I have a Bluetti Apex 300 with 3 B300K expansion batteries. I just had a rid-tie solar system installed with 26 panels equipped with Enphase IQ8 microinverters and an IQ Combiner 5C. I’d like to purchase an AT1 to tie everything together. I Have two questions:
- Will the AT1 throttle the output of the microinverters if the grid goes down, the batteries are fully charged and the panels are producin more power than I need?
- The AT1 user manual shows a HUB A1 between the Apex300 and the AT1 even when there is only one Apex 300 connected. Why is this needed?
Chris
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Is there no one from Bluetti that can answer this? I have an AT1 and an SMA sunnyboy inverter than I plan to tie into the AT1 with 2 APEX hopefully this will work and will allow the solar to produce with no power… Otherwise it’s kind of a pointless purchase…
This doesn’t help with the SunnyBoy inverter but I was told by someone from Enphase that the IQ8 microinverters don’t use the frequency shifting to throttle the inverters the inverters are supposed to be able to sense the load and automatically throttle when the load drops and full power is not needed. Again this is when the grid is down so the excess power can’t be sent to the grid and the battery is full so it can’t be sent there either.
I still haven’t received a response regarding the need for the Hub A1 but I went and ordered on anyway. I’m going to but it in just in case I want to add another Apex300 later.
Love to hear an answer to this?
I have installed the AT1 and Hub A1. With regard to the IQ8 solar power is being generated and excess power is going to the grid just fine. I have not tried to disconnect from the grid when the panels are outputting excess solar to see what happens.
I am working on other issues. I am still emailing back and forth with Bluetti tech. Here’s what I have found so far. First they are saying that the Apex 300 is not certified to supply current to the grid. I have my system configured with the meter connected directly to the “Grid” input, port one in the lower right of the AT1, and I have my main panel connected to the “Load” output, port 2 just to the left of port 1. This matches the “Whole House Backup” configuration as shown in Figure 7-19 of the AT1 manual. There are other figures showing this configuration with one or more EnergyPro 13K and EnergyPro 6K battery systems but none showing the Apex 300. The Apex 300 is only shown with the Partial Backup configuration as in Figure 7-31. Bluetti is insisting that the Meter must be connected to the main panel for my system.
Here is what I have learned about some of the settings in the Bluetti App. The HA1 switch in the App has to be turned on or the Apex 300 won’t go into discharge mode, it’ll just sit there losing a couple percent charge each day. If I set the working mode to “Custom” and turn on the “Charge From Grid” switch the Apex 300 will get charged up in a few hours. My goal is to use the Apex 300 to charge when there is extra solar power and then discharge when the solar goes away in order to minimize the power that I buy from the power company. This is referred to as Self-Consumption. Bluetti is saying that the Apex 300 was designed for backup purposes when disconnected from the grid. The App has a Self-Consumption mode but I can’t get it to work. It has a SOC setting for the battery. Once this SOC is exceeded, the system is supposed to stop used grid power to charge the battery and only use solar power. In my system the AT1 charges from grid until it gets to this setting and then instead of charging with solar it just stops charging the battery. I have tried to get around this by using the “Custom” mode but have not succeeded in getting it to work as I want. I am still working with Bluetti and hope that a future firmware upgrade will correct the issues I am seeing. I just got a firmware update yesterday but I have not checked yet to see if anything has improved. I am working on installing a couple of Emporia energy monitoring systems so that I can more accurately track where energy is flowing.