I own a BYD Atto 3 and will be installing an 11kw BYD home battery next week along with a Fronius gen 24 inverter. They, BYD, have been in the battery manufacturing business since 1995. BYD LFP batteries are the safest in the market.
Mate how did you go 1 year on? I have the atto 3 as well, bout to install 16.6 BYD battery on my Fronius gen 24 3ph, keen to know how it's all gone for you!
Thanks Mark. MC Electrical installed my BYD 11kW system earlier this year, and am very happy with it. Enough charge to run the home in the evening. Reduced my bill by over 40% (that's having the battery system for half a billing cycle, as well as already having solar panels)
Well Mark, just so you know, I live in Puerto Rico (middle of the caribbean) and we a prone to hurricanes and just recently we had a 5 day power outage and my baterry and house was power throughout the day by solar and Tesla Battery at night. It recharded everyday each time the sun came out. That being said, during the outage I only used essential loads.
Nice! that’s a great use of the powerwall. You must have a single phase inverter right? If you had a 3 phase inverter, it wouldn’t be able to run in a blackout.
+1 for the BYD and Gen24 setup. Your crew installed mine around 5 months ago, and it's been flawless so far. I've only managed to drain the battery fully several times recently due to heating requirements at night (and deliberately stress testing). The type of stuff I can tweak easily with better home insulation and a basic timer on the (solar) HWS. One thing I do wish Fronius/BYD offered is a basic display panel to mount somewhere obvious in the house. It would be much easier for the average household member to understand rather than needing a phone or laptop. Can you please do an explainer video on partial shading. 😎 It's that time of year when the sun alt is getting low enough to cast a nice palm tree silhouette on my array and I'd love to know how much potential production it's costing me? If not, the neighbours should get a good laugh out of me dragging a mock up Alexandra palm across the roof!
Hi Ross, no need for dragging plants across the roof, I’ve done that multiple times ;). Have a look at this video ua-cam.com/video/TqOw43-hbjc/v-deo.html . If you want to know how much your trees are actually impacting your production, give us a call and ask for Kendall. She’ll be able to work out what your system should be producing month by month (using near map) without and then you can see how much are sitting below that with Fronius monitoring ;)
Thanks, Mark. That video link explained things pretty well. I'll give Kendall a buzz this week. If a 12m Alexandra palm falls in my driveway with only the sound of my electric chainsaw and my Bose noise cancelling earphones in my ears, does it really make a sound? 🤔
Hi Mark. I thought I'd follow up on this for anyone else interested. I also have another question that might be useful for people watching this video. In regards to the shading, without following your advice , I sent my drone up to photograph the shading. A guesstimate had shading at around 30% for a good chunk of the morning at this time of year. After cutting the palm tree down yesterday, the PV array hit 3.91kW at 8am compared to the average of 2.2kw for the last few weeks of clear days. No regrets there. As you'd be aware, the winter weekend just gone by wasn't great for solar in Brissy. The battery struggled to charge during the day due to the low solar output and heating loads, and I ended up being stung with a 4-9pm demand tariff for the rest of the month. $12-15 for one day of use. Is there a way to easily change the backup power reserve? It would've been very handy to raise it to 30-40% during the morning and lower it back to 7% before 4pm. How would the battery/inverter behave if I'd done this? Would it work? Stuffed if I know why Fronius has locked out system admin access.
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Paul, my point was always that it’s not “just” a car company. I never said to value like a tech company fully….but YOU always valued it as just a pure car company comparing it equally to other car companies
Been looking at the Australian BYD car range, am rather surprised BYD don't make it obvious on their car sales website they also do battery solar storage solutions. Would seem like an obvious sales boost to promote get home solar/battery and discounts on their vehicle range and vise versa.
I have a 3phase Fronius 8.2 SnapInverter installed in my home. I like the backup option of the BYD, so I can still have power in my home in extended blackout! Will this work with my old Fronius inverter. The other option is to go with the Powerwall 2 and connected only to one essential circuit and still have power in the home during blackout until it's run out of juice!
Wouldn't the change over time delay with the BYD battery be because of the Fronius inverter switching delay, and not the battery itself? What about using a "better suited" inverter that can change over in milliseconds ie. MPP Solar or Sol-Ark models?
I talked to a sparky recently, and he said the last few Tesla power wall installs were not wired up to go into an island mode with support for high current devices like air conditioners and ovens.
The 5kW in backup. Thats fairly decent. A smaller split system aircon might draw 1 or 2 kW. An oven may be about 2 or 3kW. (its easy to pick the aussie comments ;)
Hi Mark, is there any chance of doing an off-grid situation and discuss prices of an average 240V system with back up generator for a 4 bed house with 2 x fridges, modest aircon, modest cooking, and the usual day to day running of a home (maybe 10kwH?)
@MC Electrical what are your thoughts on the sungrow hybrid inverter and battery combo compared to these 2 options? Particularly for a 3 phase installation.
I live in California and I have Tesla solar and a Powerwall. I had it set up so the the large loads AC, Over/range, cloths dryer are outside the transfer switch so when it switches over the loads won’t drain the battery excessively. I probably won’t move the heavy loads inside the transfer switch until home Na-ion batteries or at least LiFeP solutions are more mature.
Hey Matt, nice set up! We often do essential circuits only, but sometimes there isn’t enough room in the switchboard to segregate them, so it gets a bit expensive and customers prefer just watching their load.
@@mcelectrical I hope so: I just bought a Canadian Solar /TPW3 from Yorick! Looking fwd to it, install end Oct. PS: I own a Mach-E &* absolutely not a Tesla; still the PW3 looks to be a great product.
Thanks for the info. Thanks for an Australian perspective on these subjects too. I'm wondering if you know of any sodium-ion batteries on the horizon for home storage?
BYD are already making Na batteries for their new small car. From what I’ve been reading online, Na batteries from BYD and CATL will be available for home storage from next year
You made a statement about the Powerwall usage during a blackout: the unit doesn't charge when it is in blackout mode. Would you please explain the reason for this limitation. If you had 2 or more Powerwalls, would the other(s) continue to charge during a blackout? BYD option offers better functionality during a blackout but buying a Chinese "anything" is a long-term risk - a gamble rooted in political point scoring between nations. I am looking at buying a Powerwall but that blackout feature is a big negative.
Hi Michael, a Powerwall wont charge from solar when off grid only if you have 3 phase solar inverter. That just because it can’t send a 3 phase signal to the inverter to keep it online. If you have 3 phases at home, you might want to wait for the next version of the Powerwall. It seems the next version may solve that issue!
Question on available power with Ac and Dc coupled systems primarily for single phase western australia home. Hybrid Inverter size is limited to 5kw.. Dc coupled at nightime will be limited to the hybrid inverter size e.g 5kwh irrespective of the battery Max output or battery size. Ac coupled is only limited to the number of batteries so 2 x tesla powerwall 2 at 5kwh each will provide 10kwh of Max power handy if your a power hungry user. Is this correct.
Incorrect. As it was explained to me through Western Power's Engineers, they said if you go for 2 x Tesla powerwalls then the onboard 5kw inverters have to be derated to 2.5Kw each, because you cannot exceed the 5Kw. Dont worry, this peed me off to no end. The reason why, Tesla can give you huge demand, hence, if you have 2 x Tesla's you can run aircons, hotplates etc and not worry about the high current draw....perfect right, not in WA. They are worried about the batteries running out then all of a sudden they have say 10kw of instant draw on the system. Now if thousands of homes were allowed to do this, then they couldn't regulate power output from the power plant to supply demand quickly enough. Now a 3 phase system is different again.
Could you please explain the part about the power wall not able to supply power to a 3 phase inverter? I have fronius gen24 3 phase inverter. My understanding is during a blackout the inverter will still function during the day- to power the pv point and supply power to a byd/ powerwall battery. Are you saying that the ac inverter on the powerwall will not have power to convert the dc battery power to supply the house? Thanks
Hi Daniel, for an inverter to operate, it needs to see an external electricity signal and it will then copy the frequency signal. Usually that signal is grid power. In a blackout it gets the signal from a battery. However the powerwall is only single phase. It doesn’t not have a 3 phase signal to send to the fronius 3 phase inverter. So the inverter will not stay on. You will still have power in a blackout from the battery, but the solar panels will not work, so your battery will not recharge during the day.
How are Fronius coming along with their battery interface changes? I'm assessing these 2 batteries for my upcoming move and ease of interaction is a big deal.
I think Tesla will always be a better user interface. I haven’t had any news recently about the Fronius update - these things always seem to take Longer than anticipated.
Contrary to what you say, I have seen videos where they are able to use the power from the panels, and charge the batteries in the daytime, even if the power is out, using the Tesla Powerwall. I'm confused?
thanks Mark as always. It is my understanding that in backup mode, then Gen24 changes frequency to 53Hz. Which means that other inverters in the system (if any) will switch off. So the maximum system size usable in backup mode is the Gen24 (largest size 10kW) and the PV panels attached to it. And I vaguely remember Fronius writing that the Gen24 is not meant to be run in backup mode for a long time- it's for occasional grid fail events only. Both these things make it seem like it is not quite an armageddon ready solution. So even though you could run it in full backup mode for a week or more at a time, this is not what it's designed for. Is this a fair statement?
