Big 14.2kW solar upgrade installed AND connected! Back online in the Off-Grid Garage (so to speak).

This is the last day of installing the new 14.2kWp solar system. Jake and his team start early this morning to get it all connected today. East Roof, Big Shed and the Carport installation are still outstanding. One roof after another gets installed and connected. I'm following this closely in the Victron app and can already see a bit of the potential this system will have. I also installed and connected the Ground Fault Alarm device on the PowerWall. An expensive device...
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[@henvan8737]

You have done a champion install job. It would be interesting to see a financial report as to the whole project costs.

[@blackswansystem]

Maybe Andy needs a patreon account.

[@jackoneil3933]

'Oh, the weather outside is frightful But the fire is so delightful And since we've no place to go Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow It doesn't show signs of stopping And I've bought some corn for popping The lights are turned way down low Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow'

[@tiloalo]

Someone must have made some nice lobbying to enforce the earth guard... 600$ for 20$ of electronic... Very nice install and thanks for the insane amount of videos released in the last weeks!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you. And that's the only provider on the AU market at the moment, yeah... they are making some money.

[@bassobalalaikka5005]

19:40 ruuvi tag designed in Finland, a long way to there down under. remember to stock some CR2477 lithium batteries to support replacement each 2-3 years greetings from Finland

[@boatelectricaldiy]

Tomorrow will be a great day for you my friend. Cloudy day numbers on those panels are something else!

[@catch22frubert]

Congratulations on getting everything connected, Andy! Can't believe you will have 14kwh of solar and all 3 battery banks in the completed battery shelf holding over 44kwh of energy! That is an incredible amount of solar and battery power. I can't believe it all started with those 4 original Ali Express cells, and now you have enough solar and battery power to sustain 3 buildings and another huge battery in the Tesla. Incredible work and a great journey so far my friend. Looking forward to battery 3.0!

[@marcobrian1619]

Wooow. That's one impressive system now. May have to start at your first video again to feel more in line with you.....ha ha.

[@AveRage_Joe]

Love it Andy!!! Congrats on the New System!!!

[@KevIsOffGrid]

Good work, even if it seems old news for this VRM stalker ;) Battery temp on lower pack in winter - see how cold it gets, but yes, top pack in summer for the "how hot".

[@excillisbank2611]

Superbe travail de POWERMATE et cette mise à jour pleine de puissance ! à découvrir dans tes futurs vidéo ANDY. merci encore pour toutes ce partage exceptionnel.

[@amilww]

Awesome! Awaiting to see the graphs in couple of days...

[@andrewradford3953]

Congratulations on the big upgrade. You've built an elegant system you should be very proud of, despite your humble nature. I really have to up my game on the off grid cabin so I can charge the car grid free. I have a eucalypt forest I planted in the 90s that shades from just after midday. Solution is to oversize system and tilt panels East.

[@klassichd10]

Congrats to full Power! Glad to see, that your preparations and the upgrade worked out so great. Now comes the summer which should be "boring" because of plenty power. After 6 months we will see "the truth". I stay tuned.

[@hoffinb]

Great to see Andy 3,4,5,6... helping you out.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Hahaha, yeah, would be great to have them here more often.

[@junkerzn7312]

Chasing the sun 🙂Awesome system! 14.2kW. Wow. The resistance between any of the power carrying circuits and ground should be 10 MOhms (mega ohms) or higher. The reason it takes a long time to test it is because it is actually fairly difficult to measure leakage current due to the EM noise on all the cables (including the ground cable) drowning out the measurement. To solve this, the EarthGuard has to average over a hell of a lot of A/D samples and it takes time to do that. The resistance will never be infinite... there is always some leakage across the insulation. i.e. if you put a power cable and a non-current-carrying ground wire next to each other, there is actually always some leakage between them. In a DC circuit this is the primary leakage path. Beyond that, the noise on the cables will couple across via the EM field but on a DC cable that is going to be more in the gigaohms. On AC cabling the EM field from the waveform is typically the primary leakage path but the measurements easily cancel it out since the current reverses every half cycle. Again leaving us with the uni-directional leakage through the insulation. The cool thing about this is that the EarthGuard will be able to detect arc faults and burned insulation... anything which reduces the effectiveness of the insulation and brings the resistance under 10MOhm it can detect. My SMA grid-tie string inverter has a similar feature built-in. And they can often find developing faults BEFORE the cables actually short out. i.e. while there is still some insulation left, but not enough to keep the resistance above 10 MOhms. EDIT: actually for AC leakage I think my description is wrong. It would have to measure power leakage and not current leakage. The current coupled to ground would still cancel out. I'll have to bone-up on my leakage :-) hahaha. But DC leakage is easy. -Matt

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks Matt, great explanation. It seems to measure once a day when the light turns amber for a while. I hope it never shows anything. Tha will be a hunt to find it...

