Kodak 5kw Hybrid Inverter
Janeen Bahrke
Introducing the KODAK 10kW Hybrid Inverter, a powerful and versatile energy solution designed for residential and commercial applications. This advanced hybrid inverter seamlessly integrates solar power, grid connectivity, and a 48V battery system, providing reliable and efficient energy management for a wide range of needs.
I am in the process of getting quotes to install an inverter system at home. I got 3 quotes from one installer specifying a different inverter on each quote. As I am price sensitive, I needed to see all the options available.
The Sunsynk is about R3k more than the Axpert with the Kodak about R6k less than the Axpert. I am keen on the Axpert since I know the name, it is 7.2 kw, have friends who have them and who are happy with them and the fact that I can integrate it to my Home Assistant set up.
Kodak and Axpert are made in the same factory. The Original Equipment Manufacturer is a company called Voltronics. Kodak is just a rebadged version that us in South Africa know as Axpert. Kodak is more pricey because the distributers market it as such.
I do run Axpert (Sinerjy) for now 2 years and am happy. However, rather than go for one 7.2kW unit think twice. With an eye on service reliability I recommend to install 2 5kW units (MKS 5K) in parallel. In case one fails you still operate with the remaining unit until the faulty is repaired. In addition you would have 2 MPPTs that support together up to 8kW solar panels.
It's actually an unfair comparison to be honest, the Sunsynk is in a different league completely to the Axpert-types. That said, if budget is tight, an Axpert type (particularly the Kodak due to its great warranty and support) is better than nothing at all.
In what way is the Synsynk in a different league to the Axpert? I am very new to this and I must say that there are not, if not any, comparison videos or anything of the like on YouTube, or anything like that.
Batteries are the most expensive item. Because the other 2 operate on 1 setting to manage the discharge level and the Sunsynk has time settings for different conditions like normal or LS times or different levels of discharge dsy/night appeals to me. Also that you can charge a lithium battery and then disable it and use it without exporting for day time self consumption. When needed you can just enable the battery. You can in this way run any load with solar on the non essential side. The other 2 you are limited by the size of the load so DB must be split.
Hi folks, I generally would search a forum, etc before posting a simple question as this, but I tend to find that it is more of finding a needle in a haystack than anything else in order to find a lament's terms answer or that bits and pieces of information is scattered across many many discussions. I am a technical person, but venturing into this side of things is new to me .. hell, maybe I made a post in the wrong thread for that matter, I don't know.
But based on Scorp007's answer above, I can start to gauge that the Sunsynk is a lot more configurable for different situations which is always a good thing, so already that is a good start as to the advantage of getting one over the Axpert .. I don't really understand that the Axpert based inverters are not on an approved list to be connected to the DB provided that these inverters have been in the market in SA for years?
Axpert inverters typically work well if all you want is a UPS, keeping essential loads going during a power failure or load-shedding utility. That said, there are losses in efficiency with any inverter, charging batteries from AC (AC -->DC conversion), storing the DC charge (standing losses), and then converting it all back from DC to usable AC again. These efficiency losses means that It becomes expensive to just keep the lights on.
So you add some solar panels, thinking that it would be great to offset some of these losses using sun power. And it is, solar panels charge the batteries, and but when they are charged, they just sit there in the sun. So you decide that you want to use them directly to service loads, and they can, but the problem with most axperts is that they either use 100% Eskom power, or 100% battery power or 100% solar power, there's no in-between. This means that if you have a 5K Axpert inverter with panels capable generating say 2500W DC, and your load is 2000W, all is good, the inverter will convert and use solar power to power loads. The problem is when a cloud happens along, and solar generation drops to 1500W. The axpert-type inverter will switch 100% from solar to grid, and if not grid, 100% to battery. This is true for most axpert-type inverters, although I have heard of some that can do limited "blending" of sources. The Sunsynk, by contrast, will blend any source depending on how it is set up. In the above scenario, it will still use the 1500W from the panels, but supplement it with 500W of power from the grid, battery, aux, genny or wind turbine. So it is far more efficient.
Another difference is that it is a true bi-directional hybrid inverter ( Sunsynk uses the term "Super Hybrid Parity Inverter"). The Grid and Aux input is bi directional in the sense that it operates as both an input and an output. So it can draw current from the grid or aux, and it can send current back to the grid / aux. It can also limit the load of the current flowing in either direction too, to a pre-determined wattage. This significant because, due to budgetary contraints, most homeowners cannot afford to put in a 20kW inverter, and so they split their db into essential and non-essential loads. Essential loads are usually quite light, and allow homeowners to reduce the size of the inverter to say 5kW. The non-essential loads are usually big current hogs (like water heating and pumping), and they are placed before the inverter, on the grid side, effectively being served directly by the grid before grid power even reaches the inverter. This also means that they are down when the grid power goes, but hot water is quite stable and doesn't change its temperature in four hours, and the pool won't go green immediately if there isn't any pump working, so this kind of works well from a functionality perspective. The problem with this is that it does not result in much efficiency gains or electricity savings, because the biggest current hogs are also the ones that are still serviced by the grid (when it is there). So homeowners either have to buy a bigger axpert type inverter, or get a smaller hot water installation, or change the element to a smaller one, or get a soft starter for the pool pump, and/or shift the load to the essentials side. The Sunsynk hybrid can safely export power to the grid side though, using a Current Transformer or CT coil to measure directional load (when the grid is up).
So if you have a 4000W hot water heater element, it can still be on the grid or non-essentials side, but the Sunsynk can pump 4000W of excess solar to it. The CT coil measures the power and the inverter will reduce power when too much power is detected going to the grid. Even better, if the Sunsynk inverter only has 2000W of excess solar, the element will receive the other 200W from the grid. So it is efficient. The same with the Aux port, it is bi-directional, so it can be configured to take a genny input, or act as an output or "Smart Load" as Sunsynk calls it, and you can dump excess solar power towards it.
Another difference is the wide range of capacities that it supports. In addition to the ability for it to parallel (up to 16 inverters), it comes in 3.6K, 5.5k, 8.8K, and a whopping 16K for single phase installs, and there are 12 and 50K 3phase units available. Not even Victron makes such a wide range of self-contained units, their biggest is 5K.
This probably covers the most pertinent differences between the majority of Axpert and Sunsynk Hybrid inverters, but it is certainly not all, and other forumites are welcome to supplement it with their favourite ones. There are many others, from its easy to use interface, to the warranty and support in South Africa, that are equally important. It's simply in a different league.
Wow YellowTapemeasure thanks so much for the explanation and the link to the video. Going with Synsynk is an absolute no-brainer. Granted, I am not going solar in this install, but I know that solar HAS TO form part of the plan in some point once I have the funds to do so, but being able to feed the solar power into the non-critical load instead of it being wasted because the batteries are fully charged and the critical load is using just a litttle bit more than what the panels produce thus the critical load would be pulling from the grid only with a non-hybrid inverter. In saying, being able to power the house with the panels and make up the remainder of the power requirement from the gird - wow! Yeah, I want to keep the lights on during looadshedding, but gosh, one has to think a little more further than that, even if the cost is about R3k more in going with the Sunsynk vs the Axpert.
93ddb68554