Correct, it’s not an off grid inverter, so maybe Armageddon proof is overstating it. Fronius say in their warranty that it can run off grid for something like 10 or 20 percent of its lifetime. But it’s certainly not built so you can disconnect it from the grid permanently.
One thing I am trying to work out is whether I can attach a Powerwall to my Fronius Gen24 Primo inverter, and if you do how many of the Powerwall features do lose or get?
I’m not the right person to ask about SPAN panels. We don’t use them in Australia. They are compatible with Tesla as far as I know, but not sure about BYD/Fronius.
Hello would you recommend the Sungrow hybrid inverter and battery solution to avoid finger pointing and a more harmonious working between the inverter and battery?
Great question. I thought so in the past. It looks like a great solution. But we stopped using Sungrow last year after they started having too many firmware issues, and their support wasn’t good enough. I’ve heard from many installation companies they are still having many issues with Sungrow.
The change over time for when there is a black out has nothing to do with it being a BYD battery. My inverter changes over in milliseconds. Just like the power wall
Can you add more 48 V BYD modules to the stack after a couple of years of use? I've been told that it is not possible since the voltage will be different!?
Byd say with their hvm and hvs batteries that it is fine to add more batteries at anytime. There is a procedure to do this, but it’s fine as far as they are concerned
I might have somehow missed it - but two very important parameters are cost and lifetime. And combined: What will a MWh cycle cost for the consumer - and what will the actual battery capacity be at the most cost efficient use (say i.e. only using the battery in the 10-80% charge range)?
Yeh, I did realise afterwards that I didn’t talk about cycles like I would have in the past. That’s because what is written on paper doesn’t reflect reality. If you are looking at cost and lifetime (on paper) then you wouldn’t buy either product. There are much cheaper batteries on the market. But I’d steer clear of cost cutting on batteries for obvious reasons. In saying that, I still probably could have added warranted lifetime to this review.
@@mcelectrical In any case, I'm thinking batteries should not be in the house but in a "hole in the garden"... And it seems Lithium-Iron (LiFePO4) cells have the longer lifespan (and higher price!). Hopefully, we'll soon see "Vehicle to Grid"/"Vehicle to House" interfaces be common (reputedly the hardware for getting power OUT of the charge connector is in place in all VW EVs since ID3 - but VW have not yet released the needed software for it). This will allow us to use the car for storage (if battery cycle lifetime makes it attractive) and will make it much easier to use scrapped car batteries for "house use": Lowered capacity will not be a problem for use "in a hole in the garden" - the hole just might need to be a bit bigger to accommodate more packs!
HI Mark. When we looked at getting a home battery we were told we’d have to buy an inverter for each powerwall vs the BYD that we could expand with extra modules without having to get any more inverters. For us that was a deal breaker and we went with BYD. I noticed this didn’t come up on your video. Were we given incorrect advice?
With the Tesla Powerwall 3, it blows away the competition. Built in Inverter, 11.5 KW continue output, and a 13.5 KW battery with DC expansion batteries capability which makes it a lot more flexible than the previous versions and BYD. Powerwall 3 does use LPT as well. Quite nice! 🎉
I'm trying to look into a BYD battery. BUt every thing is focussed on the hybrid solar inverter. My solar panels are inverted with micro inverters. So I don't need a solar inverter. I just need a battery charger that can communicate in a different way. Maybe by my home power meter. Maybe by a smart meter that checks the voltage going in or out of my house. But there is so little information about batteries with micro incverters, It's insane...
Sorry to hear that there's a lack of information for you. A BYD wouldn't work with your micro inverter system as it's a DC-coupled battery, but any AC-coupled battery could be retrofitted, like the Tesla Powerwall 2 (while it's still available). Enphase has their own battery as well.
Best way for switch on during blackout is to have 2 lines, one for general load which connected with backup Tesla battery and all others like air cond. and other high load - will be off on second line which is not backuped
Exactly. Your oven should NOT be on a backup circuit. So even if you don't notice that you're off grid with the Tesla, the oven would turn itself off, saving power.
Fronius need to bring out larger hybrid gen24s like Goodwe have. 15kw, 20kw, 25kw, 29.9kw. 10kw gen24 is a little small for some situationa. Id love to replace my 20kw symo snapinverter with a hybrid so i can add DC coupled battery (but I dont want to pay for two gen24s)
Hi Mark - I have a question around the Gen24/BYD combo - I understand its not a true off-grid solution, but will the Gen24 use the BYD battery capacity each night to run the overnight loads and reduce grid consumption, or is it only for blackouts? For me, I don't get value from the Gen24/BYD setup if its only used for blackouts. Whereas the Gen24/Tesla combo would be using the capacity each night and getting better ROI on the battery?
As an french user of fronius and byd : yep u can use the battery for all days as a helper but need a meter to let know the state of use of the home As well for back up u need a another panel with relay to disconnect home from grid ( and basically its for that the delay of back up time to rely to be ok position to cold start the inverter And also The fronius gen 24 as a plug also if no battery attached to have a solar powered plug around 3000W in case of no grid but its limited also by the sun : so only to have emergency use
Thank you for the video, its quite interesting. Is the Fronius the best on the market, if not, what would be a better one (e.g. SMA?). Would in that case the short comings be smaller?
After years of testing various inverters, we've concluded Fronius is the best inverter on the market and it's the only one we install because of their product quality and after sales service. Here's two videos providing comparisions with other inverters including SMA: mce.solar/whyfronius and mce.solar/is-Fronius-better
If I were you I’d get a 4g dongle. You’ll want both the inverter and the battery to have updates over the years and remote trouble shooting. I’m not sure if you need it for warranty, but it is likely that you would.
@@mcelectrical Thanks, the reason I asked is to compare it with the Tesla one. The Tesla couldn’t operate in the past after a certain amount of hours offline.
That was my impression. We've got an SMA inverter with a second one to be added as we increase PV capacity and plans of adding BYD batteries with blackout functionality. What dropout delay can be expected in this scenario? The earlier comments about Na-Ion being close is of interest. What time frame and at what price differential over LiFePo?
Yeh fair comment. The BYD will be restricted to what the inverter can do. But after testing heaps of inverters against Fronius, I wouldn't use anything else (apart from SMA, but SMA doesn't have their new hybrid option yet).
Thanks. Yeh it looks really good at a glance. I saw the battery in Enphase’s office in silicone valley in 2019. We’ve been waiting that long for it to arrive. But my mate Penrith Solar Centre installed the first one in Australia recently. I’d be keen to do a thorough test review of it.
Could you explain why Tesla powerwall connected to a 3-phase inverter will not be kept on charging ? I don’t get it, reasonably, the inverter will charge the battery no matter what if there is excess energy produced by PV panel. Please explain this to me
Sure. Without a battery, when the power goes off, a solar system is designed to shut down immediately. To stop this from happening, a battery must send a signal to the inverter to mimic the voltage from the grid. Not all batteries can do this. The Tesla powerwall can mimic a single phase signal, but not a 3 phase signal. So it can keep a single phase inverter online but not a 3 phase inverter.
We have 3 phase into fusebox. We have single phase inverters. Our Powerwall is wired to island the house in a blackout, so the solar still functions to charge the battery. So yes a 3 phase home can be islanded using a Powerwall. I'm surprised that you assume a whole house is on the backup circuit!
Hey Mick, yeh if you have a 3 phase inverter it won’t work. If you have single phase inverter on a three phase home, it will. Can be a simple solution but can also be expensive if you want a larger system.
Good video as always apart from the Audio, you seem to go from very low can hardly can hear you on one video to over the top distorted audio on the next video, if you can fix this it would make your videos much easier to watch.
HI Mark, thanks for the video - it's very helpful. I have heard with modular batteries, like Sungrow, that as the battery deteriorates over time, any new module that's added is limited in it's capacity by the lowest performing module in the existing battery stack. Is this the same for BYD or do new modules, added say 5 - 10 years latter perform at their full rating? Does the same apply for adding a second powerwall say, 10 years down the track when the initial is sitting at 70-80% of its initial capacity? Thank you.
Hi Nick, yes, from what I understand you are kind of correct about Byd (unless you install a second stack of BYD batteries) but I think testing would show that is not a bad and more nuanced than that. I might be wrong, but here is a vague comparison : get a torch with 2 Aa batteries and run it almost flat. Then replace 1 battery. The light will shine brighter than it did before. The same happens with miss matched panels. But Tesla doesn’t work this way because you are effectively installing another “stack” when you install another PowerWall.
Yes! i probabaly should have pointed that out. But, why would you? Fronius is the best invertet solution hands down. The guys at byd would agree with me. You could watch a bunch of my other reviews to see why im so biased to Fronius inverters despite some of thier quirks. I have a heap more reviews ready to be writtien on that topic.
