SmartSolar 250/100 Paralleling

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sijh asked Mar 4, '19

SmartSolar 250/100 Paralleling

Hello all.
I'm designing quite a large system for our off grid farm. About 15kw.

I will be using Panasonic HIT 325 Kuro as I all ready have some. These panels will fit the 250/100 well as I can have 5 parallel strings of 3 and be within temp adjusted max limits.

My question is:

My preferred option is to have 3 x smartsolar 250/100 mppt controllers paralleled going into 1 battery. This battery is quite large at 45Kw and will be lifepo4. The battery will then power 3 large inverters which will also be paralleled for 15kw single phase output.

I am however concerned that the 3 x smartsolars will not be able to synchronise to work well together. Is the patch that was proposed back in February going to happen? Or is there a hardware solution that I haven't seen yet that will enable the smartsolars to work together?

My other option is to split the system up into 3 sections and then just combine the 3 inverters. I'd rather not do this as I'd prefer to have one large 45kw battery as opposed to 3 x 15kw.

Thanks in advance.

Simon

MPPT Controllers

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Answer 1 · 2019-03-04T13:14:13Z

Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered · Mar 04, 2019 at 01:14 PM

Yes, this synchronised parallel over bluetooth smart networking feature is still getting very active development.

It is difficult to give an accurate launch date, as new issues can arise during testing, that then need new fixes and further testing.

There are also other firmware improvements coming for the MPPTs to give more control over charging behaviour. Those improvements have been escalated, and require similar teams to develop, implement and test.

In the mean time with your case, it’s not optimised, but still possible and functional to connect 3 MPPTs in parallel without syncronisation.

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Answer 2 · 2019-03-04T14:13:53Z

sijh answered · Mar 04, 2019 at 02:13 PM

Thanks for your response Guy.
Has anyone else paralleled 3 x smartsolar Mppt 250/100's with useable results?

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Scott Clark commented · Mar 05, 2019 at 10:46 PM

We have a customer with 3 x SmartSolar 250/100 in parallel.

Originally, all 3 were pre-networking and then one was replaced, so the newer one has the networking connected to the BMV-712 with temp sensor.

So while waiting fingers crossed for synchronisation fix for the other two, the system operates well - minor voltage differences between MPPTs.

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sijh Scott Clark commented · Mar 07, 2019 at 01:51 PM

Thanks for your answer

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Answer 3 · 2019-03-05T11:24:52Z

Michael Connolly answered · Mar 05, 2019 at 11:24 AM

What about using the 712 as the network point and sharing voltage to all three MPPTs?

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sijh commented · Mar 05, 2019 at 02:16 PM

Hi Michael, thanks for your answer.

I've tried to find that functionality in the BMV 712 manual but can't seem to see it. Have I missed something?

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ sijh commented · Mar 05, 2019 at 09:37 PM

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/victronconnect:ve-smart-networking

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Answer 4 · 2019-03-05T14:22:34Z

Paul B answered · Mar 05, 2019 at 02:22 PM

I think he means the Smart voltage temp units that connect all units via bluetooth. I would think you could do this without the BMV as well

at least all the voltages would be the same

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Answer 5 · 2019-03-05T20:38:23Z

boekel answered · Mar 05, 2019 at 08:38 PM

I might overlook something...but I'd assume the 45kWh battery has a BMS?

The BMS will be in controll through the Venus, and all devices will listen to the voltage / current limits defined by the bms..

At least that's how it works for me...

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Answer 6 · 2019-07-31T22:57:15Z

Samuel Ropert answered · Jul 31, 2019 at 10:57 PM

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to know if there's any update on this topic.

I have a PV system conformed by a MultiPlus 48/5000/70-100, a Colour Control and 4 SmartSolar 250/100 working in parallel.

I'm a bit concerned that even though the batteries are connected in parallel, each MPPT reads a different voltage, and they also change their SOC states at different times.

I hired an external company for this installation and afterwards I've noticed many mistakes from their behalf, so I'm worried about this. Is this dangerous for the batteries or MPPT? Could anybody shed some light on this?

I've been looking through the Colour Control remote console and I found that the MPPTs have an Interconnected Operation menu from which a cannot change anything. Is this related with a future Parallel connection feature?

Also, is there a way to work with one inverter, 4 mppt connected to 4 battery banks isolated from each other? In this way I could use different types of batteries or batteries with different usage time.

Thanks in advance!

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