[@junkerzn7312]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia I had an arcing fault inside the metal conduit backhauling the AC from my old grid-tie inverter that wasn't enough to trip the breaker. The original installers had used too-small a conduit and had damaged the wire during the pull. From what I can determine, it was arcing for years and the only way we found it was when I hired an electrician to wire the unrelated EV charger. The electrician had to reroute the inverter's conduit and found the arc fault. My new inverter has a similar resistance check feature built in and should be able to notify me if anything like that happens in the future. But yah, finding it... yuch. You basically have to pull all the wire out of the conduits to locate the actual fault. But its better than having a fire!

[@binauchich]

Wow, ich habe geschaut bei dir. Power satt :-) Du kriegst die Batterie nie mehr leer .-)

[@ascenttev6022]

Awesome Amazing Andy's Off-Grid Garage. Thank you....Andy

[@tedhamilton2362]

Oustanding solution! Looking forward to seeing the production peaks.

[@wayne8113]

Thanks Andy, (I'm envious) Looks Great 👍

[@chrishuxley7634]

Congrats Andy, now you have some pool fence panels, Just thought but for a number of years now I have had a DC pool pump and it works great, pump comes on in the morning and stops when the sun goes down, pump works on approx 90VDC

[@paulcurtis5496]

Gesundheit! Andy you have Big Boy panels like me now! Welcome to the 540w club!!!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

They are amazing. Wait for the next video...

[@gumpster6]

Amazing PV upgrade - congrats! Should provide all the power you need.

[@loucinci3922]

WOW! Awesome video. Thanks for sharing.

[@cheetahkid]

Lucky you, You didn't get any rain. Urrg, rain non-stop here in UK.

[@typxxilps]

Congratulations - you seem to get the clouds from germany that we have faced the last 2 days. Before we had the sunniest november here for ages. Already the full amount of kWh achieved that had been produced in November 2019. So pretty sunny, but a bit short. Regarding your last solar panel row: Might be worth considering a foldable under construction with a kind of 3 preset angles where you can choose from. I mention this cause I measured recently that the steeper angle in winter brings double the W we had before in a 18° configuration which means we technically can shut off 40% of the array and will still have a better result. You might wanna test that with the former pool fence array first what impact a steep angle might have. The important part here is to prolonge the time we harvest and to lower the battery consumption cause we reduce this way the bill from the public power station.

[@mw0lge]

fantastic to see the install Andy. I have been watching your system on the public vrm view for the last couple of days. Cheers.

[@paulmagee823]

Awsome job Andy wot a achievement wish mine was like it not jealous at all well done 👏

[@anthonyrstrawbridge]

I don't know if Andy could accomplish much more at the solar garage photovoltaic systems but I've always wondered if the solar garage could implement solar steam power generation at lower or comparable cost. I'm constantly wanting to see Really Big Power Generation quickly. Several years ago, I purchase through Craigslist a truck load of solar hydronic heating panels. I did not know at that time what I buy I got. They were designed by a New Zealand company and manufactured somewhere around New York under a government sponsored renewable energy contract. Apparently, at that time they were immensely expensive but very efficient. The 26mm heavy thick copper manifolds and thick double insulated vacuum tubes were coated with an energy absorption material. I'm a proud owner. They outperform natural gas and can generate steam easily at 60 psi on freezing cold days. I melted a copper pipe fitting once at late winter time when one of the differential temperature sensors failed letting the immense steam pressure to run away. The steam shot up into the sky 10-15 meters then left a big snow drift on the ground. I have wanted to connect a steam driven power generator for a long time. Anyway, the stuff sold now is much cheaper and probably works sufficiently enough. I'm guessing that the Tesla and house bank could be fast charged in record time with a minimal investment compared to any other solar power option. A fraction - me thinx.✌️♥️👍

[@maxwhitby2287]

Thanks!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thanks a lot, Max. Great support from you. And thanks heaps for your amazing book. I'll give you a plug in a future video. I really like it. Amazing work!