Great video Mark! I rarely see the installation costs considered in reviews. For Tesla they are very expensive compared to BYD. Is there any reason why? Thanks
Thanks Daniel :). Actually it really depends on the install. I’d say sometimes a Byd is easier and cheaper to install, other times the Powerwall is more straight forward. Lots of moving parts. But at the end of the day, it depends on the priorities of the customer.
Can you hack a tesla battery so that it charges and discharges another battery (ie a BYD battery). It should be possible to take a branch line off the internal line from the feed to the battery, run it through the BYD battery and then run the return line to the line coming from the Tesla battery to the charger/discharger. This way you can expand the capacity of a Tesla battery, bit by bit.
Any day now Tesla Powerwall 3 batteries will be installed. Not sure why they aren't making big announcements but it is happening. Pretty sure they will be using different battery chemistry than Powerwall 2 and the physical dimensions are that it will be taller. Not sure if each powerwall will contain more storage and or throughput. Hopefully soon all will be revealed.
Who knows! I was talking with the team at Tesla at a trade show today. Things are certainly happening but there is a long road ahead of compliance testing and the rollout around the world will happen in different stages. My guess is second half of 2024.
I have 3 Tesla Powerwall 2's and I can make them go off grid. Once I do that i can charge those powerwalls with my solar.panels. Not sure why you said that the only BYD could do this. Unless I misunderstood you. My installation is in the USA so maybe that is the difference.
Yeh, like james said. It's only a Three phase issue. When we were editing the video, Idid notice that that could have been misunderstood, and going by several of the comments, ill be clearer next time. Is 3 phase not really a thing in the USA?
@@markcavanagh OK I understand now. I would say 99% of homes in the USA don't have 3 phase. That is mostly for businesses. It is pretty cool that BYD can support 3 phase.
Great video Mark as always. Can you please elaborate more about the Tesla power wall not being Armageddon proof and not being chargeable during an outage? Perhaps this could be a subject for another video, like a deep dive into which batteries can and cannot do this and circumstances where it can and cannot be charged. Thanks
Hey, it’s only if you have a 3 phase solar inverter. Inverters shut off when there is no grid power. If you have a battery, the inverter needs to almost be tricked into thinking that there is still a grid voltage. The powerwall isn’t capable of generating a 3 phase grid voltage in order to “trick” the inverter into staying on.
What would the difference in cost be to install 3 single phase inverters instead of a single 3 phase inverter? Then your Tesla Powerwall could still charge the battery (from one of the single phase inverter) while off grid.
Often (not alway) Byd is cheaper even if you include the cost of the hybrid. The rules around how many powerwalls you can install is in the Energex manual (QLD) your have to check up your local distributor for their rules but it will be similar. In short, they don’t want you to be able to discharge too much power to the grid at one time - in case it disrupts the local network. It’s a similar concern to export limiting.
@@mcelectrical Thank you. But doesn't the Tesla Gateway prevent exactly that from happening? Surely one of its functions would be to limit how much power you export?
No, you can feed back to the grid with the Tesla powerwall.(Virtual power plants). The gateway could limit that export, but potentially Energex doesn’t want to rely on a product that they don’t own to protect their infrastructure.
This video is inaccurate. I have a powerwall installed 1 year ago, the is a power drop when switching over, about 1 second - computer goes off, router restarts, lights go off then on.
Thanks for your comment. I met with tesla today and asked them about your comment. They said if you are on a VPP deal with your retailer and if the VPP supports frequency controll, then this would likely be the case. But gererally the changover is "seamless". It's not UPS, but it is fast enough that you usually dont see the lights blink.
There is an advantage of an AC coupled battery not covered here, you have 2 inverters (when the sun is shining). If you have a 6kW hybrid inverter on a DC system, then you're limited to 6kW before pulling from the grid. With the Powerwall, you have it's 5kW plus whatever your solar inverter is producing at the time, so you may not need to pull from the grid....this becomes more important when the grid is down.
Yes good point. However you may not want to draw that much power if the grid is down, because you may flatten your battery too quickly. On grid it may prevent you from drawing from the grid at peak loads.
Yeh, tbh I don’t see it is a big deal. Btw, it’s about inverter regulations, and Fronius being overly conservative about safety. I see it just as part of Fronius’ OTT conservatism - which is the attitude that built a great business and a solid product.
Fronius is not able to do this as it works differently. During blackout the grid must be disconnected and this happens externally to fronius using relay. Same process is when grind comes back online. For Tesla/Victron the whole house is powered inverters and they are able to keep internal powerline on the same frequency phase without interruptions. When grid comes back they are able to reconnect also without interrupts because they align grid and house frequency/phase. BTW. fronius warranty covers very limited lifetime off grid as it is not intended for usch operations.
@Andriy Gavrylenko that's not what it's sold as... they should quote its 20% off grid maximum in state sheet. The thing is its 20 to 30 seconds to respond to changes in usage. Eg increase will take from the grid for 20 to 30 secs before starting to ramp up battery usage. Decrease in usage and it sends the "excess" to the grid for 20 to 30 seconds. I believe after calling around and looking at other systems this is why it's limited off grid as it would be damaging it self with under/over its usage/production.
@Mark Cavanagh then be upfront and don't sell it as "off grid" "black out proof" Their own Spec sheets should make it clear its max 20% grid down/discontented. Like you some say is regulation... some say it's because is DC connected battery.. some say it's the BYD battery response time.... Thing is different inverter in Australia to same battery it's 20millseconds..... I wanted something to cover brown outs and 1min to 20min black outs something that happens regularly here in Adelaide Hills.... Was sold this as the bees knees... Then after took them 3 days to find the
@Mark Cavanagh if you have any whys to deal with the slow switch over that would be great. As it even cuts the power reconnecting to the grid which is just crazy... Even a different inverter to switch over to that would work would be appreciated? Your video say the tesla power wall wouldn't have a switch over with the same inverter? Why/how is this?... The inverter "for safety" they claim needs to switch off and reboot.... How can the power stay on with the power wall?.. or is the tesla the part feeding the house and the inverter off means nothing? That would explain the price difference ones just a battery.... the other is also controling charging/consumption.
Given the major issues being seen in china re EV vehicle failures/fires. Is BYD safe given the BYD vehicles in China have some major issues aka burning down and catching on fire.
Thanks for the video! One additional consideration (in sunny QLD at least) is network inverter limits. e.g. in QLD Energex limits inverter capacity to 10kW per phase, with a 5 kW export limit, and Energex counts an AC-coupled battery such as Powerwall as an inverter in this calculation. I have a 10 kW inverter so could not add AC-coupled battery - only option was DC-coupled. Another advantage of DC-coupled (if you have more panel capacity than the inverter) is that excess solar can be used to charge the battery. For example on a nice sunny QLD summer day where you are generating 15kw power from your panels, you can use all of it - 5kW to house loads (including charging the Tesla😊), 5kW charging the batteries, and 5kW excess exported to the grid.
@@mcelectrical I missed that! Would probably have been too late for me anyway since I've been down the road of one of your least favourite brands for a few years now 🙂. Was a bit of a nightmare getting their battery integration with their own inverters working (only a couple of years late..) but after inverter replacements and firmware upgrades it has been rock solid. Also great to be able to charge the Tesla from excess solar using ChargeHQ.
Sorry but no way you just tried to explain how solar and battery works to Mark himself, the OG of Solar australian industry. I loved the confidence haha
Not being able to use the solar on my roof when the grid is down with the Powerwall is a deal breaker for me. No question I would choose the BYD if they were my only two options.
That is only with 1x Powerwall on a 3x phase inverter ... if you had 3x Powewalls, one on each phase, then your inverter will still operate during a power outage.
The tesla powerwall, takes in power from the solar panels and charges the batteries when the grid is down. It is amazing. You seamed to suggest that it doesn't but you were refering to 3 phase and we only have single phase
I always regretted not upgrading to 3 phase, until now. Thanks for the info. In the last 2.5 years we've had 24 events and the longest was 2hrs. Watching it charger on solar while the grid is down is pretty satisfying 😊
@@Spruce_Goose Totally agreed. So much so we often invite the neighbours over for a cup of tea so they can watch as well :). We had about 6 or so in last year including one that lasted 6hrs on a beautiful sunny dat
Missed a very important factor. COST! Even from a Queensland perspective would give a ratio of the difference in Cost. There are factors of Cost that would need to be explained and factored in. Like the battery charger required for the BYD batteries. The lack of a cost factor made the presentation rather short.
Yeh, the problem with adding in cost is the cost is so variable with installation and size - and while I was making the video, the Tesla powerwall came down in price by thousands of dollars. We have indicative pricing on my website. www.mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-brisbane/ www.mcelectrical.com.au/tesla-powerwall-2/
It varies depending on your property and energy needs, best to call a local installer to get a firmer price in a quote. If you're in SE QLD, give us a call 3268 3836.
Great video Mark! I'm thinking 2x Primo Gen24 10's daisy chained on a single phase supply with 15kW of PV and and up to 115.8kWh of storage would be hard to beat!
