System design with Solar

If you need help deciding on what monitor to get, which current transformers should you purchase for your panel, or anything else along these lines, start a thread here.
ben
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by ben » Tue Jun 09, 2015 9:32 am

jgt1942 wrote:To my knowledge the double-breaker does not have a neutral. By neutral I'm assuming you mean the ground. All ground wires are attached to the panel ground bar. In the image for the house main panel you can see the ground bar and all of the attached wires. In the garage sub-panel I did not include the ground bar in the image but there is a ground bar.


Yeah, if there's just a single wire on each leg, then you're fine to double it with firmware.
jgt1942 wrote:Most of my breakers are below 50 amps. Just to ensure I'm on the same page if the breaker is 50 amps or higher then I need to use the Micro-100.

Question - What is the price of the Micro units? I could not find this information on your site.
You got it. Most of our pricing is up at http://www.brultech.com/store. Once you assemble everything you need, you'd be best off emailing sales(at)brultech.com for a quote however.
jgt1942 wrote:OK this will take me an hour or so. I'll try to work on it tonight but for the next two days my schedule is very tight thus I may not get it completed until mid-week and can upload for your verification.
No problem.
jgt1942 wrote:I see where we are going here but what is a GreenEye Monitor? I used the search function for your site but did not find anything.

My initial thinking is to monitor all circuits. Question If I counted correctly I have 44 circuits in the House main panel and garage sub-panel. With your system will I be able to monitor all circuits? Do I need to put anything in the Outside Electrical Panel that services the house. How are the Solar panels monitored?
Check out http://www.mypowerpanel.com/, there's more information there. You'd need 2 GEMs to monitor everything separately. If you want to use 1 GEM, you'll have to combine 12 circuits onto other channels (which might not be too bad if you have some rarely used breakers).

Solar panels are monitored like any other breaker, every channel reads incoming/outgoing power.
Ben
Brultech Research Inc.
E: ben(at)brultech.com
jgt1942
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by jgt1942 » Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:18 am

tnakelski wrote:Is the statement "The grid should produce on the average 1000 KW per day" a typo? The 32 panel array can produce about 6.8 kw per hour, even with 24 hours of sun the max that can be produced is 165 kw per day.
I thought I entered what APS stated was submitted to them. I have to plead ignorance on my side and admit I really don't know what I have. I just looked through the materials the installer (American Solar ) left with me and I do see that it states on several of the drawings I have a 6.6 KW system. Does this mean that under optimal conditions the system can create 6.6 KW per hour or in a day?

My brother-in-law recently had 21 panels installed on his house, about the same size as mine, he has gas heat and gas hot water. Last month his APS bill was $17 mine was $124. Thus the move to go all electric was a bad option on my part but something is using a lot of power in my house. Thus I need to make the move to install equipment that will help identify what is using the electricity and then I can work to a solution.
jgt1942
jgt1942
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by jgt1942 » Wed Jun 10, 2015 1:25 am

tnakelski wrote:Your heavy hitters most probably will be your heating and cooling as you indicated you are using heat pumps for heating, even in Arizona in the colder months, heat pumps struggle when the outside temperature drops below 45 degrees. Are your heat pumps supplemented with electric resistant elements? The next I would guess would be your domestic hot water, domestic hot water can account between 18 to 25 percent of your total energy usage. You might consider a hybrid hot water heater when it's time to replace your current hot heater. Annual saving are quite dramatic.

As Teken stated, the only real way of understanding you energy profile is to monitor it, the more granular the better the understanding. This will point out area's within your home for energy saving potentials that can be identified and changed. Simple things like LED bulbs can have a great impact on reducing energy cost.
Yes I have heat strips. The heating system was a design change late into the build. One of my "experts" touted that I would be wise to go all electric. Obviously he was not an expert but was able to convince me to make a bad decision.

Looking back I think I should have installed three on-demand water heaters. One for the kitchen, one for the master bath and central half-bath and one that would service the guest bats, laundry room and the 1/2 bath I have in my garage. This would have eliminated the need for the big tank now in the basement and the circulating pump to push the hot water through the current system.

