2 hours ago FedEx dropped off my EG4 PowerPro All Weather battery. Last week UPS dropped off my EG4 6000XP. So now I need to wait a few months before being able to purchase 10 Sirius PV 415W Bi-facial Solar Panels. I will be using the EG4 Bright mount ground mount rack kits with linear activators to slightly adjust the angles based on TOD/seasons. I will now start mounting the EG4 equipment. I currently have a Leviton Smart Service Panel with remote monitoring and the ability to remotely trip (open) the breakers. I am ordering a 2nd Leviton Service panel and that will be for circuits that are of primary concern, like the fridge, lights, media center,internet (need to keep the wife entertained). I plan to cut the breaker bus leaving 12 breakers not 30 and this will be for the backup system. They will be connected to the EG4 and powered by the grid through the EG4. When I get the solar well that will change, but I want to get this stuff wired in. The lower half of the panel will house a few individual Automatic/Manual Transfer Switches to control other loads. A work in progress....
@@CalvinGorriaran I currently have have the Leviton Smart Panel with Generation 1 Smart breakers. Generation 1 breakers only allow for you to trip (open) the breakers remotely. Generation 2 (current version for sale) allows for you to Trip and Reset the breakers remotely. I have tripped the breakers remotely while up in the attic working on circuits, and it did work fine. I highly recommend that product for Grid and Solar monitoring. I thought about changing over to Gen 2, but that will cost me about $1k to purchase the new Gen 2 Wireless hub and replace all the breakers. As for how accurate the usage measurements are, my BrulTech Energy Monitoring system with a CT on each of the 30 circuits is spot on. Plus a lot of times the usage is not updated for like 5+ minutes. I need to get the Sirius solar panels first.
This is pretty much exactly what I'm doing. Just ordered the same inverter and I have 14kw of useable lead acid battery backup. I'll have my shop/sheds and 2 central unit condensers running on solar while the rest of the house stays on grid power. No permits or net metering needed. Will probably get a 2nd inverter down the road because if both air conditioners are running there won't be much capacity left for tools or whatnot in the shop.
I’ll be interested to see how this works out for you. I installed a 5kw roof mount system using micro inverters about 5 -6 years ago. I bought the panels at auction, they had integrated inverters that were bad so I went with the Chilicon micro inverters. I hired an electrician to do the panel work and a small company to do the roof installation. My total cost was just over $6,000 installed. It has reduced my electrical consumption considerably but we have a smaller house. A large portion of my electric bill is the Centerpoint transmission charge for when I’m not producing power or not enough to carry the whole home. As it sits I can’t run the solar and the backup generator at the same time. The generator doesn’t expect to have another source of generation on the circuit and something will blow. I’ve done full off grid systems in the past that did allow both systems by using a battery and charge controller so the excess power has some someplace to go but until recently that was pretty cost prohibitive and complicated. A lot of people are under the impression that you can use the solar to save fuel on the generator but with most standard grid tie system this doesn't work. It will be interesting to see how ypur system grows and if your all in one inverter has a generator input as well as the solar input so you can run it as a fully integrated system. chilicon got bought out by GE and GE still sells the product as their micro inverter solution. the price of batteries has come down enough to start to be interesting. But i found most companies wont sell or install a battery unless they sold you and installed the system. Ive been looking at a enphase battery that will work with my existing system but it still wont allow me to run both the solar and backup generator at the same time. id need to purchase a separate unit that would manage the battery, it would buffer the generator into the battery and then feed the inverter system that feed the house and back to the mains. my 5kw roof top sytem averages about 20-25 kwh a day which keeps my utility bill below $100 most months but i would like to have it available as a backup unit or to reduce the centerpoint charges as much as possible. my current contract is sub .10 kwh which im expecting to go up by 50% when it expires. i have thought about putting so more panles on the west side of the roof but over production without storage makes no financial sense with the buy back rates that most plans offer. good luck with your project.
No they haven't, they're still using low cost, high frequency inverter tech which makes them potentially dangerous for use with household AC appliances.