Ha sounds nice, but you couldn’t do that in any state of Austria as far as I know. Upgrade to 3 phase, but still your maximum will be about 57kW storage with Byd
@@mcelectrical in Qld that should be approved under a dynamic connection as long as the second had no solar connected is my understanding. Each Gen24 with up to 57.9kWh each.
It's likely to be an update to Solar.Web (which would be automatic) or to their app (which would be automatic if you've activated automatic updates for your device's app store).
Hi Mark, your comment that the powerwall can’t charge and that the solar will not work during a blackout is not correct. Maybe it is the case when you use a Fronius inverter. My powerwall and solar system is working seamlessly with Enphase micro inverters during a blackout.
I’m assuming you have single phase, or at least with emphasise, they have split up your panels in three sections. It just the powerwall can’t keep a 3 phase inverter running.
No, prices are always changing and install dependant, so it would be relevant in 3 months. But here is an idea of our indicative pricing. www.mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-brisbane/
Interesting! In Australia Tesla are using another small electric provider - and they will give decent rebates on the battery if you sign up with them. It’s all about creating Virtual Power Plants at the moment. I wonder if Tesla have plans to be an energy retailer here.
@@mcelectrical It's very strange. Texas won't let Tesla sell cars but gave them a license to be a power provider. I hope they do the same in Australia.
You don't talk about prices and ROI? To have the inverter integrated with the battery is a real advantage(TESLA POWERWALL) talk about in my opinion. Good video.
The price varies depending on the installation which is tailored to each property's needs, and ROI varies based on your solar production and household's consumption. Another factor that varies ROI is some energy retailers offer a Virtual Power Plant so you can receive greater returns than self-consumption would give alone.
;) Hey Craig, if you know i love Fronius, then you know I also don't usually hold back on my opinions. We were really tight with Sungrow for about a decade. When inverters became firmware as much as hardware, Sungrow suffered, We dropped Sungrow in the beginning of 2022, becasue we were having far to many issues and we were not happy with their approach to dealing with those issues. Just today, another large company who still sells sungrow agreed with my sentiment.
Just go Tesla Powerwall. I’ve found the Fronius app to be unintuitive and hard to reconnect to wifi. Setting the battery reserve and backup settings is needlessly complicated. Plus the BYD is big and awkward, whereas the slim Powerwall can go on a wall or out if the way. Tesla app also connects with my Model 3.
in any cases i don't want to burn my house , so i choose 3x sets of BYD, i believe those batteries last 6000 cycles without problems. sorry I'm very bad with the politics... 🤣😂🤣
His excuse would be BYD is made in China tesla is made in America.. Silly excuses... Just wanna make UA-cam video not Conducting good research.. Fronius is the worse inverter ever.. I wonder if BYD battery fault it takes 60secs to switch..
Where I live (UK) power outages are vanishingly rare and surplus PV power is essentially wasted, as Utilities pay very little. My interest arises from a future move to virtual generation where a central entity (Tesla ?) draws power from large numbers of home storage systems at peak times, paying a premium price to homeowners. Neither BYD nor Tesla currently pushes all the buttons but I suspect Tesla has a better chance of fulfilling this role going forward.
Yes! VPP’s (virtual power plants). In Australia vpps are becoming more common, and some are pretty lucrative. Both Byd and Tesla can be used on vpp here.
I would look to the battery cell used second tesla is build like usa standard withthere 120 volt if lucky it runs single phase and even this is not allowed like a on griduse the last but most importand the cost byd is not a tesla but like to ask almost the same in Kwh the best build your own if you like 3 phase inverter with battery rack power
Wait for Sodium batteries. They are absolutely fire proof (hard to burn Salt). Plus they really haven’t found the degradation that Lithium displays. There are already Sodium batteries available from CATL and with the switch to micro silicon energy density won’t be an issue.
I own a BYD Atto 3 and will be installing an 11kw BYD home battery next week along with a Fronius gen 24 inverter. They, BYD, have been in the battery manufacturing business since 1995. BYD LFP batteries are the safest in the market.
what did it cost? something missing from the video..
Mate how did you go 1 year on? I have the atto 3 as well, bout to install 16.6 BYD battery on my Fronius gen 24 3ph, keen to know how it's all gone for you!
Thanks Mark. MC Electrical installed my BYD 11kW system earlier this year, and am very happy with it. Enough charge to run the home in the evening. Reduced my bill by over 40% (that's having the battery system for half a billing cycle, as well as already having solar panels)
Nice! Glad it’s been working well for you!
I installed 2 byd gen24 systems last week, we hit the main switch and backup was running within 5 seconds on both.
Interesting, seems like the update has sped it up already. I’ll have to try mine out again.
Well Mark, just so you know, I live in Puerto Rico (middle of the caribbean) and we a prone to hurricanes and just recently we had a 5 day power outage and my baterry and house was power throughout the day by solar and Tesla Battery at night. It recharded everyday each time the sun came out. That being said, during the outage I only used essential loads.
Nice! that’s a great use of the powerwall. You must have a single phase inverter right? If you had a 3 phase inverter, it wouldn’t be able to run in a blackout.
+1 for the BYD and Gen24 setup. Your crew installed mine around 5 months ago, and it's been flawless so far.
I've only managed to drain the battery fully several times recently due to heating requirements at night (and deliberately stress testing). The type of stuff I can tweak easily with better home insulation and a basic timer on the (solar) HWS.
One thing I do wish Fronius/BYD offered is a basic display panel to mount somewhere obvious in the house. It would be much easier for the average household member to understand rather than needing a phone or laptop.
Can you please do an explainer video on partial shading. 😎 It's that time of year when the sun alt is getting low enough to cast a nice palm tree silhouette on my array and I'd love to know how much potential production it's costing me?
If not, the neighbours should get a good laugh out of me dragging a mock up Alexandra palm across the roof!
Hi Ross, no need for dragging plants across the roof, I’ve done that multiple times ;). Have a look at this video ua-cam.com/video/TqOw43-hbjc/v-deo.html . If you want to know how much your trees are actually impacting your production, give us a call and ask for Kendall. She’ll be able to work out what your system should be producing month by month (using near map) without and then you can see how much are sitting below that with Fronius monitoring ;)
Thanks, Mark. That video link explained things pretty well.
I'll give Kendall a buzz this week.
If a 12m Alexandra palm falls in my driveway with only the sound of my electric chainsaw and my Bose noise cancelling earphones in my ears, does it really make a sound? 🤔
Hi Mark.
I thought I'd follow up on this for anyone else interested. I also have another question that might be useful for people watching this video.
In regards to the shading, without following your advice , I sent my drone up to photograph the shading.
A guesstimate had shading at around 30% for a good chunk of the morning at this time of year. After cutting the palm tree down yesterday, the PV array hit 3.91kW at 8am compared to the average of 2.2kw for the last few weeks of clear days.
No regrets there.
As you'd be aware, the winter weekend just gone by wasn't great for solar in Brissy. The battery struggled to charge during the day due to the low solar output and heating loads, and I ended up being stung with a 4-9pm demand tariff for the rest of the month. $12-15 for one day of use.
Is there a way to easily change the backup power reserve? It would've been very handy to raise it to 30-40% during the morning and lower it back to 7% before 4pm.
How would the battery/inverter behave if I'd done this? Would it work?
Stuffed if I know why Fronius has locked out system admin access.
@@mcelectrical lnl n ln lnl no no no n ln ln ln ln ln lnl no n ln ln ln lnl no n lnl no n lnl n lnl n ln lnl n ln lnl n lnl no n ln lnl n ln lnl no no no n lnl n lnl n lnl n lnl n lnl no n ln ln ln lnl n lnl no no n ln ln know no no no n lnl no nl nl nl nl nl n ln ln ln ln lnl no n lnl no n ln nl nl nl nl n ln lnl nl nl n lnl n ln lnl n ln lnl n ln lnl nl n ln lnl n lnl nl n ln lnl nl n ln ln ln lnl nl n ln ln lnl nl nl nl nl n lnl n ln lnl n ln ln lnl n ln lnl nl n ln lnl nl n ln ln ln ln ln ln lnl n nl n lnl n lnl n ln lnl n lnl nl nl n ln ln lnl n ln lnl nl nl nl nl nl n lnl n lnl nl n lnl n lnl nl n ln lnl nl n lnl n ln ln lnl nl nl nl nl n ln ln ln ln ln ln ln lnl nl n lnl n lnl nl n ln ln lnl n lnl n ln ln ln ln ln ln lnl n ln ln ln ln know nl nl nl nl n lnl nl n ln lnl nl n ln ln lnl n lnl n lnl n ln lnl nl nl nl nl n ln lñ😊
Paul, my point was always that it’s not “just” a car company. I never said to value like a tech company fully….but YOU always valued it as just a pure car company comparing it equally to other car companies
Been looking at the Australian BYD car range, am rather surprised BYD don't make it obvious on their car sales website they also do battery solar storage solutions. Would seem like an obvious sales boost to promote get home solar/battery and discounts on their vehicle range and vise versa.
