Nice! Glad it’s been working well for you!

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/

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.

Hi Ross, no need for dragging plants across the roof, I’ve done that multiple times ;). Have a look at this video kzfaq.info/get/bejne/itd_qpdkks7Gmpc.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😊

Cool, thanks Dan.

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

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.

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.

How are you liking the Goodwe inverter with the BYD batteries? Which model Goodwe did you go?

@@behindthebuild8016 Have this model: www.gesolarinverter.com.au/GEH-5-10kW.html . It a GoodWe rebadged as a GE inverter. In retrospect mad a mistake in that I have a stack of batteries per phase rather than a common set of batteries that feeds multiple inverters / phases. I corrected this in my second installtion using 3 Victron inverters feeding off a common set of batteries. I like GoodWe though in the Home Assistant has a nice interface to it whereas Victron requires a bit of setup with modbus etc.

@@behindthebuild8016 With the GoodWe / BYD I made the mistake of having 1 stack of batteries per phase. I addressed this in a second installation where I had a common set of batteries shared amongst 3 phases (this later installation used Victron / BYD). Having a common set of batteries feeding multiple inverters is much better. I do like the Home Assistant GoodWe interface - so thats another plus for GoodWe (whereas the Victron interface is a little more cumbersome to setup).

Interesting, seems like the update has sped it up already. I’ll have to try mine out again.

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 ;)

On paper Sungrow is a great solution. In reality, Sungrow has lots of issues, especially with their batteries. I would avoid.

@@mcelectrical thanks

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.

Love a good overkill!

Was it a newly built palace or offgrid?

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!

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.

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

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.

Yeah if a sunsynk or deye inverter performs just the same

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.

Can’t wait till it comes to Australia!

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 Penrith Solar Centre installed the first one in Australia recently. I’d be keen to do a thorough test review of it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thank you kind sir! I'm glad you find them helpfull!

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

welcome! ;)

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.

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

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.

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.

Excellent :)

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.

if it's just going to be bigger, than your answer is that it will probably just be more batteries in one unit, not new tech. Sorry. They will not release better batteries to the public they would make no money on it.

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.

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.

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

Sure, you must be on single phase. I was talking about 3 phase installations

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.

It’s not part of the plan as far as I know.

Yeh that would be good. unfortunately that’s not on the horizon.

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.

Yeh, thanks for pointing that out. Which inverter are you using?

The times they are a changing. Sodium looks like a fair contender.

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).

I think we have finally worked this out. We’ll see next time

Yeh, I’m looking forward to it! I was told it’s hopefully 2024 in Australia. We’ll see!

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.

Interesting. I’d go Tesla if I were to do AC coupled. But where do you live if you use dc power?

@mcelectrical I am in England. I don't use DC power but it makes more sense to put dc energy from array directly into batteries rather than invert to AC then invert back to DC. Victron have good written stuff on this, looking at when to put more array to inverter if say you have AirCon running. Victron can control fronius ìnverters with frequency control to avoid emergency shut downs. I am no expert in these systems but I am impressed with the modularity of victron and the VRM is great. If I were younger I would go deep into it. I am hoping they prove very durable as they have built a reputation in boats and campers for reliability, no one wants to lose power way out at sea!

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.

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.

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

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.

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....

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.

Yeh fair comments. 3 phase backup and size flexibility is the biggest downside to Tesla, but that’s not an issue for everyone.

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

Oh no, now i'm worried Wally! What am i going to maybe get wrong?

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.

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!

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).

;) 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?

Easy. The Fronius Gen24

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.

Hyperbolic but valid point. I'd rather not live in a future where we find out!

Hi Pateng, here is our pricing. www.mcelectrical.com.au/byd-solar-battery-brisbane/ And www.mcelectrical.com.au/tesla-powerwall-2/

Mick, Where I live in Brisbane blackouts are really rare. But once every 40 years…. Wow!

If you’re after an unexpected cremation, then yes! 👍🙂

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.

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.

It’s much cheaper, I’ll give you that. I’m not convinced it’s going to be more reliable!

@@mcelectrical Pylontech are the most reliable batteries. Warranty of 10 years and lifespan given for 4500 cycles (>12y) - 310€ per kWh. Rackable. For the inverter warranty of 10y in Europe.

Because the grid is a really cheap backup generators. To get enough batteries for worst case scenario would be to expensive.

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.

I wonder where the battery cells for the LFP Powerwall will come from?

Thanks mate, but I can’t work out what you mean by 871st?

@@mcelectrical I was the 871st person who smashed the like button 😄

Yeh I agree in theory regarding thermal runaway and NMC, but calling Tesla unsafe would be a big call. And the Powerwall is actually larger than 13.5kWh . 13.5 is the useable energy.

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/

Yeh I was just looking into that. But watch this for a different perspective on the story kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eJ-KqJt_srXeYnU.html

Warranty period for both is 10 years, you would hope they would both last longer

Ah right. Thanks!

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