[@ElectronTinkerer]

Congratulations. 🎉. Great setup. Really love it.

[@diysolaradventures7894]

Oh goodie goodie I been waiting on ur new solar system Andy 🙂 you are such an inspiration to me 👍

[@ragohy]

Hi Andy: Gratulation - well done 🍻😀

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Thank you.

[@TrevorFraserAU]

Well done, so happy for you mate!

[@MitjaMozina-re5fj]

But the mppts will have the old settings and all the same? Bravo!

[@netrocker9990]

"i have got the enough amount of shading,i don't want to create my own" quote of the decade

[@dmiller9786]

Sunny! Andy needs to get home and plug in the car! How about a 5kW pool pump?

[@bennojax]

Congrats Andy again …. what an amazing work you have done ✅ …. looking forward to see how it will work …. and of course everything is “bombenfest” installed 😂

[@pmacgowan]

Now for the rest of Aust, you can teach us Andy 🙂

[@bildad1234]

It's a beautiful thing!

[@upnorthandpersonal]

Makes me want to get more panels :)

[@IncognitaLabs]

Me too, I'm going to order another 2kw worth of 100w panels. Just saw some WEIZE panels at Amazon for 74 USD each and free shipping. I have as much shade as Andy at my location so more panels is a must.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Doesn't it. It's a crazy amount of panels and power now. Are yours not enough for your off-grid system?

[@upnorthandpersonal]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia They are, it's 10kW after all and adding more wouldn't matter in winter since it's dark, so no amount of panels would be enough. However... it's so much fun, EV next, and all the other things I can come up with doing in summer with, for all intents and purposes, limitless power is tempting.

[@davidmills2266]

LOOKING GOOOOOOOOOOD!

[@USA-GreedyMenOfNoIntegrity]

Midnite Solar SPD’s are $90-$100USD. Well worth the money!

[@JStarke240]

Worth of study of angles of the car port panels to see if the energy you gain by raising those panels higher outweighs the loss from the late afternoon shading effect. Perhaps not. Testing is in order, but I bet you've done this calculation/testing already.

[@UnkyjoesPlayhouse]

Wow, amazing setup Andy :) I strive to get my setup 1/2 as good as yours :)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It's a lot! But I have to cater for winter time, so that will be the interesting season. But for now, I'm enjoying ALL the power, wow.

[@edwardvanhazendonk]

Very nice progress Andy, even with a cloudy forcast it might generate enough.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It does, Edward, it does!

[@taulli1]

I knew it would!

[@hmarc417]

From working with pc's and still noticing the shop cat you have, there should be several of those little white connections on a sound board or two, better take a looksee around your shop again , there might just still be two connections hiding out somewhere, for your controllers. 🙃🙃

[@IncognitaLabs]

My wimpy 4kw system seems kinda small after watching this.. Your upgraded system would produce an amazing amount of power out in the bright and clear desert..

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

In optimal conditions, it could produce well over 100kWh/day. I'm using 20kWh with the house/day... That includes hot water and vehicle charging.

[@peterwalker7869]

Please like share and be sure to subscribe. You don't want to miss next week as Andy is about to fill in the pool, flatten the area and start on the foundations of an even bigger Off-Grid Garage 2.0. Be sure not to miss out on a single episode.

[@haysdb]

Victron inverters need serious PV cables. My Deye inverter handles much longer strings so my PV cables only need to handle 26A. The Victron 150/70 needs to handle 50A and if you’ve got 6 strings of 2, you’re pushing 60A through those cables. No wonder you need such heavy gauge wire.

[@QuantumMarmalade]

🤣 that "lot of work" is what I do before breakfast. Those guys are managers, not installers. They got sent out to make sure to not disturb the KZbin bees nest. You can tell by the slow pace and the way they work gingerly and awkward like it's their first time. 😉🤣

[@IXISSV]

Yayyyyy 🥳👏🎉🍻🍻 Congratulations 🎊👏🥳🎉🍻🍻

[@Dutch_off_grid_homesteading]

Heya, that is a really nice and big upgrade. I want to see how it's working in full sun light if you will get the full 14.2kWp that they have installed

[@christoph9857]

Hello Andy, I can see that the two 150/70 on the top have ve.can, maybe you can daisy chain them? Greetings from Germany

[@rahsomali]

This is cool stuff.

