Solar City Hybrid Inverter Hacks ?

[peakbagger]

I picked up a Solar City branded inverter for spare grid tie inverter for my two inverters. Its made by Delta. This was designed to interface with a Powerwall High voltage DC inverter.and was designed as a hybrid inverter that could supply and an off grid critical load panel. It also was set up to optionally dispatch power to the grid from the battery if controlled externally from Tesla. Tesla had gone away from high voltage Powerwall's and this inverter is not compatible with Powerwall 2 so the hybrid functions are basically orphan.

I do not particularly need the hybrid functions but I am curious if anyone else has messed with the extra capability. I saw one post on a Tesla forum that someone hooked panels to the input without being connected to the grid and it started supplying the critical load panel but went into error mode when it had a load imbalance without a battery connected. My utility does not have any programs for battery dispatch and expect that dispatching the battery is not going to happen but getting it to run in hybrid mode would be plus for many.

So has anyone thought of what battery may plug in now that Tesla has pulled out of high voltage DC batteries.

[Ampster]

I picked up a Solar City branded inverter for spare grid tie inverter for my two inverters. Its made by Delta. This was designed to interface with a Powerwall High voltage DC inverter.................

So has anyone thought of what battery may plug in now that Tesla has pulled out of high voltage DC batteries.

I believe LG Chem has a high voltage battery that works with a DC coupled SolarEdge StorEdge inverter. Perhaps yours has similar DC inputs but I don't know what the operating range is. The LG Chem uses a DC to DC converter to harvest the high voltage DC coming from the Panels through the DC coupled connection. I think the SolarEdge needs a special interface card to work with the LG Chem. Be careful around that high DC voltage.

[travissand]

the following is how the H6 responds when it's not connected to a communicating hi voltage Tesla powerwall 2.

The h6 puts out 517 volts to the battery if it's sunny when there's no grid present. Despite the manuals claims it will suck the battery dry when the grid is present. It exports all the battery to the Grid at 6000 Watts.

A lot of people think the LG chem will work with it but I've never seen anyone actually try it. let me know if you do and it works. I'd like to Snoop on the communication protocol and learn how to spoof it into behaving properly with an aftermarket battery.

PS do not connect it to a battery without going through a pre-charge resistor first it'll blow the fuses and quite possibly damage the inverter. And if you short its battery output the inverter will kaboom loudly in a smoke show launching parts and Sparks, don't ask me how I know.

[travissand]

And it won't power the critical load panel unless the sun is out. if the sun is shining it'll combined sun power with battery power to power the critical loads.

[peakbagger]

Thanks for the info, the seller of these is now packaging them with used panels for a very inexpensive grid tied system. They also claim to be using them for off grid operation "just give them a call". So $6,000 for a LG Resu to experiment with capability I really dont need, me thinks I will hold off as I lack the interface skills.

[Ampster]

I agree. For $6000 you could buy an Outback Skybox or any other similarly priced hybrid inverter and $2000 worth of LFP batteries with greater capacity than the LG Chem package.

[travissand]

What's the story with Ampster? Does anybody know why he got banned?

[J.P.M.]

What's the story with Ampster? Does anybody know why he got banned?

Fairly obvious to some of us, but opinions vary. Only the mods know for sure.

But since you're asking, and since I fit the description of anyone, and since this is a place to express opinions:

- A lot of what informed folks know to be unsubstantiated opinion, Ampster treated/pronounced to be more like reality than hearsay.
- A lot of less accurate, less or non defensible information that could be backed up with reality.
- More argumentation than constructive debate.
-Too much of a loose cannon. He mouthed off a lot about stuff out of his knowledge depth. A lot of it was inaccurate and ignorant. Some of it was dangerous
- At least one of the mods and I'd bet more than a couple of members got tired of the petulant behavior, especially when trying to pick up/clean up his spoor and met with only more mouth and more circular argumentation for the effort.

According to what he wrote, you can find him on other forums.

The removal of individuals exhibiting too much of such behavior that be dangerous or at least costly, particularly to the less informed coming here looking for information and straight talk, helps this forum keep the exchange of information about alternate energy and solar energy in particular safer, better and more accurate.
But, again, opinions vary.

Banning someone from this forum is kind of like what some military folks might call a separation for the good of the service.

Take what you want of the above. Scrap the rest.

[Mike90250]

Ampster was banned for unapologetictly repeated bad/wrong/dangerous information. He is unwilling to accept neophytes need safe working practices. He has had some good ideas but runs into dangerous territory quite quickly.

I don't care and expect he will eventually torch his house, but he is not allowed to instruct neophytes in bad practices, they can go to his youtube channel for that.