Hi. Can't believe that's been almost eight years now. uh, June and 2013. I had this uh, three kilowatt home solar installation installed and well, it's been a fantastic system and I've done many Uh videos of it over uh, the years.

And apart from uh, the Dc isolator here failing, I've had no issues whatsoever because when I installed this thing, I actually deliberately paid a lot extra to get the Um Lg Mono Xr panels basically the best ones you can get and a Sunny Boy inverter system. And they haven't given a liquor problem in seven and a half years. And I've been tracking the data from this thing as I've done videos on. And really, I haven't seen any degradation in performance over seven and a half almost eight years now.

But this is only a three kilowatt system. I've got 12 250 watts, which was basically almost the highest you can get Uh panels at the time for a a total of a three uh kilowatt system and that's been okay. It's supplemented my bills. I've done a five-year video payback where it basically paid itself back.

Over those five years. it would have paid itself off quicker if I had a greater Uh solar feed-in tariff because here in Australia we get a crap solar feed in tariff. And don't get me started, the New South Wales government's just announced that they might actually charge us to Ex instead of us getting money to export energy back to the grid. We'll have to pay them to export energy back into the grid Anyway, Let's not get started about that, but it's basically uh, paid itself back over at least over five years.

and certainly seven years. I'll do another payback. Uh, video showing and going through the calculations. Uh, showing how much uh, this thing is, uh, earned.

But it's basically paid for itself now. of course. I've got the Hyundai Ioniq electric vehicle now, and I do some of that charging at home here. And a three kilowatt system doesn't really cut it.

It's been a great supplemental system, but that's basically all we could fit on the roof Here, We didn't. We've got other aspects, uh, other parts of our roof which we didn't want to, uh, put panels on. but anyway, a three kilowatt system. It was expensive at the time.

it was like about five thousand dollars to install this system back then, which was, you know, a decent amount of coin. but it's paid itself back. but we couldn't really fit any bigger system on here. But uh, since that time, we've actually, uh, extended the house out so we've got some extra roof space.

And of course, with the electric vehicle. Uh, we've got the extra load. That's a 2.2 kilowatt load if we're charging the electric, slow charging, trickle charging the electric vehicle. uh, either during the day or overnight.

it doesn't come from the it's going to have to look at a storage solution. But anyway, the electric vehicle. There's 2.2 kilowatts and we basically, uh, peak. I can show you some data.

We peak. at about an eight kilowatt consumption. uh, per day because we're working Mrs. E V Log's working from home now a lot and we're just getting all that extra.

Uh, you know, power consumption during the day, Which is when you want to use it because the sun's generating, uh, the power for you. So three kilowatt system? It barely will even charge the electric car. Slow charging, let alone if we want to install a fast charger here. For the electric car, that's like seven and a half kilowatts.

So really, I want to upgrade this system to an eight kilowatt system. And that's what's happening today. So uh, rather than scrap this system because even after eight years, these panels remember these have I think these? these have a 15 or a 20 year warranty? I can't remember. but anyway, I've seen no degradation of performance of the panels.

They're still absolutely top notch. That's what you get when you buy top quality panels like this. So I'm actually going to reuse this system. I'm actually going to move this existing 3 kilowatt system because we've got extra roof space.

so I'm actually going to put it on the eastern side of the roof. Here, This is actually the western side of the roof. It's not quite about where I'm looking at the moment, is about, uh, North, so it's even the existing roof was not ideally optimized. None of this south rubbish, by the way, for you yanks.

Ah no, it's north here. Ideally you want your panels facing north. We do have a kind of sort of north facing roof, but it's kind of like more north, uh, east. So it's or north north east so it's not that terrific.

and you can see the panels that's not Mrs. Ev blog approved. So we've had to put them on the western side here and which is good because it gets the peak afternoon sun and things like that. but we can still reuse this system and actually put it on the other side of the roof so it'll pick up the morning sun.

The problem with here is we don't get hardly any morning sun it really takes. You know the angles aren't great because the sun comes up here like this and sets over here. So we're going to move this existing system because there's still a top quality system. We're going to whack it on the other side of the roof and we're going to install a new 5 kilowatt system using our Lg panels once again.

But we're going to use the new 350 watt panels as opposed to the 250 ones that we've got here. or is it 260 watt panels? Anyway, I'll see when they turn up, but uh, yeah. so I'm gonna store five kilowatts new one here, plus three kilowatts on the other side. The truck has just turned up.

I see the truck. They're just here. So yeah, this is going to be fun. So I'm going to have a total of a eight kilowatt system here installed and even the ones on the western.