I have a 3phase Fronius 8.2 SnapInverter installed in my home. I like the backup option of the BYD, so I can still have power in my home in extended blackout! Will this work with my old Fronius inverter. The other option is to go with the Powerwall 2 and connected only to one essential circuit and still have power in the home during blackout until it's run out of juice!
@@Gary-vz2fk My exact same question, but I'm afraid we may be out of luck. I really don't want to go with Tesla.
@@Gary-vz2fk My exact same question, but I'm afraid we may be out of luck. I really don't want to go Tesla.
Someone from solar company told me that one of his clients installed 9 Power Walls in his newly built house.
Love a good overkill!
Was it a newly built palace or offgrid?
Wouldn't the change over time delay with the BYD battery be because of the Fronius inverter switching delay, and not the battery itself? What about using a "better suited" inverter that can change over in milliseconds ie. MPP Solar or Sol-Ark models?
Yeah if a sunsynk or deye inverter performs just the same
I talked to a sparky recently, and he said the last few Tesla power wall installs were not wired up to go into an island mode with support for high current devices like air conditioners and ovens.
The 5kW in backup. Thats fairly decent. A smaller split system aircon might draw 1 or 2 kW. An oven may be about 2 or 3kW. (its easy to pick the aussie comments ;)
Hi Mark, is there any chance of doing an off-grid situation and discuss prices of an average 240V system with back up generator for a 4 bed house with 2 x fridges, modest aircon, modest cooking, and the usual day to day running of a home (maybe 10kwH?)
@MC Electrical what are your thoughts on the sungrow hybrid inverter and battery combo compared to these 2 options? Particularly for a 3 phase installation.
On paper Sungrow is a great solution. In reality, Sungrow has lots of issues, especially with their batteries. I would avoid.
@@mcelectrical thanks
Look forward to your sizing guide video, thanks Mark.
I’m working on it Andy! Just juggling a few other things at the same time :)
Thanks Andy, here's the blog post with his video about the sizing guide: mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-guide/
Could you somehow combine both?
In short, no.
I live in California and I have Tesla solar and a Powerwall. I had it set up so the the large loads AC, Over/range, cloths dryer are outside the transfer switch so when it switches over the loads won’t drain the battery excessively. I probably won’t move the heavy loads inside the transfer switch until home Na-ion batteries or at least LiFeP solutions are more mature.
Hey Matt, nice set up! We often do essential circuits only, but sometimes there isn’t enough room in the switchboard to segregate them, so it gets a bit expensive and customers prefer just watching their load.
Appreciated if you can add an update for the Powerwall 3
Working on it. In short, it looks awesome!
@@mcelectrical I hope so: I just bought a Canadian Solar /TPW3 from Yorick! Looking fwd to it, install end Oct. PS: I own a Mach-E &* absolutely not a Tesla; still the PW3 looks to be a great product.
Thanks Mark. Interesting as well as informative. It'll be interesting to see how BYD batteries compare to the new Tesla Powerwall3.
Thanks for the info. Thanks for an Australian perspective on these subjects too. I'm wondering if you know of any sodium-ion batteries on the horizon for home storage?
BYD are already making Na batteries for their new small car. From what I’ve been reading online, Na batteries from BYD and CATL will be available for home storage from next year
@@geoffsemon7411 interesting. I havn't been following sodium iron for home storage but ill keep my eye out!
@@geoffsemon7411 I have a sodium Iron Battrey In my house I am testing right now. It looks exciting.
@@TheOffGridShop I'm hoping that the sodium battery will be cheaper and have less restrictions on where it can be installed.
You made a statement about the Powerwall usage during a blackout: the unit doesn't charge when it is in blackout mode. Would you please explain the reason for this limitation. If you had 2 or more Powerwalls, would the other(s) continue to charge during a blackout? BYD option offers better functionality during a blackout but buying a Chinese "anything" is a long-term risk - a gamble rooted in political point scoring between nations. I am looking at buying a Powerwall but that blackout feature is a big negative.
Add on a Tesla Gateway2 unit ($2k?) and it's Armageddon proof, also charges from PV during outage.
@@ianmcg521 Thanks for that feedback. I'm still learning about all this.
Hi Michael, a Powerwall wont charge from solar when off grid only if you have 3 phase solar inverter. That just because it can’t send a 3 phase signal to the inverter to keep it online. If you have 3 phases at home, you might want to wait for the next version of the Powerwall. It seems the next version may solve that issue!
@@markcavanagh Thanks for the feedback, Mark.
Question on available power with Ac and Dc coupled systems primarily for single phase western australia home. Hybrid Inverter size is limited to 5kw.. Dc coupled at nightime will be limited to the hybrid inverter size e.g 5kwh irrespective of the battery Max output or battery size. Ac coupled is only limited to the number of batteries so 2 x tesla powerwall 2 at 5kwh each will provide 10kwh of Max power handy if your a power hungry user. Is this correct.
Correct. But 5kW is a fair amount of power. You would discharge a battery pretty quick if you were discharging double that with 2 powerwalls.
Incorrect. As it was explained to me through Western Power's Engineers, they said if you go for 2 x Tesla powerwalls then the onboard 5kw inverters have to be derated to 2.5Kw each, because you cannot exceed the 5Kw. Dont worry, this peed me off to no end. The reason why, Tesla can give you huge demand, hence, if you have 2 x Tesla's you can run aircons, hotplates etc and not worry about the high current draw....perfect right, not in WA. They are worried about the batteries running out then all of a sudden they have say 10kw of instant draw on the system. Now if thousands of homes were allowed to do this, then they couldn't regulate power output from the power plant to supply demand quickly enough. Now a 3 phase system is different again.
Could you please explain the part about the power wall not able to supply power to a 3 phase inverter? I have fronius gen24 3 phase inverter. My understanding is during a blackout the inverter will still function during the day- to power the pv point and supply power to a byd/ powerwall battery. Are you saying that the ac inverter on the powerwall will not have power to convert the dc battery power to supply the house? Thanks
Hi Daniel, for an inverter to operate, it needs to see an external electricity signal and it will then copy the frequency signal. Usually that signal is grid power. In a blackout it gets the signal from a battery. However the powerwall is only single phase. It doesn’t not have a 3 phase signal to send to the fronius 3 phase inverter. So the inverter will not stay on. You will still have power in a blackout from the battery, but the solar panels will not work, so your battery will not recharge during the day.
How are Fronius coming along with their battery interface changes? I'm assessing these 2 batteries for my upcoming move and ease of interaction is a big deal.
I think Tesla will always be a better user interface. I haven’t had any news recently about the Fronius update - these things always seem to take
Longer than anticipated.
Contrary to what you say, I have seen videos where they are able to use the power from the panels, and charge the batteries in the daytime, even if the power is out, using the Tesla Powerwall. I'm confused?
thanks Mark as always. It is my understanding that in backup mode, then Gen24 changes frequency to 53Hz. Which means that other inverters in the system (if any) will switch off. So the maximum system size usable in backup mode is the Gen24 (largest size 10kW) and the PV panels attached to it. And I vaguely remember Fronius writing that the Gen24 is not meant to be run in backup mode for a long time- it's for occasional grid fail events only. Both these things make it seem like it is not quite an armageddon ready solution. So even though you could run it in full backup mode for a week or more at a time, this is not what it's designed for. Is this a fair statement?
Correct, it’s not an off grid inverter, so maybe Armageddon proof is overstating it. Fronius say in their warranty that it can run off grid for something like 10 or 20 percent of its lifetime. But it’s certainly not built so you can disconnect it from the grid permanently.
One thing I am trying to work out is whether I can attach a Powerwall to my Fronius Gen24 Primo inverter, and if you do how many of the Powerwall features do lose or get?
Powerwall can attach to anything. And the gen24 was a good choice even if you don’t use the hybrid “battery charger” built into it with a Byd battery.
what if we add the SPAN electrical panel to this equation? Does the BYD issue go away?
I’m not the right person to ask about SPAN panels. We don’t use them in Australia. They are compatible with Tesla as far as I know, but not sure about BYD/Fronius.
Great comparisons 👍 I've followed BYD for over 8+ years now.
Cool, thanks Dan.
Hello would you recommend the Sungrow hybrid inverter and battery solution to avoid finger pointing and a more harmonious working between the inverter and battery?
Great question. I thought so in the past. It looks like a great solution. But we stopped using Sungrow last year after they started having too many firmware issues, and their support wasn’t good enough. I’ve heard from many installation companies they are still having many issues with Sungrow.
The change over time for when there is a black out has nothing to do with it being a BYD battery. My inverter changes over in milliseconds. Just like the power wall
Yeh, thanks for pointing that out. Which inverter are you using?
Can you add more 48 V BYD modules to the stack after a couple of years of use? I've been told that it is not possible since the voltage will be different!?
