I have 4.7kWp panels + 3.6 Hybrid GivEnergy inverter and 5.2 GivEnergy battery. I have beem informed that I could be in for an 8-hour power cut in 10 days time.
Do I need to do anything with the system beforehand or afterwards so that it smoothly shuts down and starts up again? NB There is no wiring for an uninterruptible supply here, I just want to make sure nothing is damaged and it starts back up again correctly.
Officially no, shouldn't need to do anything.
But if you want to be sure, then yeah, turn off the mains connections to the inverter. Pause the device from the portal first, perhaps setting discharge rate to zero watts. Turn off the big red switch for the inverter and the MCB or whatever you have in the consumer unit for the inverter.
You could probably leave the solar side enabled as it'll continue generating until the batteries are full, and the solar should power the inverter itself in the absence of the mains, as long as it didn't turn off (e.g. overnight ) - think it needs a certain startup voltage, once it goes off I think it's off till the grid comes back.
Just to say that I didn't touch anything and it all restarted perfectly and indeed the solar continued to charge the battery whilst the grid power was off.
Shouldn’t the solar shut down with no eps and no grid? Or does the DC side stay up (self powered) but the AC inverter disable?
kram as long as there's room in the battery, the solar should continue to generate and power the inverter and fill the battery.
I assume once the battery is full, it'll disconnect the PV, as it can't do anything with it!
The AC side will be isolated, so it can't back feed the grid during the outage.
What I'm not sure about is if the solar stops generating, can it restart later? I think it can, but not 100% sure. I think the problem comes when the battery runs out - not sure the solar could restart the inverter the next day.