Uh, the eastern side roof over there for the morning so they're still working. You know, at late afternoon, they'll uh, pretty much stop working. But for most part of the day they'll pick it up so no worries whatsoever. So this is going to be an eight kilowatt system which matches my peak load uh, during the day and we could probably even have a lot left over for a storage solution.

Now, whereas before with the three kilowatt system, there was no point having storage. A lot of people asked me over the years, why don't you install store storage? It's because we use it all during the day. we don't export much. So really, um, now with a bigger eight kilowatt system, we can install us install a storage solution as well.

So anyway, this is going to be fun. Let's go. Geez. Yep, everyone's turning up.

There's cars everywhere, people everywhere. Now let's go. Oh no, the power just went out. I was about to show you the existing Uh system, but this is my older sunny boy inverter still going strong after all those years.

But it, I'm close to 30 megawatt hours. Uh, usually it gives you a total there. It's been a run in total for uh, almost eight years now. So yeah, uh.

almost 30 megawatt hours. produced from this piddly little three, uh, kilowatt system. So this existing Uh inverter is, stay in here because why, You know? why scrap any of this? So what we're going to do is uh, we're going to reuse this one for the little three kilowatt of Ray and then end Phase have very kindly supplied all new micro inverters very sexy micro inverters for the new system. So I'll actually have a hybrid system of a string array like this which puts all the Uh 12 panels in series up to Uh 450 odd uh volts.

which is actually quite dangerous and one of the reasons that the Uh these Dc isolator switches, especially the one on the roof my one that failed they can actually catch fire. so the high voltage string systems are actually uh, dangerous as well as uh, not being that great. If they get any shading at all, you get bird poop or any other crap happens with one panel. it tends to affect the performance of the whole string.

So the new end phase micro inverters. It doesn't matter what happens if one panel, uh, you know, goes down, gets shaded, gets pooped on whatever it and happens, uh, whatever happens to it, it's not going to affect. uh, the rest of the panels will still produce a hundred percent. So yeah, it's going to be cool having a combo system and yes, I will be keeping my uh existing net metering uh, system here.

So this is, uh, the energy that I've imported from the grid in kilowatt hours. And this is the energy I've exported to the grid in kilowatt hours. There you go. Or is it 18 000 kilowatt hours exported to the grid? I got paid a pittance for that.

Um, and I've consumed 37 000 kilowatt hours. So 37 megawatt hours? So yeah, you can. Uh, the entire system has produced 30 megawatt hours. As I said.

So, I've got the existing solar analytics monitoring system, so hopefully they can be wire both systems into the, uh, solar analytics system. It's just got magnetic sensors on the back. Um, you just pass the wires through basically and it senses all the current, uh coming from the two arrays. so it'll combine that and we'll still get a total figure.

So anyway, nothing's changing there and here you go. Here's all the new Lg panels I've got. Uh, 14. It's the new neon, two panels.

um, white I guess. Tell me what? Didn't know you could get a, uh a choice. But uh yeah, that's two, four, six, 10, 12, 14. Yep.

14 brand new Lg panels. These are the 350 watt jobbies. Um, they do actually have a higher version, but the problem is is that, uh, they're not like you can get them, but in terms of bang per buck, they're much more expensive. So when you're installing a getting a solar system installed, you probably don't want the absolute bleeding edge of technology being like in terms of wattage output because you're going to pay a price premium for that.

Anyway, these they had these ones lying around so they gave them to me for Nick's thank you very much Lg. So they are, yeah, slightly behind Lg's state-of-the-art stuff. But anyway, we're talking 20-year warranty on these uh panels. And the thing with Lg is because when they're one of the biggest in Australia and they're not some, you know, one-hung low, brand imported, then you've got the manufacturer has you know, a huge presence here in Australia and you're going to get your uh warranty on these bad boys.

So yeah, um, yeah. the Mono X. I had the original, uh, Mono X, so not even the plus. So yeah, minor agent and there we go.

Lg 370. There you go, quite a few guys here now. they're starting to harness up safety on the roof. So uh, yeah, I think we've got like four or five guys going to do the install today.

So it's a big job because we have to remove the uh, existing system. So yeah, takes a bit of effort. It's an all hands on deck meeting, sorting it out, ready because this is actually not their usual install because they have to, of course, uh, decommission the old one move and uninstall it. then move it and basically do two solar installs side by side.

That's why they got so many people here today. There's Milan. He's uh, trying to get out the old Uh panels here. and uh, yeah.