Byd say with their hvm and hvs batteries that it is fine to add more batteries at anytime. There is a procedure to do this, but it’s fine as far as they are concerned
Nice. When designing my system, I'm glad you recommended and installed a 3 phase Gen24. Ready for a BYD battery!
I have a Gen24 and BYD all on single phase.
And blackout proof with AC breakers to turn off the big A/c unit
Nice!
It’s a great solution especially when you are on 3 phase!
Does byd have a nice app like tesla ? On the app store i only find some sort of configuration app from byd
I might have somehow missed it - but two very important parameters are cost and lifetime. And combined: What will a MWh cycle cost for the consumer - and what will the actual battery capacity be at the most cost efficient use (say i.e. only using the battery in the 10-80% charge range)?
Yeh, I did realise afterwards that I didn’t talk about cycles like I would have in the past. That’s because what is written on paper doesn’t reflect reality. If you are looking at cost and lifetime (on paper) then you wouldn’t buy either product. There are much cheaper batteries on the market. But I’d steer clear of cost cutting on batteries for obvious reasons. In saying that, I still probably could have added warranted lifetime to this review.
@@mcelectrical In any case, I'm thinking batteries should not be in the house but in a "hole in the garden"... And it seems Lithium-Iron (LiFePO4) cells have the longer lifespan (and higher price!). Hopefully, we'll soon see "Vehicle to Grid"/"Vehicle to House" interfaces be common (reputedly the hardware for getting power OUT of the charge connector is in place in all VW EVs since ID3 - but VW have not yet released the needed software for it). This will allow us to use the car for storage (if battery cycle lifetime makes it attractive) and will make it much easier to use scrapped car batteries for "house use": Lowered capacity will not be a problem for use "in a hole in the garden" - the hole just might need to be a bit bigger to accommodate more packs!
HI Mark. When we looked at getting a home battery we were told we’d have to buy an inverter for each powerwall vs the BYD that we could expand with extra modules without having to get any more inverters. For us that was a deal breaker and we went with BYD. I noticed this didn’t come up on your video. Were we given incorrect advice?
Yeh I’m afraid if that’s what they said, it was wrong. It is easier to expand byd in small increments, but power wall doesn’t even need 1 inverter.
Tesla said their next gen will be LFP, supposed to come out end of year.
Yeh, I’m looking forward to it! I was told it’s hopefully 2024 in Australia. We’ll see!
Hey mark, when can we get the byd lfp blade home batteries?
It’s not part of the plan as far as I know.
Hi Mark, if i have single phase home and a Powerwall 2, will the solar panels keep charging the powerwall during an outage? Thank you...
Yes, assuming they have wired you for backup power, then your panels will keep charging the battery.
@mcelectrical Thank you
With the Tesla Powerwall 3, it blows away the competition. Built in Inverter, 11.5 KW continue output, and a 13.5 KW battery with DC expansion batteries capability which makes it a lot more flexible than the previous versions and BYD. Powerwall 3 does use LPT as well. Quite nice! 🎉
Can’t wait till it comes to Australia!
I'm trying to look into a BYD battery. BUt every thing is focussed on the hybrid solar inverter. My solar panels are inverted with micro inverters. So I don't need a solar inverter. I just need a battery charger that can communicate in a different way. Maybe by my home power meter. Maybe by a smart meter that checks the voltage going in or out of my house. But there is so little information about batteries with micro incverters, It's insane...
Sorry to hear that there's a lack of information for you. A BYD wouldn't work with your micro inverter system as it's a DC-coupled battery, but any AC-coupled battery could be retrofitted, like the Tesla Powerwall 2 (while it's still available). Enphase has their own battery as well.
My solar installer said there is no issue charging the PW2 from my Solar during a grid outage. I have a string inverter.
If it is single phase he is correct. It seems I didn’t explain that point clearly, but it’s just 3 phase inverters that have an issue
Best way for switch on during blackout is to have 2 lines, one for general load which connected with backup Tesla battery and all others like air cond. and other high load - will be off on second line which is not backuped
Yeh, it takes a lot of work to set it up like that, so will cost you more. But having essential circuits is ideal.
Exactly. Your oven should NOT be on a backup circuit. So even if you don't notice that you're off grid with the Tesla, the oven would turn itself off, saving power.
so during the USA and China war, with Aussie taking USA side, will BYD be stopped from selling its batteries to Aussie ?
Hyperbolic but valid point. I'd rather not live in a future where we find out!
Fronius need to bring out larger hybrid gen24s like Goodwe have. 15kw, 20kw, 25kw, 29.9kw.
10kw gen24 is a little small for some situationa. Id love to replace my 20kw symo snapinverter with a hybrid so i can add DC coupled battery (but I dont want to pay for two gen24s)
Yeh that would be good. unfortunately that’s not on the horizon.
Hi Mark - I have a question around the Gen24/BYD combo - I understand its not a true off-grid solution, but will the Gen24 use the BYD battery capacity each night to run the overnight loads and reduce grid consumption, or is it only for blackouts? For me, I don't get value from the Gen24/BYD setup if its only used for blackouts. Whereas the Gen24/Tesla combo would be using the capacity each night and getting better ROI on the battery?
As an french user of fronius and byd : yep u can use the battery for all days as a helper but need a meter to let know the state of use of the home
As well for back up u need a another panel with relay to disconnect home from grid ( and basically its for that the delay of back up time to rely to be ok position to cold start the inverter
And also
The fronius gen 24 as a plug also if no battery attached to have a solar powered plug around 3000W in case of no grid but its limited also by the sun : so only to have emergency use
Thank you for the video, its quite interesting. Is the Fronius the best on the market, if not, what would be a better one (e.g. SMA?). Would in that case the short comings be smaller?
Fronius Gen24 is easily the best residential on the market at the moment. SMA are going to make a comeback next year… I’m looking forward to it!
After years of testing various inverters, we've concluded Fronius is the best inverter on the market and it's the only one we install because of their product quality and after sales service. Here's two videos providing comparisions with other inverters including SMA: mce.solar/whyfronius and mce.solar/is-Fronius-better
Hi Mark, at 3:16 you start talking about charging batteries during a blackout.. is this only true for 3phase? So single phase doesnt get this ability?
Yes. With Tesla and a 3 phase, the inverter will not stay on in a blackout so your panels will not keep charging the battery.
@@mcelectrical I have Fronius single phase and BYD HVM.. does it charge in blackout?
Yes. Single phase is no problem. (Btw, if you had fronius and Tesla on single phase it would also be no problem.
Can I have the BYD installed on a remote location without internet connectivity ?
If I were you I’d get a 4g dongle. You’ll want both the inverter and the battery to have updates over the years and remote trouble shooting. I’m not sure if you need it for warranty, but it is likely that you would.
@@mcelectrical Thanks, the reason I asked is to compare it with the Tesla one. The Tesla couldn’t operate in the past after a certain amount of hours offline.
This whole video seems to be you comparing Tesla against an inverter brand rather than the BYD battery? My inverter has an easy to use app also
That was my impression. We've got an SMA inverter with a second one to be added as we increase PV capacity and plans of adding BYD batteries with blackout functionality. What dropout delay can be expected in this scenario?
The earlier comments about Na-Ion being close is of interest. What time frame and at what price differential over LiFePo?
Yeh fair comment. The BYD will be restricted to what the inverter can do. But after testing heaps of inverters against Fronius, I wouldn't use anything else (apart from SMA, but SMA doesn't have their new hybrid option yet).
Loved the video very informative.
What are your thoughts on the enphase IQ5 battery's coming out?
Thanks. Yeh it looks really good at a glance. I saw the battery in Enphase’s office in silicone valley in 2019. We’ve been waiting that long for it to arrive. But my mate Penrith Solar Centre installed the first one in Australia recently. I’d be keen to do a thorough test review of it.
Could you explain why Tesla powerwall connected to a 3-phase inverter will not be kept on charging ? I don’t get it, reasonably, the inverter will charge the battery no matter what if there is excess energy produced by PV panel. Please explain this to me
Sure. Without a battery, when the power goes off, a solar system is designed to shut down immediately. To stop this from happening, a battery must send a signal to the inverter to mimic the voltage from the grid. Not all batteries can do this. The Tesla powerwall can mimic a single phase signal, but not a 3 phase signal. So it can keep a single phase inverter online but not a 3 phase inverter.
@@mcelectrical thank you for explaining this. I got it.
So yes, having 3 single phase inverters instead of a 3 phase inverter is a feasible workaround.
@@rob1733 can I buy like 3 powerwall for a 3-phase inverter ?😹to mimic the signal from the grid ?
@@mcelectrical can I buy 3 powerwall to mimic signal from the grid to a 3-phase inverter?😸seems feasible
I have a BYD battery and another con to that V the Tesla is it’s not compatible with Amber’s electricity solution
We have 3 phase into fusebox. We have single phase inverters. Our Powerwall is wired to island the house in a blackout, so the solar still functions to charge the battery. So yes a 3 phase home can be islanded using a Powerwall.
I'm surprised that you assume a whole house is on the backup circuit!