That is correct. Once the battery gets to a level specified, the load automatically transfer to the grid connection. Does it without any noticeable impact.
@@CalvinGorriaran , thanks. Also I see your sub panel isn’t near your inverter, which is my case. I need to place the battery and inverter setup about 50’ away, so do I size the wires to and from the panel for 50amps? So 6 gauge wire? In the specs it says the batteries can accept a max charge current of 125 amps but I sure hope I don’t need to run a wire 50’ to accommodate 125 amps?
How's the noise level been? Apparently when maxxing out solar charging they're like a jet? I still love it but I'm curious what it's like for you after 2 months.
I heard this as well. I was worried before it was installed but honestly it isn't an issue. I think if you had this inside a room of your home, maybe. But since it is in our garage, the noise is a non-issue. My exhaust fans I used years ago for my crypto miners were way louder!
How do you like the conduit box? I was surprised to see that you have to put this thing together because that’s not what was pictured on the website when I ordered it.
Calvin, so glad I found you ! I am currently looking at Ecoflow, Anker and now EG4. Looking at it more from battery backup triggered by rain and ice storms. Solar may come later but just want to get some backup in place. I, like you happened to come across EG4 and I have a couple of questions that possibly you can answer. Please understand that for the most part I am a novice but trying to do my homework ! 1. Can the EG4 be setup to primarily be in a grid mode and feed the critical load panel with grid power and charge the batteries and in case of a grid outage, fail over to battery and then restore grid mode when the grid is backup ? 2. Because of the way my house wiring is setup, I have to move MANY of my circuits over to the critical load panel. I keep hearing 50 amp breaker from the home panel to the EG4 and then 50 amps to the critical load panel - is this the limit for this system? Looking forward to future videos … Thanks from a fellow Texan !
@@wbarkwell yes. In fact, before I got my panels up, that is how I had mine setup. With the 6000XP, you can run two in parallel to get a higher output. Are you planning on keeping the existing panel in place and its connection to your grid meter?
Can’t afford two … originally, I planned on a subpanel but if you have other thoughts I’m listening to! BTW … I am in ATL now … I was born in Houston … miss hearing y’all !
@@CalvinGorriaran Thank you, the one I was using wasn't all black so I'm thinking that was it also. I have to lean against block wall d/t HOA restrictions.
A mistake that you made was purchasing a low cost, Chinese made high frequency, transformerless inverter charger. All of these inferior high frequency inverters from any manufacturer, uses a low cost, low surge, short lived high frequency, transformerless inverter design that can be unsafe when powering household appliances or when charging an EV because they both lack an output transformer that provides galvanic isolation between their DC boost stage and their AC output. You're far better off investing in a much safer, higher performance low frequency, transformer based inverter charger.
I would never install one of these short lived, high frequency, transformerless inverter. They don't offer any galvanic isolation between their DC boost stage and their AC output which makes them potentially dangerous for powering your AC appliances.
@@CalvinGorriaran I’ve got solar assistant monitoring my ac output for these 6000xp. Not much of a hiccup so far. Older high frequency inverters did in fact produce a very noisy sine wave that looked more like a set of stairs rather than a smooth sine wave that grid power sends through. These do not, I’ve had them on an oscilloscope. Sine wave looks nearly perfect. Low frequency inverters the big heavy suckers like the 18 KPV produce better though again not perfect sine waves. These will not fry your ac appliances unless something goes terribly wrong.
2 hours ago FedEx dropped off my EG4 PowerPro All Weather battery. Last week UPS dropped off my EG4 6000XP. So now I need to wait a few months before being able to purchase 10 Sirius PV 415W Bi-facial Solar Panels. I will be using the EG4 Bright mount ground mount rack kits with linear activators to slightly adjust the angles based on TOD/seasons. I will now start mounting the EG4 equipment.