Unfortunately, it's um, quite an effort because they've been here over seven years. And the, uh, aluminium bolts in the thing. um, they just oxidize and seize up. So yeah, really difficult to get these out.

Unfortunately, after all this time, and if you're wondering how they, uh, secure themselves to the Uh roof here, they simply anchor to the internal frame. That just stops them tumbling off. Although these rear is only uh, 15 degrees or something. not much of a slope on this kind of roof.

So yeah, the old system is going to go along here. We're not sure if we can fit in all existing 12. It might only be 11 or something like that. Milan 12.

12. All of them Perfect. 12 all panels. Milan's measured it.

We're gonna have the two rolls. Yep, six and six. It's gonna be a perfect fit. Yeah, as you can see, he's having real trouble getting out those individual screws.

Milan, They're hopeless. Oh, you actually broke your tip. Yeah, my alarm broke his tip. trying to get the trying to get the screws out.

Unbelievable. Yeah, but seven years. So that's uh. common that that happens.

Very common. Yeah, that's how you do it. get some leverage on it. And oh, you can hear that.

Yeah, what we can see. Now this is the uh, seven years old panels. What? they're still producing. really good.

the consumption. I mean the production of these panels didn't drop nearly nothing but the accumulation of the the dust on the on the panels. But after we when we reinstall the panels, what's going to happen? We'll wipe the panels, clean the panels and they will produce again like a brand new. um what's happening? You got the 15 years warranty on these panels.

Uh not only the warranty like warranty but if something happened with your panels especially the the Lg panels, the brand new or the old ones we coming and replace the panels with. uh no extra charge. That's the good thing about the installing the Lg panels. not like the other brands with everyone is turning and tossing about to get this or some other panels.

They're getting some sort of warranties, but who's going to replace that panels? That's the there's a thing. So you are out of your pocket. another maybe five or six thousand dollars someone to take her off and put it back and it's not worth it. Better off, get the good brain with the good warranties and secure system.

What will work forever nearly for you. So how many more years do you think we'll get out of this existing? This one I believe Another 15 easy with no any problem. 15 Easy. Yeah Wow.

That's fantastic. So it's more likely that the inverter is going to fail before the panels fail. Yeah, so how many of these systems have you installed? We installed maybe thousands of them. thousands.

How many values? None. We got no file of this panel. even. I installed Nine Kilowatt on my roof.

They're still working. They've been through hell, they're all the storms and stuff would be. They're still working like brainerd Thanos. What's going to happen now because we've got eastern and west elevation so you've got early morning sun we'll get on this panels.

You're going to have the all your morning breakfasts and all the morning routines out of these panels. And during the day these panels and the brand new panels will work together and produce a lot of power to your house. and after that in the afternoon western side the new panels will produce again beautiful power for your afternoon. You can use the aircon and all the afternoon cooking and everything.

I believe you're going to have really small amount out of your pocket to try for your electricity bill and then we can store a storage. Uh definitely. definitely. You can install the the batteries.

um and you're gonna get maximum of these panels. So whatever. Um, need to go during the day because what is the the daily consumption into the houses every household? During the day they haven't got the too much consumption into the house because it's just the fridge or whatever everyone going to work making money and During the day you actually exporting a lot of power to the grid and helping the all the other businesses and stuff. But they need that power and helping the community.

But if you've got the battery, you'll store most of your power in your battery. and during the night you're going to have a free power and check out this. I've never seen one haven't seen under these panels. For and this is where we're going to install the end phase controller box.

and here it is. Here's the end phase uh, gateway. so you call it or controller box. Yeah, so this is.

this is not the inverter. This is basically uh, just takes the uh, It basically just controls uh, the micro inverters uh under each individual uh panel. So it's just it's got like the Wi-fi and the ethernets and everything else. So we'll be able to do some fantastic monitoring of this.

and of course, uh yeah, we've got your Uh breakers and whatnot. and does that are these electronic relays? By the looks of it, a Q relay? They could be an electronic relay, perhaps. So anyway, yeah, that's the Uh controller here that they're going to install on the wall. not an inverter because these are a micro inverter system.

There's an inverter individual inverter under every single panel, but you need these uh to control it all and monitor the data. and um, you know, just generally keep it all safe. And I know everyone's going to ask what multimeter do they use? Fluke 117 for the win. Good choice.

Slowly, but surely the old system's coming out and the new one is going in. Well, sorry, they're prepping the new location for the old system and yeah, that's going to be installed in a 6x2 arrangement. Well, we could come further out here, but we've got the antenna guy wire there and stuff like that anyway. They reckon they can do a 6x2 so we'll run with that.