[@paulvanspronsen]

VRM lets you fix your y-axis as of yesterday... for your PV Power custom widget

[@ianpope7061]

Would be interested in some info on the earth protection device. Thx

[@d.7189]

Hello, the 220V output from the inverter is single-phase or two-phase AC. If you have a two-phase output, do you have problems with air conditioners or car recharging or gas boilers? In two-phase the differential does not work. Greetings from Italy, Turin.

[@Adrian-foto]

And the best bank to invest Your money in is...?... a battery bank! =) You knew it ;)

[@kennith.]

Hi Andy, I can't remember if there was a legal requirement to have a certain distance from the edge. IF not you might be able to move the car port panels closer to the edge so it cast less shadow without changing the angle of the car port panels.

[@IkkjeDus]

Yes, there is a legal requirement. One of the reasons to change it all.

[@chevrofreak]

I'm not jealous...

[@thomyk2]

Me too :)

[@kipdennis3796]

We are not jealous 😂

[@michagooglein4163]

Oh no, never! Who belives.... 🙂

[@HeinzMeulke]

Looking at the vrm it seems like you have too much power. Most days the panels sit idle once the battery is filled. Now you need to get home assistant setup so you can at least switch on some loads automatically. I dump the excess energy in my water heater. I wish I could get an EV in South Africa, it would be great to convert the excess to green kilometres.

[@ToniLIUGanteng]

thank you for sharing , can you kindly inform total cost for the off grid system , I know that you do step by step.. i want to follow it as well. thank you and i hope you read my comment :)😃

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

As a rough measure, so far around AUD30k I would estimate, including all solar installation, devices and 44kWh of storage.

[@ToniLIUGanteng]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia thank you for your replied , appreciated, what kind of solar panel and where did you buy did you have an Information ? thank you.

[@davidpatrick1813]

726 groovy

[@hmarc417]

Andy,, in one of the shots there is a purple lace like tree, What is it called and will it grow in the US???? @5:51

[@talowbo]

Just curious… what are your panel specs? What kind of Voltage and Amperage were you expecting (peak of course)?

[@ricardomarcelino8388]

Finaaaaallyyyyy! Yeeeees...

[@taulli1]

I feel the same way.

[@Josh-b3c]

I don't think you really need to worry about all of that you'll have plenty of power

[@5885ronny]

🤗👍 Super 👍🤗 Gutes Video 🤗

[@MarkRose1337]

Does the big shed have another roof face? I guess it's always in shade or faces too much south?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, it has. That's for another project. Hence the big panel in the shed...

[@dc1544]

👏👏

[@frankbierschneider8785]

13:26 why did you/they choose to only put 2 in series? This is around 80V. With three (I.e. around 120V) you should stay below the 150V of the charge controllers, isn‘t it? Theoretically wouldn‘t this limit potential power loss a bit with a lower current but higher voltage? What was the reason behind 2 vs 3 in series? Tnx Andy!

[@haysdb]

I’m also wondering how that charge controller handles 6 strings.

[@cees1910]

Do you have a drawing of the system with wiring and apparatus Seems so complicated, More complicated as my system of 17,5 kw system

[@1segzyo471]

Andy.....Why not VeCan for the charge controllers. It will require just an ordinary rj45 ethernet cable

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

I would need to modify the Pi as well with a CAN hat and it does not seem to work very reliable from my testing (made a few videos about that). There is really no benefit of using the CAN unless you're far away and VE.direct won't work any more.

[@GeoffHou]

why not tilting that second west row to the east?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes. It's in the video...

[@makechips]

6:45AM and already making over 1000w! Enjoy!🎉

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It's crazy, right?!

[@makechips]

Just after noon, when the batteries were nearing full charge the power from your arrays dropped off (Big Shed and Car Port went to zero) is that by design? Is the 31. Degrees on the batteries within the expected /acceptable range? Finally,is your next step to increase your storage capacity? I’ve enjoyed watching your journey so far, amazing setup (no need to cut back the trees/change the ambiance, I don’t think you can use all the output you have…nice problem 😂).

[@taulli1]

Yeeeeeeeeeeessssssssss!!!

[@mannyfragoza9652]

Those trees would have been the first thing i cut down. Can you imagine how much longer you would extend your solar power ?

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

You don't get it, eh? kzbin.info/www/bejne/pISaY3qmerRgsKM

[@mannyfragoza9652]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia well some people like the shade/Oxygen but the money you spent on your Solar system, I would think you are not getting its full potential IMO

[@MarkRose1337]

@@mannyfragoza9652 He's maximising power for the available sunlight, not minimising shade for the available solar panels.

