Hi! I’m a bit of a solar energy newbie, trying to install a 5000w off-grid system. I’ve got the Easysolar II gx 5000 which has the MPPT 250/100 inside, 10 Trinasolar Vertex 505w panels and 3 Pylontech US3000c batteries. I thought it would be simple to connect but I’m struggling a little with the following question. Would greatly appreciate your opinion here!!
1. How do I best connect these panels? I now realise with 10 panels I bought a silly number. 2 parallel series of 5 panels exceeds the 250v limit (Vmpp 43,0, Impp 11,75, Voc 51,9 (- 0.25%/°C), Isc 12,35 (0.04%/°C). 5 parallel series of 2 panels leaves me with a very high current, probably needing a quite massive bar to connect them and thick cables (am I right here?). I’ve used the online calculator and it says 5x2 is okay though. What would you do? Or shall I rather put them as 3x3 and leave one panel off or buy 2 more and make 3 parallel series of 4 panels. This would potentially give me over 6kW PV array, whereas the manual says max 5.8kW, nevertheless the online calculator says it’s okay.
2. How do I fuse the system? So far my understanding is that best practices would be:
* One 20amp DC fuse (this is the panel’s max series fuse rating) for each parallel series of panels to avoid too much current flowing in from the other strings in case of short circuit.
* From there I lead the parallel series together and add a DC fuse/switch before going into the Easysolar. Am I correct in understanding it should be a 70amp fuse as the MPPT’s max PV short circuit current is 70A?
* Should I add a DC fuse/switch to the batteries? I’m off grid so I normally won’t want to disconnect the batteries unless I need to replace them. The manual says the recommended fuse is 200A, just for my understanding why would it be this high if the max output current is 100A?
* I will connect de AC out to my small house the house has a regular fuse box in place with a 32A main fuse and after this, several groups for the different areas with 16-20A fuses. I assume I don’t need to change anything here?
3. How do I ground the system? My house is grounded from the main fuse box, so every plug etc has a ground wire coming into the fuse box and one thick wire goes to the pin in the ground.
* Should I add a ground wire from the chassis of the Easysolar directly to the same pin?
* Should I add a ground wire from the chassis of the solar panels to the same pin?
* Should I add the ground wire in the AC out and where does it go? Should this be added to my house’s grounding system or should it replace it (ie instead of my house’s ground wire to the pin, I redirect it into the AC out of the Easysolar (and the Easysolar redirects it via the chassis to the pin??)
* Do I need to add any grounding to the batteries in any way?
Many questions, I know! I hope someone of you is kind enough to spend her/his precious time in writing me an answer and I also hope this may help others who may have similar questions. Thanks so much in advance!!