Now the interesting thing about uh, having two different systems like this. We've got the end phase micro uh inverter system and the Sunny Boy uh string inverter is yeah, like I could go all in phase. I could buy more uh, end phase uh inverters but it just seems a waste to like scrap the uh Sunny Boy system. I want to reuse uh as much as possible.

But the interesting uh thing is is that because we've got the Solar Analytics monitoring uh system here, I've got a choice of how I want to monitor all of this. There's actually, um, I think there's like four combinations. I can have this continue to monitor the existing system as is, or I can have. we can feed through the current clamps here.

we can feed the new system as well and then have this do the total system which I think we should because then we can do the calculations of you know, battery storage and we can monitor the whole system because that's ultimately all you care about. Even though us nerds do actually care about um, you know how the individual systems perform, I think it's it's better to know. although I can still look at that data from the Sunny Boy inverter because I export that data via bluetooth so I can continue to do that. So I'll have the Solar Analytics system monitor the entire Uh consumption and then the end phase one.

We can also choose whether or not to just monitor the end phase system because they also have a current uh clamp and so they can monitor Uh, we can choose whether or not to monitor the whole system or just the new five kilowatt system. So uh, yeah, I think I'll have the end phase do the whole system again, because ultimately all I care about is what the whole system is producing. Although we can. The good thing about the end phase systems? we can actually extract, uh, the data for the individual panels even if we want.

So yeah. Fantastic. So I think I'll run with that. And here comes the beautiful cleaner G Racking.

So now that, uh, I don't know what I had installed last time, but I think it's just generic stuff. but uh, this is the new Australian Clenegey ones. As I said, they were supposed to, um, have the uh, black um coated ones which are real sexy. not that you really see them anyway.

But uh, and here's the bunch of our cabling. They got a two by two point five square mil millimeters. Now that like one square millimeter rubbish. 2.5 square millimeters.

So that's a that's a fair chunk of copper in there. Wow, look at that. So got all these. Oh, there we go.

That's the individual plug for each one of those uh, micro inverters and it's coming along nicely. You can see they're just putting on the Uh top, uh, six panels. So and this is facing east. So sunrises in the east over there and uh, you know, that tree might sort of block a little bit of it in the morning, but uh, even my existing system, it's still.

um, it got it reasonably early in the morning, but this will get it even earlier and will produce peak power much earlier than the Uh system on the Uh western roof will. And yes, they do actually earth the Uh rack in there just for uh, safety. That'll go back to Maine's earth. But uh, really, you shouldn't need to do that in theory.

but I guess it might be industry. uh, practice. there might be some code that you have to do that. it? uh yeah, it's looking good.

That's better than getting in the roof. And there it is. the existing three kilowatt 12 times 250 watt panel system that I've had for seven and a half years. It is now facing Westish so that should be sweet.

Look at that. Still got heaps of roof space here. I can expand this. I can expand it.

Look at it. And here's my existing Uh. Cobalt Solar made in Australia? Uh, Dc isolator switch which has been installed for oh, when did that happen? Uh, more than a year now. Something like that still looks in a great nick.

so we'll uh, reinstall that because it's a it's a top quality one. So yeah, that'll go back in for the existing system. All right here we go. Here's the Uh panels supplied by Lg.

Thank you very much. These are, um, the new ones. They look significantly different. I don't know if you guys have seen that.

Have you seen that optical illusion with the white dots? how they turn black and that's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing like as I move my eyes those dots in the middle are turned in black. It's just optics and classic optical illusion. Anyway, there you go.

it is. Uh, significantly. uh, different design and construction to the previous Uh one. Wow, yeah, totally changed.

totally changed. but anyway, uh yeah. 20 year warranty I believe on these bad boys and end Phase have supplied very kindly supplied new micro inverters because they heard in phase. heard that uh I was getting possibly going to just use a regular uh string inverter and they went nah bugger that we've got.

We'll give you these fantastic new Iq7 plus interactive thank you very much Inverter and uh yeah, this will be awesome. The data analysis, uh, stuff that you can actually do on these per panel will be absolutely fantastic for the analysis. uh, side of things. But anyway, yes, so you can see maximum input voltage at 60 volts because the panels only produce like, normally 40 volts or something like that.