[@mannyfragoza9652]

@@MarkRose1337 duh.. not my point

[@unwired]

HI Andy, what size are those wires connected to your SCC?

[@regun2434]

Die schraubetag 😁

[@peters8080]

Shading per se isnt bad, its the time of day that it occurs and if it matches your load profile. Ditto the array slope, by lowering that tilted array, you might gain a tiny bit of power at the end of the day, and reduce the overall generation from both arrays by flattening the tilted array. Again depends on the season you need the power.

[@kevinmatthews2620]

next video please Andy :) :)

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Working on it!!!!!

[@taulli1]

I am having so much fun watching these too!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

@@taulli1 Thanks a lot for your kind comment. I'm working on the next one for you 😉

[@diysolaradventures7894]

Andy can the settings be changed in these Victron charge controllers that don't have the built-in Bluetooth??

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Yes, they can be changed But you need the VE.direct to USB cable and connect them to a laptop/computer.

[@diysolaradventures7894]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia ohh ok I have a V.E direct cable to USB just like the one you made in your video on the raspberry Pi will that work which program do I run on the computer?

[@diysolaradventures7894]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thank you Andy I got it to work it's been sitting here a month because I didn't want to spend the $50 for the Bluetooth dongle

[@davidkarath6549]

Hey Andy what is the name of the adjustable racking...thx...Dave

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

Which rack do you mean? The battery shelf?

[@davidkarath6549]

On the roof...it's extendable...looks like unistrut with a slotted bar of aluminum in it

[@douglasrobbie9998]

I've watched this channel for a year or so. Could you explain the situation with the tress that shade your roofs? Are they your trees or neighbor and if yours, could they be trimmed or removed? Where I live , an installer would not recommend installing solar panels with this much shading.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pISaY3qmerRgsKM

[@BavarianSuperGuy]

12:46 peak missing

[@GNiessen]

I would think you would more than make up for the shading with better exposure for the rest of the day. There is not much energy at 5pm.

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

The battery is already full at noon, so... Also, sunset is at 6:30

[@tujuprojects]

They sat at the wrong side of car!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

It's the right side!

[@tujuprojects]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia only if your world is upside-down already anyway.

[@wowyummyyy]

L I K E 👍 👍👍 👍 👍 ✳ ✴ ✳ ✴ ✳ 😍😍😍 😍😍😍

[@effbee56]

The Earth Guard sounds like a rip off

[@paulvanspronsen]

Suggestion for your next big solar upgrade: chainsaw

[@jws3925]

The word "spat". I looked it up in the dictionary and I did not see it referring to a liquid refreshment. Is this Australian slang??? I know you use the term all the time but I never hear anyone in the States refer to a liquid refreshment as a spat. In fact, we use the term to describe an argument.

[@AndyM...]

Hi John, you'll have to go back quite a few videos to get the meaning of this one !!!

[@AndyM...]

....and the very last from of this video is a clue !

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

See if you can figure it out, John 😉

[@bogdandamljanovic5972]

Hallo ich mag deine Videos aber leider nicht auf Deutsch 😢vielleicht kannst was machen

[@helicopter269]

Buy a chain saw no more shading

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pISaY3qmerRgsKM

[@mbr8981]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia der Andy und seine Schatten PV 🤣🤣🤣

[@mbr8981]

@@OffGridGarageAustralia Grüße aus Deutschland

[@fryadahmed]

If you live in Australia for a period, then you learn what a big taboo is choppiydown a trea and plants. It is an amazing culture and I hope it spreads all over the globe.

[@mbr8981]

@@fryadahmed tear it down 😁

[@USA-GreedyMenOfNoIntegrity]

Good to see you finally bought some new panels. Now it’s time to buy a chainsaw and get all those trees cut down for firewood and lumber.

[@bloodcarver913]

Trim the biggest trees around you to half-height

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

For what? It's too much power already: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pISaY3qmerRgsKM

[@martdaymo]

Am first

[@JayDee25895]

Third!

[@oliverfeldmann9339]

Kauf dir eine Säge 🪚 und hau die Bäume 🌲 um !! Ich spende dir eine aber Versand zahlst du !!

[@OffGridGarageAustralia]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/pISaY3qmerRgsKM