Getting into an off grid system, LiFePo4 sourcing question

[308AndyJ]

I'm a complete amature with all things solar at this stage, but I have the desire to get into a decent sized system which can scale with my needs as I grow.

I am eye balling one of the All in One systems from Growatt or mpp (or heck even Renogy has one on the market now). I want to go with either a 24 or 48v system and I recall someone here having an industry connection with Lishen cells from a chinese source (it's been at least a couple months since I did my research}.

Can anyone point me to who that was?

Also I've heard good thing about EVE (also with a highly recommended Ali source I've seen mentioned a few times in the past) but the Lishen seem to be a bit cheaper for similar performance unless that has changed since I last visited this topic. Before I really pull the trigger on Lishen are there any others I need to consider?

I have researched various topics quite a few times but ultimately never jumped in, I'm now ready to make that jump and start getting hands on. Thank you all for the wealth of info on these forums

[organic farmer]

... I have the desire to get into a decent sized system which can scale with my needs as I grow.

You get one chance to scale your system in an appropriate manner.

One chance.

After that you will be locked in to that size system.

[bcroe]

Your first step should be a careful survey of your electric energy needs,
peak during the day or the night, accumulated energy (KWH) over a
day, month, or year depending on usage variation. These highly
constraining figures should in turn inspire you to look to minimizing
any inefficiencies.

These figures in hand will allow consideration of your source capabilities.
Balancing your energy budget off grid may turn out to be a lot more
difficult than anticipated. good luck, Bruce Roe

[Ampster]

You get one chance to scale your system in an appropriate manner.
...........
After that you will be locked in to that size system.

That is certainly true in terms of the choice about Inverter voltage. You will find much larger capacity and more choices if you go with a 48 volt system. Some of those inverters can be paralleled so if you start out with a 5kw inverter and later find out you want 10kW you can by another 5kW inverter and run them in parallel.
The concept of size is still true with Pb batteries but since 308AndyJ seems to be considering LFP batteries such as EVE or Lishen.he will find they are much more forgiving in terms of later being paralleled to increase capacity. I am a good example. I originally purchase 16 EVE LF280 after finding a link here to a resource where many posters had made successful purchases. After the cells arrived I tested them and bought another 16 to double my pack because I wanted to more actively run my system in self consumption mode. I have since purchased another 16 cells but not yet integrated them. In the end I will have a 3P16S system of 42kWh using one BMS. There are arguments to doing three 16S packs using three BMS but I have no need for that kind of redundancy.

I also agree with bcroe that the best place to start is with an energy site. There is another forum where you can find resources for such an audit or you can do it yourself. Try Googling "Energy Audit Snoobler" . Snoobler is the handle of one of the mods that has a good link to one format for doing an energy audit.

[Ampster]

........I recall someone here having an industry connection with Lishen cells from a chinese source (it's been at least a couple months since I did my research}.

Can anyone point me to who that was?
....

That could have been me or a poster in March of 2020 that referred my to that resource. . I think there is an informal policy here to discourage links to other resources but earlier I gave you a clue. I use the same handle on other forums.

[308AndyJ]

Your first step should be a careful survey of your electric energy needs,
peak during the day or the night, accumulated energy (KWH) over a
day, month, or year depending on usage variation. These highly
constraining figures should in turn inspire you to look fo minimizing
any inefficiencies.

These figures in hand will allow consideration of your source capabilities.
Balancing your energy budget off grid may turn out to be a lot more
difficult than anticipated. good luck, Bruce Roe

I'll fill people in on my energy usage since you've brought that up and it's a very important consideration.

My situation is very difficult in some regards, and very easy in others. What makes it difficult is I am currently out of town away from home between 3 and 6 days a week due to work, so looking at my energy usage any given week, or month, or maybe even quarter will never give me a clear view as to my average usage on a daily, weekly, monthly etc.

Somethings which make it easy are: I'm a single guy without children so I don't have others relying on my ability to create a problem free, seamless system with a guarantee of flawless performance. I have a wide berth of "forgiveness" if something goes wonky or my math is grossly wrong, etc.

In the next 2 years I will be moving to an off grid location location where I hope to be fluent enough with solar to accommodate my needs by that time. What I buy today I hope to take with me when I move off grid, which is why scalability is important. I don't want to buy a system which cannot be altered and scaled, but quite frankly I don't want to wait until after the move to be starting from scratch trying to get this off the ground. What I envision in my head is getting the all-in-one system with a small amount of batteries in the coming weeks for my immediate needs, and then doing as another poster recommended (paralleling an additional all-in-one unit and/or additional batteries) in the future as my needs/wants change.

[Ampster]

This might be the thread. I forgot that the conversation began in 2019 and I was initially skeptical.
https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...o4-legit-offer

[Ampster]

.........

In the next 2 years I will be moving to an off grid location location where I hope to be fluent enough with solar to accommodate my needs by that time. What I buy today I hope to take with me when I move off grid, which is why scalability is important. I don't want to buy a system which cannot be altered and scaled, but quite frankly I don't want to wait until after the move to be starting from scratch trying to get this off the ground. What I envision in my head is getting the all-in-one system with a small amount of batteries in the coming weeks for my immediate needs, and then doing as another poster recommended (paralleling an additional all-in-one unit and/or additional batteries) in the future as my needs/wants change.

The two names I mentioned, Skybox and SolArk are All in One units but they were designed to be grid interactive. The Outback Radian is a well regarded off grid inverter.. Schneider and SMA have good products. I don't know the off grid offerings but it seems to me most of them use separate charge controllers which may make them more scalable for your future off grid use.

[308AndyJ]

This might be the thread. I forgot that the conversation began in 2019 and I was initially skeptical.
https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...o4-legit-offer

Awesome, thank you Ampster, I'll catch up on reading the linked thread!