So and these connect directly to the mains basically. although, and then you connect them via an intelligent uh controller which is how you can gather all the data and everything else. But basically, um, yeah, it's 40 volts from the panel in and 240 volts out. So each one.

that's why they call them a micro inverter. Each one of those is equivalent to the Sunnyboy inverter that I've got. except, uh, you know, much lower power of course. So anyway, that looks really cool and hopefully, uh, we'll get someone from in phase on the Amp hour and uh, we can discuss the design and build of these and hopefully they'll uh, let me tear one of these down or they, i think they're gonna.

they're gonna send me some tear down photos or something or other. but uh, yeah, because that all looks, uh, hermetically sealed. And it has to be because these things go under the panels outdoors. So the thermal design of these would be, you'd really have to take everything into account.

They need to be ultra reliable. Not sure what the warranty on these is, but yeah, they're basically one of the best, if not the best micro inverter on the market. So that's going to be very, very cool and cleanergy. Australia have very kindly provided.

uh, this, uh, racking solution. Although, um, they got the stock mixed up unfortunately. Uh, it was supposed to be all black anodized. They do come in sexy black anodized version as well.

so just imagine that in a real sexy black color. So yeah, we've got those and the racking over here. Sure, there's going to be a lot more. That's for the uh, this is for the new install.

They're going to reuse the existing racking. Uh, for the old 3 kilowatt system, they'll just move that so everything from the old system has been reused. Okay, I've got my macro lens and let's have a look at the fine detail inside this panel. I'm not sure why they split at the ends like that, but it almost looks like there's a little, uh, sort of not daggy.

Well, yeah, daggy extra bit I guess you could call it. It's almost as if it's like they've almost like tied off on one end or something. But anyway, there is an interesting, uh, three split arrangement there, so I'm not sure. Not sure what the deal is there, but little connections in there as you go up each little quadrant and then eventually at both the top and the bottom.

They eventually get connected into a gigantic bus strip. And of course these are all. Uh, I believe these are all silver coated. Uh, that's why, like a lot of uh silver is needed in manufacturing solar panels.

I do believe they're like looking at alternative metals and stuff, but I think I do believe. uh, silver is still the best available. Of course it's the lowest resistance. uh, conductor famously.

Um, during the Second World War on the Manhattan? Uh project. If you don't know. here's a little interesting: uh tidbit for the Manhattan Project: Um, for the I'm not sure like one of the methods, uh for actually getting the uranium needed required. Uh, these massive electromagnets, uh, to be built and so what? they did in the army who were building this.

They actually requisitioned, um, I believe almost the entire Us strategic stockpile of silver bars. just like they have gold bars. Uh, Fort Knox. They stockpile, uh, silver as well.

So they actually got all that silver, melted it all down, made these, uh, massively low resistance, um, uh, you know, magnetic coils and stuff out of them, and and produced all the uranium and whatnot for uh, the bombs. And then once all that was finished, they are melted all the wires back down again, they recast them as bars and they went back into the stockpile. And yes, I believe every single bar was accounted for. Uh yeah, the bean counters went.

yeah, no one's no one's nicking a bar. So yeah, into a thousand ounce bars. They re-meld them back down and just recast the bars. Neat.

You can see the arrangement here. here you go. I've just got the one silver connecting strip there and then that's in Siri that goes all the way down there and then you can see, then that jumps over there and they're all in series. That second one goes up and then it goes over there and so forth.

zigzag all the way like this and zigzag at the bottom and it pops back out at the top. there again. So you've got one contact over there and the other one over in that corner and they just come out the back and terminated in standard connectors. And let's have a look and everyone wants to see the badge plate.

It's the Lg 370 N1cn5 for those playing along at home. All individually serial numbered. manufactured are 20 or 20 10, 26. Uh, I don't know what that means is that the 1026th week in the 20s? I I don't know.

So nominal 370 watts p maximum and the voltage? uh that. which is Pp which is I believe that would be like the maximum power point uh Mpp. Maximum power point uh would be uh 35.8 volts but can get as high as 41.8 volts are open circuit voltage there and short circuit current can get up to what 10.9 amps at maximum power. It's uh, 10.3 amps and uh, maximum system voltage? A thousand volts.

that's if you string in together. Which we're not doing because we've got the awesome micro inverters and it looks like they are fused inside 20 amps and the rest of it all your precautionaries and it's made in Korea. That's South Korea. Thank you very much.

Honor all my viewers in South Korea. Check this out. This is interesting. It's almost as if that's like a pin one identifier because it's not in the other corners.

They just put the little dot and over here. They've got this little like star arrangement that shows the that's the center and they've got one um at the top of the next panel as well. So yeah, I guess that just shows them how to align them in production. Perhaps just an identifier.