Hey Mick, yeh if you have a 3 phase inverter it won’t work. If you have single phase inverter on a three phase home, it will. Can be a simple solution but can also be expensive if you want a larger system.
Good video as always apart from the Audio, you seem to go from very low can hardly can hear you on one video to over the top distorted audio on the next video, if you can fix this it would make your videos much easier to watch.
I think we have finally worked this out. We’ll see next time
HI Mark, thanks for the video - it's very helpful. I have heard with modular batteries, like Sungrow, that as the battery deteriorates over time, any new module that's added is limited in it's capacity by the lowest performing module in the existing battery stack. Is this the same for BYD or do new modules, added say 5 - 10 years latter perform at their full rating? Does the same apply for adding a second powerwall say, 10 years down the track when the initial is sitting at 70-80% of its initial capacity?
Thank you.
Hi Nick, yes, from what I understand you are kind of correct about Byd (unless you install a second stack of BYD batteries) but I think testing would show that is not a bad and more nuanced than that. I might be wrong, but here is a vague comparison : get a torch with 2 Aa batteries and run it almost flat. Then replace 1 battery. The light will shine brighter than it did before. The same happens with miss matched panels.
But Tesla doesn’t work this way because you are effectively installing another “stack” when you install another PowerWall.
You can use another inverter with BYD battery. Change over time can be milliseconds
Yes! i probabaly should have pointed that out. But, why would you? Fronius is the best invertet solution hands down. The guys at byd would agree with me. You could watch a bunch of my other reviews to see why im so biased to Fronius inverters despite some of thier quirks. I have a heap more reviews ready to be writtien on that topic.
Great video Mark!
I rarely see the installation costs considered in reviews. For Tesla they are very expensive compared to BYD. Is there any reason why? Thanks
Thanks Daniel :). Actually it really depends on the install. I’d say sometimes a Byd is easier and cheaper to install, other times the Powerwall is more straight forward. Lots of moving parts. But at the end of the day, it depends on the priorities of the customer.
Can you hack a tesla battery so that it charges and discharges another battery (ie a BYD battery). It should be possible to take a branch line off the internal line from the feed to the battery, run it through the BYD battery and then run the return line to the line coming from the Tesla battery to the charger/discharger. This way you can expand the capacity of a Tesla battery, bit by bit.
Any day now Tesla Powerwall 3 batteries will be installed. Not sure why they aren't making big announcements but it is happening. Pretty sure they will be using different battery chemistry than Powerwall 2 and the physical dimensions are that it will be taller. Not sure if each powerwall will contain more storage and or throughput. Hopefully soon all will be revealed.
Who knows! I was talking with the team at Tesla at a trade show today. Things are certainly happening but there is a long road ahead of compliance testing and the rollout around the world will happen in different stages. My guess is second half of 2024.
I have 3 Tesla Powerwall 2's and I can make them go off grid. Once I do that i can charge those powerwalls with my solar.panels. Not sure why you said that the only BYD could do this. Unless I misunderstood you. My installation is in the USA so maybe that is the difference.
Is your installation 3 phase? He did say that single phase works, but not 3 phase.
Yeh, like james said. It's only a Three phase issue. When we were editing the video, Idid notice that that could have been misunderstood, and going by several of the comments, ill be clearer next time. Is 3 phase not really a thing in the USA?
@@markcavanagh OK I understand now. I would say 99% of homes in the USA don't have 3 phase. That is mostly for businesses. It is pretty cool that BYD can support 3 phase.
@@markcavanagh It's not...The power in US is much more stable than say Spain....
Great video Mark as always. Can you please elaborate more about the Tesla power wall not being Armageddon proof and not being chargeable during an outage? Perhaps this could be a subject for another video, like a deep dive into which batteries can and cannot do this and circumstances where it can and cannot be charged. Thanks
Hey, it’s only if you have a 3 phase solar inverter. Inverters shut off when there is no grid power. If you have a battery, the inverter needs to almost be tricked into thinking that there is still a grid voltage. The powerwall isn’t capable of generating a 3 phase grid voltage in order to “trick” the inverter into staying on.
@@mcelectrical Thanks for the info Mark
What would the difference in cost be to install 3 single phase inverters instead of a single 3 phase inverter? Then your Tesla Powerwall could still charge the battery (from one of the single phase inverter) while off grid.
What regulations prevent you from installing more Powerwalls? Also, while the BYD is cheaper, are the savings offset by the cost of a hybrid inverter?
Often (not alway) Byd is cheaper even if you include the cost of the hybrid. The rules around how many powerwalls you can install is in the Energex manual (QLD) your have to check up your local distributor for their rules but it will be similar. In short, they don’t want you to be able to discharge too much power to the grid at one time - in case it disrupts the local network. It’s a similar concern to export limiting.
@@mcelectrical Thank you. But doesn't the Tesla Gateway prevent exactly that from happening? Surely one of its functions would be to limit how much power you export?
No, you can feed back to the grid with the Tesla powerwall.(Virtual power plants). The gateway could limit that export, but potentially Energex doesn’t want to rely on a product that they don’t own to protect their infrastructure.
thanks Mark. you are great with your unbias review. salam from indonesia, your neighbour. 🙂
Thank you kind sir! I'm glad you find them helpfull!
This video is inaccurate. I have a powerwall installed 1 year ago, the is a power drop when switching over, about 1 second - computer goes off, router restarts, lights go off then on.
Thanks for your comment. I met with tesla today and asked them about your comment. They said if you are on a VPP deal with your retailer and if the VPP supports frequency controll, then this would likely be the case. But gererally the changover is "seamless". It's not UPS, but it is fast enough that you usually dont see the lights blink.
Efficiency between AC-in and AC-out?
There is an advantage of an AC coupled battery not covered here, you have 2 inverters (when the sun is shining). If you have a 6kW hybrid inverter on a DC system, then you're limited to 6kW before pulling from the grid. With the Powerwall, you have it's 5kW plus whatever your solar inverter is producing at the time, so you may not need to pull from the grid....this becomes more important when the grid is down.
Yes good point. However you may not want to draw that much power if the grid is down, because you may flatten your battery too quickly. On grid it may prevent you from drawing from the grid at peak loads.
A 20millseconds switch over would be better like many others have...
currently up to 90seconds is insane. Its about 60 to 70 seconds in my set up.
Yeh, tbh I don’t see it is a big deal. Btw, it’s about inverter regulations, and Fronius being overly conservative about safety. I see it just as part of Fronius’ OTT conservatism - which is the attitude that built a great business and a solid product.
Fronius is not able to do this as it works differently. During blackout the grid must be disconnected and this happens externally to fronius using relay. Same process is when grind comes back online.
For Tesla/Victron the whole house is powered inverters and they are able to keep internal powerline on the same frequency phase without interruptions. When grid comes back they are able to reconnect also without interrupts because they align grid and house frequency/phase.
BTW. fronius warranty covers very limited lifetime off grid as it is not intended for usch operations.
@Andriy Gavrylenko that's not what it's sold as... they should quote its 20% off grid maximum in state sheet.
The thing is its 20 to 30 seconds to respond to changes in usage.
Eg increase will take from the grid for 20 to 30 secs before starting to ramp up battery usage.
Decrease in usage and it sends the "excess" to the grid for 20 to 30 seconds.
I believe after calling around and looking at other systems this is why it's limited off grid as it would be damaging it self with under/over its usage/production.
@Mark Cavanagh then be upfront and don't sell it as "off grid" "black out proof"
Their own Spec sheets should make it clear its max 20% grid down/discontented.
Like you some say is regulation... some say it's because is DC connected battery.. some say it's the BYD battery response time....
Thing is different inverter in Australia to same battery it's 20millseconds.....
I wanted something to cover brown outs and 1min to 20min black outs something that happens regularly here in Adelaide Hills....
Was sold this as the bees knees...
Then after took them 3 days to find the
@Mark Cavanagh if you have any whys to deal with the slow switch over that would be great.
As it even cuts the power reconnecting to the grid which is just crazy...
Even a different inverter to switch over to that would work would be appreciated?
Your video say the tesla power wall wouldn't have a switch over with the same inverter?
Why/how is this?...
The inverter "for safety" they claim needs to switch off and reboot....
How can the power stay on with the power wall?.. or is the tesla the part feeding the house and the inverter off means nothing?
That would explain the price difference ones just a battery.... the other is also controling charging/consumption.
Given the major issues being seen in china re EV vehicle failures/fires. Is BYD safe given the BYD vehicles in China have some major issues aka burning down and catching on fire.
Thanks for the video!
One additional consideration (in sunny QLD at least) is network inverter limits. e.g. in QLD Energex limits inverter capacity to 10kW per phase, with a 5 kW export limit, and Energex counts an AC-coupled battery such as Powerwall as an inverter in this calculation. I have a 10 kW inverter so could not add AC-coupled battery - only option was DC-coupled. Another advantage of DC-coupled (if you have more panel capacity than the inverter) is that excess solar can be used to charge the battery. For example on a nice sunny QLD summer day where you are generating 15kw power from your panels, you can use all of it - 5kW to house loads (including charging the Tesla😊), 5kW charging the batteries, and 5kW excess exported to the grid.