I currently have a Leviton Smart Service Panel with remote monitoring and the ability to remotely trip (open) the breakers. I am ordering a 2nd Leviton Service panel and that will be for circuits that are of primary concern, like the fridge, lights, media center,internet (need to keep the wife entertained). I plan to cut the breaker bus leaving 12 breakers not 30 and this will be for the backup system. They will be connected to the EG4 and powered by the grid through the EG4. When I get the solar well that will change, but I want to get this stuff wired in. The lower half of the panel will house a few individual Automatic/Manual Transfer Switches to control other loads. A work in progress....
I have been interested in the Smart Panels but it would mean I would need to replace all my breakers. Let me know how the Leviton works out!
@@CalvinGorriaran I currently have have the Leviton Smart Panel with Generation 1 Smart breakers. Generation 1 breakers only allow for you to trip (open) the breakers remotely. Generation 2 (current version for sale) allows for you to Trip and Reset the breakers remotely. I have tripped the breakers remotely while up in the attic working on circuits, and it did work fine. I highly recommend that product for Grid and Solar monitoring. I thought about changing over to Gen 2, but that will cost me about $1k to purchase the new Gen 2 Wireless hub and replace all the breakers. As for how accurate the usage measurements are, my BrulTech Energy Monitoring system with a CT on each of the 30 circuits is spot on. Plus a lot of times the usage is not updated for like 5+ minutes. I need to get the Sirius solar panels first.
This is pretty much exactly what I'm doing. Just ordered the same inverter and I have 14kw of useable lead acid battery backup. I'll have my shop/sheds and 2 central unit condensers running on solar while the rest of the house stays on grid power. No permits or net metering needed. Will probably get a 2nd inverter down the road because if both air conditioners are running there won't be much capacity left for tools or whatnot in the shop.
Why are no permits needed?
I’ll be interested to see how this works out for you. I installed a 5kw roof mount system using micro inverters about 5 -6 years ago. I bought the panels at auction, they had integrated inverters that were bad so I went with the Chilicon micro inverters. I hired an electrician to do the panel work and a small company to do the roof installation. My total cost was just over $6,000 installed.
It has reduced my electrical consumption considerably but we have a smaller house. A large portion of my electric bill is the Centerpoint transmission charge for when I’m not producing power or not enough to carry the whole home.
As it sits I can’t run the solar and the backup generator at the same time. The generator doesn’t expect to have another source of generation on the circuit and something will blow.
I’ve done full off grid systems in the past that did allow both systems by using a battery and charge controller so the excess power has some someplace to go but until recently that was pretty cost prohibitive and complicated.
A lot of people are under the impression that you can use the solar to save fuel on the generator but with most standard grid tie system this doesn't work. It will be interesting to see how ypur system grows and if your all in one inverter has a generator input as well as the solar input so you can run it as a fully integrated system. chilicon got bought out by GE and GE still sells the product as their micro inverter solution.
the price of batteries has come down enough to start to be interesting. But i found most companies wont sell or install a battery unless they sold you and installed the system. Ive been looking at a enphase battery that will work with my existing system but it still wont allow me to run both the solar and backup generator at the same time. id need to purchase a separate unit that would manage the battery, it would buffer the generator into the battery and then feed the inverter system that feed the house and back to the mains.
my 5kw roof top sytem averages about 20-25 kwh a day which keeps my utility bill below $100 most months but i would like to have it available as a backup unit or to reduce the centerpoint charges as much as possible. my current contract is sub .10 kwh which im expecting to go up by 50% when it expires.
i have thought about putting so more panles on the west side of the roof but over production without storage makes no financial sense with the buy back rates that most plans offer.
good luck with your project.
I’ll be installing one of these in my home
Also I believe conduit generally needs to be metal when above ground. I'll do more research on that.
I have not seen this requirement but maybe the case.
Hey Calvin, this is so helpful to see. It would be great to see how you wired the sub panel if you have the time to do it!
I should have a video coming up for this over the weekend!
Those inverters have come a long way in the past 6 years.
No they haven't, they're still using low cost, high frequency inverter tech which makes them potentially dangerous for use with household AC appliances.
@@solarcharging9743 They were previously square waves. That's a lot better.
