[RE-wrenches] Adding battery to grid tie

[david quattro]

I agree with William from an energy perspective in the long run it’s more
practical and elegant to DC couple.  Usually the monitoring works out
cleaner too if solar is just ‘Solar.’  as opposed to ac-coupled solar,
which can be confusing.
     Having said that, we built a 3-SolArk-15K in parallel, splitting about
20kW of legacy AC-coupled pv (SMA Sunny Boys) in the Gen ports. Did it this
way because of distance. This system has been running about 1.5 years with
no problems. 👍
     We’ve had good experience with Franklin, but have only done 2 of
those. I lean toward SolArk for better or worse, and almost always happy
with their reliability, flexible functionality, and customer service.  I’m
with Jason regarding Solaredge - I’ll never install them again.
      According to Tesla website, Powerwalls are not compatible with
generators for battery recharging. Correct me if I’m wrong. But if Tesla
batteries can’t accept Gen charging, to me this is a huge weakness.



On Sat, Aug 9, 2025 at 8:47 AM William Miller via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> Two options:
>
> 1. AC couple existing inverter to a battery capable inverter.
>
> 2. Replace existing inverter.
>
> I favor option 2.
>
> Option 1 is only preferred if gaining access to the existing inverter for
> replacement is difficult. An example would be a micro-inverter system.
>
> New AIO inverters allow true high voltage PV input so the existing
> stringing will probably not need to be modified.
>
> I’m new to this so type of upgrade so I welcome any corrections to these
> opinions.  I did replace a Sunny Boy in my shop with a Soul Ark and it’s
> working great!
>
> William Miller
> Miller Solar.com
> 805-438-5600
> www.millersolar.com
>
>
> On Sat, Aug 9, 2025 at 8:26 AM Jay via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
>> Is there a consensus as to what equipment to use for adding battery
>> backup to normal GT inverter?
>>
>>
>>
>> I’ve had a few people ask and I actually haven’t done it.
>>
>> Thx
>> Jay
>>
>>
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