DIY Install of the Growatt SPF 3000
Below you will find some photos and a video I took of my DIY install of a Growatt SPF 3000 LVM. This is a highly efficient unit that supports 2Kw of solar input and 3Kw of AC output. You can “Parallel” up to six of these Growatt units to allow you to have up to 18Kw of AC output.
Features:
+ Integrated MPPT charge controller. 2000 Watts, 80A 60-115V input
+ Equalization charging function.
+ Maximum PV input voltage up to 115VDC.
+ Configurable grid, battery or solar input priority.
+ Optional WIFI/ GPRS remote monitoring.
+ Supports parallel operation for capacity expansion up to 18kW.
+ PV and Grid power the load jointly if PV energy insufficient
Downloadable copy of the Manual: http://www.growatt-america.com/upload/file/contents/2021/11/61a5e51ec20b5.pdf
The maximum power PV input voltage up is to 150VDC (volts open circuit), and each stackable unit can take up to 2000W of solar power.
You can connect Utility power (Street Power) to the input and power using that, if solar is not enough to power a load. This allows you to use the unit as a “Battery backup” for your house.
An optional wifi adapter is available which allows users can monitor the status of the PV system via mobile phone or from the website anytime anywhere.
This is a multifunctional off-grid solar inverter, integrated with an MPPT solar charge controller, a high-frequency pure sine wave inverter, and a UPS function module in one machine. This is perfect for off-grid/backup power and self-consumption applications. The transformerless design provides reliable power conversion in a compact size. Can be stacked up to 6 units, that’s 18kW of Capacity!
See installation notes at the bottom of the page for things to watch for during your install.
https://tennesseevalleysolar.com/what-not-to-do/
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Tips and Installation Notes
This inverter is designed and sold for a DIY installation. Because of this, it is up to you to fully understand the ins and outs of this equipment. Read and fully understand the manual before starting. Incorrect installation WILL cause problems. Make sure you change the settings on the inverter to be right for your installation. You will need a working Multimeter and you will need to know how to use it.
Damage caused by incorrect or poor installation will be your responsibility. Please remember that just because it doesn’t work the way that you think it should does not mean that I sold you junk. This equipment is complicated and can be confusing to install. We have had customers who have had issues with their installs and jumped to assuming that the issues were caused by a defective unit which had been damaged by the customer.
- You should have a breaker between your panels and the inverter(Blue/White box on bottom right side of Photo 1). Also, have a breaker between the Inverter and your batteries.
- Changing the settings is one of the most important steps to installing this inverter. After getting your SPF 3000 ES setup, you MUST go into the settings program on the LCD screen and change the unit to use 60 Hz.
- Please note, the settings above are for Flooded Lead Acid Deep Cycle Batteries. If you are using Lithium Batteries with a BMS connection (Network cable from battery to inverter), you would want to set Program 05 to “LI” and Program 36 to “L01”.
- I would suggest going through the setting section of the manual and marking what settings you need to change. (Photo 2)
- Your solar panel string voltage needs to be greater than 120V DC. If you have 30 volt panels, I suggest having at least 5 of them in series which would have your string voltage at 150V. The voltage of the panels can drop when the panels are under load so I would suggest using 5 of them.
- You should bring your strings in and combine them in a combiner box or bus bars. This puts the strings in Parallel with each other.
- For the SPF 3000 your batteries MUST be in a 24 volt configuration. For a lot of people, this means putting 2 x 12V deep cycle batteries in “series”. This would mean connecting the batteries end to end positive to negative in a long string. The inverter can also work with 24 volt Lithium battery packs such as ones sold by Tennessee Valley Solar.
- This inverter has an AC input that can be used to power your house and charge your batteries. You can connect this input to “Street/Grid” power or you can connect the input to a generator. We have been warned that generators can make VERY “dirty” power that can damage the inverter. If you are looking to use a generator on the input, you may want to look into some kind of line filter or something to clean the power. Or you can hook your generator up to separate 24v battery chargers which will help to protect the inverter from power spikes coming from the generator.
- The wifi dongle (white plastic thing in Photo 4) is a beast to setup! One of the benefits of this inverter is that you don’t have to stand over it to keep an eye on it. Unfortunately, the wifi adapter instructions are kinda vague at best. But i finally got it to connect and its working great! What you need to do is
1) press the key button to make the dongle into a hot spot and connect to the dongle itself “192.168.10.100”
2) configure the dongle to connect to your wifi (select your wifi network and enter your password)./
3) the part that’s not in the manuel and the whole secret sauce go back to the dongle and you have to tell it to connect to a different server i think default is server.growatt.com or something like that you need to change it to server-us.growatt.com and magically it will start working
hopefully this helps somebody and keeps them from wasting a day trying to figure out where you messed up.
When first setup, the wifi defaults to talking to a server overseas. However, the APP on your phone know that you are in the US so the Phone APP defaults to the US server. These steps correct that.More if on the Wifi stick is at https://tennesseevalleysolar.com/growatt-wifi-2/