Question: The grid breaker on the 6000xp can’t send power back to the grid, it can only receive correct?
That is correct. Once the battery gets to a level specified, the load automatically transfer to the grid connection. Does it without any noticeable impact.
@@CalvinGorriaran , thanks. Also I see your sub panel isn’t near your inverter, which is my case. I need to place the battery and inverter setup about 50’ away, so do I size the wires to and from the panel for 50amps? So 6 gauge wire? In the specs it says the batteries can accept a max charge current of 125 amps but I sure hope I don’t need to run a wire 50’ to accommodate 125 amps?
What sizes wire are you useing from inverter to sub panel
Currently 6awg. As I expand, that likely will be changed to a much larger wire size.
Great job
How's the noise level been? Apparently when maxxing out solar charging they're like a jet? I still love it but I'm curious what it's like for you after 2 months.
I heard this as well. I was worried before it was installed but honestly it isn't an issue. I think if you had this inside a room of your home, maybe. But since it is in our garage, the noise is a non-issue. My exhaust fans I used years ago for my crypto miners were way louder!
@@CalvinGorriaran Thanks for the update
How do you like the conduit box? I was surprised to see that you have to put this thing together because that’s not what was pictured on the website when I ordered it.
It was great. I like that it doesn't stick out further like the old conduit box version.
Calvin, so glad I found you !
I am currently looking at Ecoflow, Anker and now EG4. Looking at it more from battery backup triggered by rain and ice storms. Solar may come later but just want to get some backup in place. I, like you happened to come across EG4 and I have a couple of questions that possibly you can answer. Please understand that for the most part I am a novice but trying to do my homework !
1. Can the EG4 be setup to primarily be in a grid mode and feed the critical load panel with grid power and charge the batteries and in case of a grid outage, fail over to battery and then restore grid mode when the grid is backup ?
2. Because of the way my house wiring is setup, I have to move MANY of my circuits over to the critical load panel. I keep hearing 50 amp breaker from the home panel to the EG4 and then 50 amps to the critical load panel - is this the limit for this system?
Looking forward to future videos … Thanks from a fellow Texan !
@@wbarkwell yes. In fact, before I got my panels up, that is how I had mine setup. With the 6000XP, you can run two in parallel to get a higher output. Are you planning on keeping the existing panel in place and its connection to your grid meter?
Can’t afford two … originally, I planned on a subpanel but if you have other thoughts I’m listening to!
BTW … I am in ATL now … I was born in Houston … miss hearing y’all !
Calvin, do you get any glare from the solar panels? Had one against our backyard wall and my wife had a fit due to glare.
Not at all. I am thinking because they are black?
@@CalvinGorriaran Thank you, the one I was using wasn't all black so I'm thinking that was it also. I have to lean against block wall d/t HOA restrictions.
A mistake that you made was purchasing a low cost, Chinese made high frequency, transformerless inverter charger. All of these inferior high frequency inverters from any manufacturer, uses a low cost, low surge, short lived high frequency, transformerless inverter design that can be unsafe when powering household appliances or when charging an EV because they both lack an output transformer that provides galvanic isolation between their DC boost stage and their AC output. You're far better off investing in a much safer, higher performance low frequency, transformer based inverter charger.
I would never install one of these short lived, high frequency, transformerless inverter. They don't offer any galvanic isolation between their DC boost stage and their AC output which makes them potentially dangerous for powering your AC appliances.
@@solarcharging9743 can you break this down for me? Are you suggesting the THD provided on the AC side is unstable? Help me understand.
@@CalvinGorriaran I’ve got solar assistant monitoring my ac output for these 6000xp. Not much of a hiccup so far. Older high frequency inverters did in fact produce a very noisy sine wave that looked more like a set of stairs rather than a smooth sine wave that grid power sends through. These do not, I’ve had them on an oscilloscope. Sine wave looks nearly perfect. Low frequency inverters the big heavy suckers like the 18 KPV produce better though again not perfect sine waves. These will not fry your ac appliances unless something goes terribly wrong.