initial setup via a phone hotspot. Once the system is programmed it will keep working, odds are you just set it to "Self-use" work mode and walk away.

Well that sounds not so bad at all, but is there any option to do some local configuration (e.g. via a local web interface), or is configuration only possible via internet and cloud? As i said, a local wifi is absolutely no problem, only an internet connection of that WiFi is not possible.

[MaterialBarracuda48]

So you have a small location with 3-phase supply/meter and distribution board there.

You would in theory put the CT Clamps around the phases coming from your meter, they run back to the Inverter hardwired in.

As mentioned you could hotspot a wifi connection from your phone from time to time if you did need to adjust things, and yes a local modbus connection can be setup to make some changes also.


Another possibility exists, one that could save long term money.
Disconnect from the grid, and have a large power bank setup.
One of these for example can output 3.84kW and can be hooked up to solar to charge it.
https://bluettipower.co.uk/products/ape ... 2397360509

There are many such systems, above is just an example, with enough solar it could run for an extended time as your base load is quite low.