Symmetrical micro inverters Stacking Just like the Philadelphia Mass Turbulence of 1947. Unbelievable. No human could possibly stack micro inverters like this. So the great thing about these enphase micro inverters is that you can monitor the data for each individual panel.

so we should be able to get uh, like, individual graphs and all sorts of stuff for every single one of, the, well, the 14 panels of the existing Uh system we can't do anything with unless I upgrade that system uh, to these end phase micro inverters as well. And each one's like, uh, individually, uh, serial numbered like, that? There it is. and um, the the system like can identify each one and all the data is fed back. and then you can use uh, ethernet or I think it's ethernet or Wi-fi to connect into the uh data analytics um type, you know section.

I don't know. I'm yet to play around with it. Very excited just salivating at the thought of getting individual panel data. And it's if you can.

It's worth getting micro inverters like this. They do cost more than a string based system, but yeah, it means that if one of the panels gets dirty or faulty gets pooped on or something like that, it doesn't degrade the entire system. Technically, I could have 13 of those 14 panels fail and we've still got one that'll be still actually producing full energy. So yeah, if you can go for micro inverters, get them and they're safer because it's only 240 uh volts out as opposed to an entire like string of like 450.

500 volts or even more. Um, Dc. And you can get Dc isolator fires. That's a big thing on roofs.

I've done a video on that. My Dc isolator video where that failed. Luckily that didn't catch a light, but a lot of them do because with Dc, it's uh, there's no Ac to like self-extinguish the arc. So if you get a massive high-powered Dc arc, it just it just plasmifies the thing and it just until things catch on fire.

It's nasty stuff. Whereas you don't get that with these end phase, it's just 240 volts out or 110 for you yanks. Hang on. I just thought of something.

These look like pretty tough panels. I reckon I've got enough of them to have a solar freaking driveway. What do you think that could be that's that's winning idea. Why you know? Yep, I'll be an innovator.

Not one of these uh, techno luddites and I'll install them. Yep, I just replaced the pavers. It's a winning idea. Put them on the roof.

What a stupid idea. New panels are going up. They're extremely light. No problem.

Oh there they go. 14 Nuis. All right. So let's take a look at this.

uh, I board. uh, that I bought as an Australian company who actually, uh, pre-configured these cases with the uh, N5 en phase envoy. uh, controller up here. We've got uh, two in in phase, um, electronic, uh, smart relays here and apparently they're only for the Australian market.

They told me because the end phase uh, person's here today, He didn't want to be on camera though, unfortunately. But uh. anyway, he told me, uh, the whole story is that yeah, these were designed and developed for the Australian market for compliance reasons. It has to be like electronic isolation or some sort of, you know, some sort of smart, uh, control over that and it's already comes up pre-configured with uh breakers for the main, uh, switch the battery when I get a battery.

uh, that's the on Envoy supply this controller and these are for the two uh relays here. and uh, we've got Ethernet under here. We've got uh, an Rj11 ethernet jack. We've got uh, two Usb so you can connect uh, either a Wi-fi dongle or some other dongle if you don't have it.

or you can actually connect directly to the Pc that way. But it does have Wi-fi It's got uh, mobile phone integration, app integration, and stuff like that. and the in-phase Envoy. that's all uh, designed in New Zealand.

So how do all my New Zealand viewers? and they've actually got a group there that not only designed it, but also environmentally test these as well so they can so you've got one group design in it, another group trying to break it Basically is what happens and they, uh, they do hundreds of these and they sweep them uh, temperature, uh, profile from like a minus 40 or something up to plus 80 and then they just try and break these things because this is fully imported enclosure so there's no oh sorry. So I'm talking about the micro inverters. I'm talking about the micro inverters that they are fully pot, fully potted and they are temperature extreme test and they'd also do that on the controller, but the controller isn't as uh, it doesn't need to be or imagine it wouldn't need to be as robust as the micro inverters which are up on the hot roof track between the hot panel and the hot uh tile roof. So they need to survive temperature extremes.

The micro inverters and the micro inverters. How they communicate with the controller up here, which can control up to 600. I'm told after one controller can handle up to 600 micro inverters over a single pair, so they're effectively all in parallel. So that's our 240 volts.

they are actually a 240 volt output. Uh, hence why they're called micro inverters because they are actually 240 volt inverters. So just the one here. I've got the one pair going in here from all of them and they communicate over a uh 100 kilohertz uh control over power system on the neutral.