Once I'm able to determine what is using all of the electricity I can make better decisions.
jgt1942
jgt1942
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by jgt1942 » Wed Jun 10, 2015 2:02 am

Ben, I just saw your Posted: Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:32 am and greatly appreciate the link. This is VERY helpful.
jgt1942
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by jgt1942 » Wed Jun 10, 2015 3:11 am

Ben, attached is the Excel file for my breaker analysis. Please confirm if this is what you need.
Terdik Breaker Analysis.xlsx
Terdik Breaker Analysis
(10.77 KiB) Downloaded 198 times
jgt1942
ben
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by ben » Wed Jun 10, 2015 9:40 am

Attached with CT suggestions.
Terdik Breaker Analysis_revised.xlsx
(11.78 KiB) Downloaded 179 times
You may not want to monitor some of the loads (like the sub panel mains), if you do want to monitor the sub panel mains, you'll have to compare the diameter of the cable to the inner diameter of the Micro-100 to make sure it'll fit.

You'll also need to decide between 1 or 2 GEMs.
Ben
Brultech Research Inc.
E: ben(at)brultech.com
jgt1942
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by jgt1942 » Wed Jun 10, 2015 5:45 pm

ben wrote:Attached with CT suggestions.
Terdik Breaker Analysis_revised.xlsx
You may not want to monitor some of the loads (like the sub panel mains), if you do want to monitor the sub panel mains, you'll have to compare the diameter of the cable to the inner diameter of the Micro-100 to make sure it'll fit.

You'll also need to decide between 1 or 2 GEMs.
The garage sub panel is a feed from the main panel on the outside of the house about 3' away and I was thinking of installing the monitor in that panel but it could just as easily be installed in the garage sub-panel. My assumption that it is the same measurement. The size of the wire had a dia of 0.370" or 9.63mm.

In my spreadsheet to be on the safe side should I identify the size of the wire on each breaker?

Some of the breakers can be merged with other breakers but I don't know if I can get everything in one GEM thus I'm leaning to using 2 GEMs. Do you agree?
jgt1942
ben
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by ben » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:02 am

jgt1942 wrote:
ben wrote:Attached with CT suggestions.
Terdik Breaker Analysis_revised.xlsx
You may not want to monitor some of the loads (like the sub panel mains), if you do want to monitor the sub panel mains, you'll have to compare the diameter of the cable to the inner diameter of the Micro-100 to make sure it'll fit.

You'll also need to decide between 1 or 2 GEMs.
The garage sub panel is a feed from the main panel on the outside of the house about 3' away and I was thinking of installing the monitor in that panel but it could just as easily be installed in the garage sub-panel. My assumption that it is the same measurement. The size of the wire had a dia of 0.370" or 9.63mm.

In my spreadsheet to be on the safe side should I identify the size of the wire on each breaker?

Some of the breakers can be merged with other breakers but I don't know if I can get everything in one GEM thus I'm leaning to using 2 GEMs. Do you agree?
Yeah, 2 GEMs is probably the way to go.

The wire-size should be OK for everything, the only variable is the size of the 125A wire and the ID of the Micro-100 is 0.59" so you're OK there.

Once you're finalized on everything, email the list of CTs, GEMs, etc to sales(at)brultech.com and they'll make you up a quote.
Ben
Brultech Research Inc.
E: ben(at)brultech.com
jgt1942
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Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:41 am

Re: System design with Solar

Post by jgt1942 » Thu Jun 11, 2015 1:37 pm

Ben, what about what I need to connect to my PC, e.g. hardware and software?
jgt1942
ben
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Re: System design with Solar

Post by ben » Thu Jun 11, 2015 2:31 pm

jgt1942 wrote:Ben, what about what I need to connect to my PC, e.g. hardware and software?
Sent you an email.

If you don't get a DashBox, you'll have to get a WiFi/Ethernet module in each GEM or run serial to USB cables.

The DashBox has 2 COM ports, so you could run 2 cables (one from each GEM) to the DashBox. The cable is RS232 to stereo jack. You should be able to run 50-100FT without any issues via CAT cable.
Ben
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E: ben(at)brultech.com
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