Thanks dyemanoz. That rule actually changed so you can have 10kW of inverter and 2 powerwalls in QLD now!
@@mcelectrical I missed that! Would probably have been too late for me anyway since I've been down the road of one of your least favourite brands for a few years now 🙂. Was a bit of a nightmare getting their battery integration with their own inverters working (only a couple of years late..) but after inverter replacements and firmware upgrades it has been rock solid. Also great to be able to charge the Tesla from excess solar using ChargeHQ.
Sorry but no way you just tried to explain how solar and battery works to Mark himself, the OG of Solar australian industry. I loved the confidence haha
Not being able to use the solar on my roof when the grid is down with the Powerwall is a deal breaker for me. No question I would choose the BYD if they were my only two options.
That is only with 1x Powerwall on a 3x phase inverter ... if you had 3x Powewalls, one on each phase, then your inverter will still operate during a power outage.
I've never had a blackout here. It seems like most of these features and benefits have to do with blackouts
Yeh agreed for Powerwall 2. My Powerwall 3 video will be out soon. I think this is a shift in how we think about batteries.
The tesla powerwall, takes in power from the solar panels and charges the batteries when the grid is down. It is amazing. You seamed to suggest that it doesn't but you were refering to 3 phase and we only have single phase
Yeh it just can’t keep a three phase inverter online. Works great on single phase!
I always regretted not upgrading to 3 phase, until now. Thanks for the info. In the last 2.5 years we've had 24 events and the longest was 2hrs. Watching it charger on solar while the grid is down is pretty satisfying 😊
@@Spruce_Goose Totally agreed. So much so we often invite the neighbours over for a cup of tea so they can watch as well :). We had about 6 or so in last year including one that lasted 6hrs on a beautiful sunny dat
Alles in allem sind die SAJ-Produkte großartig
Missed a very important factor. COST! Even from a Queensland perspective would give a ratio of the difference in Cost. There are factors of Cost that would need to be explained and factored in. Like the battery charger required for the BYD batteries. The lack of a cost factor made the presentation rather short.
Yeh, the problem with adding in cost is the cost is so variable with installation and size - and while I was making the video, the Tesla powerwall came down in price by thousands of dollars. We have indicative pricing on my website. www.mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-brisbane/
www.mcelectrical.com.au/tesla-powerwall-2/
Yes that's fair feedback, although the cost varies based on the property's custom installation needs.
What is the price of each battery?
It varies depending on your property and energy needs, best to call a local installer to get a firmer price in a quote. If you're in SE QLD, give us a call 3268 3836.
You should review the "EP" solutions of Bluetti
So what is the best inverter?
Easy. The Fronius Gen24
Great video Mark! I'm thinking 2x Primo Gen24 10's daisy chained on a single phase supply with 15kW of PV and and up to 115.8kWh of storage would be hard to beat!
Ha sounds nice, but you couldn’t do that in any state of Austria as far as I know. Upgrade to 3 phase, but still your maximum will be about 57kW storage with Byd
@@mcelectrical in Qld that should be approved under a dynamic connection as long as the second had no solar connected is my understanding. Each Gen24 with up to 57.9kWh each.
Looking forward to the firmware update.... is that automatic?
It's likely to be an update to Solar.Web (which would be automatic) or to their app (which would be automatic if you've activated automatic updates for your device's app store).
TonOh, and battery grade sodium costs $290 a ton while battery grade Litium cost is $12,000+ a
what about teh most important consideration? cost
Hi Pateng, here is our pricing. www.mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-brisbane/
And
www.mcelectrical.com.au/tesla-powerwall-2/
Well, here in Austria, the only blackout of the last 40 years lasted about 20 minutes and only in certain areas.
Mick, Where I live in Brisbane blackouts are really rare. But once every 40 years…. Wow!
Its not the fault of the BYD battery for your slow 60 seconds switch-over. Get a better inverter if you want a faster switch-over.
Hi Mark, your comment that the powerwall can’t charge and that the solar will not work during a blackout is not correct. Maybe it is the case when you use a Fronius inverter. My powerwall and solar system is working seamlessly with Enphase micro inverters during a blackout.
I’m assuming you have single phase, or at least with emphasise, they have split up your panels in three sections. It just the powerwall can’t keep a 3 phase inverter running.
You didn't mention the price, did you?
No, prices are always changing and install dependant, so it would be relevant in 3 months. But here is an idea of our indicative pricing. www.mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-brisbane/
And here is our Tesla pricing page www.mcelectrical.com.au/tesla-powerwall-2/
Why not get solar and batteries but NOT connect to the grid? Or even better fully disconnect from the grid.
Because the grid is a really cheap backup generators. To get enough batteries for worst case scenario would be to expensive.
In the US in Texas Tesla can be your electric provider but you can’t sign up unless you have a Tesla brand PowerWall.
Interesting! In Australia Tesla are using another small electric provider - and they will give decent rebates on the battery if you sign up with them. It’s all about creating Virtual Power Plants at the moment. I wonder if Tesla have plans to be an energy retailer here.
@@mcelectrical It's very strange. Texas won't let Tesla sell cars but gave them a license to be a power provider. I hope they do the same in Australia.
You don't talk about prices and ROI? To have the inverter integrated with the battery is a real advantage(TESLA POWERWALL) talk about in my opinion.
Good video.
The price varies depending on the installation which is tailored to each property's needs, and ROI varies based on your solar production and household's consumption. Another factor that varies ROI is some energy retailers offer a Virtual Power Plant so you can receive greater returns than self-consumption would give alone.
2:46 I thought my phone brightness is messed up
😂 sorry about that!
Great! Thank you
welcome! ;)
i know you love your fronius inverter, but sungrow also couples niceley to the BYD and they change over with in 20millisecond
;) Hey Craig, if you know i love Fronius, then you know I also don't usually hold back on my opinions. We were really tight with Sungrow for about a decade. When inverters became firmware as much as hardware, Sungrow suffered, We dropped Sungrow in the beginning of 2022, becasue we were having far to many issues and we were not happy with their approach to dealing with those issues. Just today, another large company who still sells sungrow agreed with my sentiment.
Are there any other Inverters that would provide an instantaneous cutover with the BYD batteries rather than Fronius?
You should drive the BVD Seal
Just go Tesla Powerwall. I’ve found the Fronius app to be unintuitive and hard to reconnect to wifi. Setting the battery reserve and backup settings is needlessly complicated. Plus the BYD is big and awkward, whereas the slim Powerwall can go on a wall or out if the way. Tesla app also connects with my Model 3.
Yeh fair comments. 3 phase backup and size flexibility is the biggest downside to Tesla, but that’s not an issue for everyone.
Hey mark,
Cobalt is dangerous stuff…would prefer it not to be too close to my home. it’s not just about ethical mining.
Interesting, yeh seen the tests, I’m not sure I would be so black and white about the Powerwall, hopefully I prove you wrong in the next 10 years!
in any cases i don't want to burn my house , so i choose 3x sets of BYD, i believe those batteries last 6000 cycles without problems. sorry I'm very bad with the politics... 🤣😂🤣
His excuse would be BYD is made in China tesla is made in America.. Silly excuses...
Just wanna make UA-cam video not Conducting good research.. Fronius is the worse inverter ever.. I wonder if BYD battery fault it takes 60secs to switch..
Good choice 🎉
Have you seen all the BYD fires 🔥 in their cars in China 🇨🇳 . Hell no way.
Maybe you should get good with the politics.
@@ausmartin1i bet you've chosen not to see all those Tesla fires...
Where I live (UK) power outages are vanishingly rare and surplus PV power is essentially wasted, as Utilities pay very little. My interest arises from a future move to virtual generation where a central entity (Tesla ?) draws power from large numbers of home storage systems at peak times, paying a premium price to homeowners. Neither BYD nor Tesla currently pushes all the buttons but I suspect Tesla has a better chance of fulfilling this role going forward.
Yes! VPP’s (virtual power plants). In Australia vpps are becoming more common, and some are pretty lucrative. Both Byd and Tesla can be used on vpp here.
I would look to the battery cell used second tesla is build like usa standard
withthere 120 volt if lucky it runs single phase and even this is not allowed
like a on griduse the last but most importand the cost byd is not a tesla
but like to ask almost the same in Kwh the best build your own if you like
3 phase inverter with battery rack power
Wait for Sodium batteries. They are absolutely fire proof (hard to burn Salt). Plus they really haven’t found the degradation that Lithium displays.
There are already Sodium batteries available from CATL and with the switch to micro silicon energy density won’t be an issue.
The times they are a changing. Sodium looks like a fair contender.
I know i'l be going with MC for my battery setup!
Excellent :)
BYD plus selectronic plus Fronius works weell for me.
What is the lifespan of a Tesla Powerwall? or the lifespan of the BYD?
Warranty period for both is 10 years, you would hope they would both last longer