I believe it is. so that's how they connect all the micro inverters. They can communicate both ways. They're all individually serial numbered, they're all individually controlled monitored, and each Uh micro inverter also has individual temperature sensors.

It's got power. You can monitor the temperature, the voltage output, you can measure the output, monitor the output current, and do all sorts of things. Sorry, I was just corrected, it's 110 kilohertz. Ah, comms on there.

Christian doesn't want to be on camera. He doesn't want to be on camera. He's here. The end phase guy is here, so he's going to correct me.

And apparently the uh instruction, uh cycle or the uh like sample, uh correction cycle time of the current um micro inverter models that I've got here is in the order of uh oh. They're installing the panels in the order of 20 microseconds, but they're working on a new design which apparently will have 20 nanoseconds sample time. So anyway, uh, really remarkable stuff. so that allows like real-time correction for brown like micro brown outs and and all sorts of our faults like that.

So really remarkable stuff. So anyway, that is the uh in phase controller box and that's why it had an Australian made, uh, stickers plastered all over because the whole thing comes pre-configured here in Australia. But uh, where are they made? Okay, so the eye boards are made in Port Kembla. Um, yeah, put together there.

It is Australian, Maine and owned, so that's it. Yeah, it's very nice case it's all weather, uh, sealed and everything. so that's really quite nice. I like that.

Um, and where are the uh, where's the controller made? They're made in China. Like the micro inverters? You're right. Okay, it is China 99 sure. Um, but as I said, uh, in phase their R D group designing, uh, the micro inverters and stuff are in New Zealand and we're now installing the micro inverters here.

and uh, you install them alternately. Do you one one on the bottom, one on the top and we're just keeping it close to the cables coming up. Oh okay, right. Oh okay, so all those will be along the top.

Okay, and this one, because we've got the Uh cable come through here, right? No worries. So these are effectively. I don't want to use the word string, but they are effectively, uh, paralleled up. There is just two cables.

Uh, coming back and they use a uh power, oh sorry, they use a comms over power system. There we go. So they do use a uh, comms over power. Oh, here comes another panel.

Each one's individually addressed and uh, the Um envoy, uh, control unit can talk to each one. So these will go in real quick. Now, once the uh, the hard part's putting in all the racking, getting them through the roof, getting it all lined up. Once that's done, it's just.

uh. it's almost fun at that point. So these new, uh, neon two panels. They do look very different to the old, uh, monox panels.

They're shiny, got lots more, uh, shiny silver in them. You can see the uh, the individual wires. just a very different uh construction and very different look. It's both straight on and at an angle, but they do look pretty sexy look at that.

14 of them all in a row. Technically, we could have Actually, I, I think you've seen a previous video where I've talked about this. We thought maybe we would add them like horizontally along here to the existing system, but then we decided no, it's just easier to move the existing system to the other side and then just put 14 along here. We had 12 before there's oh, there we go.

There's one of the micro inverters and somebody had fun with this elastic look at that. Check that out. Yeah, water's not getting in there any time soon, let me tell ya. So there you go.

That's how they mounted under the back there. and the thing with these is that they're completely. If you're worried about water ingress in these, don't, they're completely potted. The entire thing that's from them is that the port there where they might, uh, fill the potting in Anyway, Yes, um, you can't do a teardown of these because they are completely potted inside so you can open it up and take to try and get the case off.

But uh yeah, you'll be left with just a big brick which should have to eat away with some acid or something if you wanted to get into it. There you go, it's all looking very good and it's only. uh, it's only 2 p.m and they've removed the existing system and they've Well, they've moved, They've removed the existing system, moved it, installed it, and now they're working on this. But there's seven people working on this in store because it is bigger.

There's one of my cameras over there doing time lapse and here you go. Now the dirty old panels here we go here is the difference. See, they look very, very different. There's a more um panel area because these ones have the big chamfers on them.

check that out And the the white things. The white diamonds in the squares in the middle there are. They're much bigger than the little tiny dots over here. So physically, the cells are much larger.

I think there's a smaller gap also between the cells. Is there? Yep. Yep. There's definitely a smaller gap between the cells so you can really see the uh, progress in technology there.

And they've got much bigger. The mono X's have a much bigger metal, um, silver strip going down there like that. Just a physically a much different array. and they don't have like the individual squares in there that the new arrangement does.

So anyway, any solar panel construction experts can, uh, close up on that in the comments. But uh, there you go. it's looking good. and there's the old Cobalt Solar Dc isolator going back in and the old penetrator.

It's still good, so we'll reuse that. Reusing everything. Fantastic. Nothing wasted, finishing touches.

Look at that. All right. turn in on the old system. Oh, there we go.

It's firing up. Beautiful. It's still there. There you go.

29.797 Hopefully you can see that megawatt hours total produced over the almost seven and three quarter years or something. There's no power. they haven't uh, switched on the isolator on the roof yet. That's that Cobalt one we saw once they switched.

Yes, we do actually have two isolators in series. There are two. uh, ones for down here just for you know, if you're working on this, the other is for firefighters or something like that. It's Australian code.

I know it's different in other countries, but we've got to have a Dc isolator on the roof as well. Um, so that it? Yeah, I don't know. It's you know, something to do with fire regulations or something like that. It's not every day you get to peel the sticker off your brand new micro inverter controller.

Oh, that's that's. very satisfying. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, look at that like I bought one and there's the old system.

is cleaning that off now. Unfortunately, it's all spoiled. The view is spoiled by bloody Hillsong hate hill song, the Hillsong Motherships just around the corner. And there's their propaganda bloody unbelievable And we're back up and running on the old system.

It is now. Uh, just five minutes past three in the afternoon. perfectly clear skies, but as you can see, we're only getting 600 watts. Uh, we'd ordinarily be getting.

You know, we'd be pushing the three kilowatts, uh, nominal there and well, well, you can see it uh, previously when it was, uh, switched off there. So yeah, this is not. uh, this old system is not designed for later in the afternoon. It's early in the morning to, like, you know, lunchtime-ish something like, that.

Then the other panels on the other side will really kick in. But uh, yeah, this will still give us us some useful energy whether or not it will be interesting to, uh, see the data on this one. Um, now that it's on the you know, non-ideal well opposite. Um, well, even it wasn't ideal.

North is ideal. Uh, but yeah, it's East is more ideal than West anyway. so we'll see giving the old system a good clean because we don't have our micro inverters on those. I should keep it clean.

I've been lazy, but uh, you know it does. Uh, degrade the performance If you get you know, bird poop on just one of them. It can affect the entire performance, so that's annoying. But anyway, there you go.

Look at that. It's like a bought one. These panels are almost eight years old, still get another 15 years easy out of these, and we are essentially, uh, complete. The old system is installed and working, um, generating 500 to 600 watts.

But as you can see, the sun is yeah up there. so it's in practically on, like about a 80 degree angle to the panels or something like that and a new one. They're almost done. They've just left the last panel out because they need to, uh, splice and connect in there to the, um, the first inverter in the string.

and uh, even though it's not a string, they're micro inverters. But they all do share a common Ac path. They're Ac inverters. You can see how they're running conduit along the Uh rail in there and that would, uh, split off at each one come apart.

but they're running conduit all the way along there for the uh. Once again, it's just. you know, they just use regular Um Ac mains cable for that. Going back to the main controller, the Envoy controller box, Jerome.

Time off he goes. We'll get some footage here. it comes. taking some drone footage.

No, it's not mine. They actually drone uh footage every install. Firmware updating. Yay! Just installed it.

We need a firmware update. Yeah, not not unexpected. So there you have it. It's 5 00 P.m and Ta-da it's installed.

the old one removed to the other side. west east side over there. Now on the west face a new five kilowatt system. Eight kilowatts total.

Absolutely fantastic. There you go. We've got uh. two isolator switches here.

By the looks of it, these are clenergy. Thank you very much. Uh, Clenegee for supplying uh, the racking and the boxes and whatnot. And thank you Lg for supplying our 14 panels which were surplus 2 requirements and also our end phase for once again surplus 2 requirements.

Um, 14 micro inverters? Fantastic! So there is the five kilowatt system and there's the old one there. she is. Just moved over. Get another 15 years out of that.

No workers and all the original isolator box. We reused absolutely everything for that so that's terrific. So right now we're just waiting for the system to reset. We did a firmware update and I won't be able to get access to it for another 24 hours.

You've got to wait 24 hours and they'll send you an email and then you can. The consumer can actually get access to the portal. Then we can start analyzing the data. So there you go.

We're winner. Chicken dinner. We've got a now 8 kilowatt system now. We should be able to us spend a couple of weeks analyzing the data and then hopefully be able to install a battery solution and go through all the calculations for that.

I can show you the Uh in phase data, uh system and stuff like that. It's going to be great. So there you go. Hope you enjoyed the installation of this Uh system and moving the old one.

If you did, give it a big thumbs up. As always, discuss down below. Catch you next time.