Solar & Storage Market Podcast
Solar & Storage Market Series ft Soluna
[MUSIC] >> Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Solar and Storage Market Series. My name is Eris D'Oleven, I'm the Managing Director here at Renville. Today, we are going to be hearing from Alejandro Jimenez, the Technical Service Manager at Saluna. [NOISE] Financial systems designs, safety and efficiency and remote monitoring and system management of energy storage. But before we dive in and while we're waiting for more people to join, I'd like to give a little background on Renville as well as some of the products and services we offer. Renville is a US-based solar equipment distributor. We've been in the industry since 2012 and we currently have fulfillment facilities in California, New Jersey and Texas. Our sales staff all have backgrounds within engineering or solar installation. A few products quickly to spotlight here. We carry the whole solar portfolio and can beat any price you see out there. We recently had a webinar with Lumen Smart Panels and we carry their outdoors and indoors models on the shelf. This is a great device to add to a solar and storage project since it allows you to use the existing main and sub panels and control the loads remotely during power outage or set rules for which loads will continue to work and which ones will be dropped. We currently have a promotion offering $150 of any Lumen device you purchase. We have plenty of Zenshine 405 black modules which we're offering at $0.16 when you're buying them with the Blickier Carports we'll talk about in a second. We have the whole portfolio of IQ 8 series and offering the IQ 8 H and IQ 8 glasses at 25% below the market price right now. We will see the IQ 8 glasses at around $115 and the IQ 8 H is at $1.86. We have the Grow Up EV chargers on the shelf and if you're looking for tea gaskets to make solar arrays watertight, Blickier has several options for different module gap sizes. Email our team at info@renville.com or see our webinar follow up email with more info on those. Here's our bulk modules, a price list for large volume options and our upcoming offerings of solar modules. We carry Zenshine, Canadian solar, Hyundai, Hyperion, REC and more. All our brands are Bloomberg Tier 1. We are sharing in the chat a link to this page, we update it regularly so you can stay up to date with our latest deals for bulk purchases. I'll take a minute to also mention the Blickier residential carport, this is a great way to extend existing solar systems or an alternative solutions when you cannot install solar on a roof and when customers are looking for more added values. It is designed to be assembled by a small team, it doesn't require any specialized or heavy machinery to install it. This is a solar structure so it's eligible for the 30% ITC and possibly the extra 10% for US made products. It is modules and inverter agnostic, it is designed and fabricated in the US and made from US source to galvanize steel. It comes with 25 years warranty. The structure is coming with a structural engineer p-stem, you can install up to 24 solar modules with 4 columns of 6 modules. A 2 car carport will generate about 10 kilowatt. You can use residential and commercial modules with it with load capacities of up to 48 pound per square foot snow, 215 miles per hour wind load and seismic design category F. One last item to go over before we get started is our solar design and vocal, you'll find it on the top of our home page on renbu.com. You can generate as many courses you need in a couple of minutes without the need to wait for a sales engineer and it is available 24 hours, seven days a week, always updated with the latest products and pricing. First you select the components you would like to see on your quote and then you choose your panels. I chose the Zenshine 405 black, next you configure your rocking system for a wide range of options, tilted or flat roof, ground mounting carports. I created two arrays here, first array with two rows, first row with seven modules in landscape and then second row with 10 modules in portrait and then second array with 10 modules in portrait. Changed to black rails, black clumps and I changed the span here to six feet. The system creates a sketch of the array with dimensions so you can verify that this design feeds the space you have. Then choose your inverter type from microinverters, optimizers and string inverters. I selected string inverters here and storage options, also like the single phase and grower. I'll select mean 10k and the 19a arrow battery. The left side you see the bill of materials building up and when you are logged into your account prices changes as you edit your system and configuration. It's a great way to compare the cost of different options in the real time. Our team updates this tool constantly with the latest solar components and pricing currently available in the market. And then you get a quote that is being sent to your email and it will be also saved under your your account here. You can print it, you can make changes and make purchases. If you have any questions about these products or about Soluna while Alejandro is presenting, please feel free to ask in the Q&A section. There is a button at the bottom, it says Q&A, we will get to the questions at the end of the webinar. We have also Arthur here from Soluna who will help with any technical aspects or questions. You can also email our sales team at info@renvu.com for more information and pricing. This webinar is being recorded and we will send you a link in a follow-up email. We also have recordings of previous webinars on the Renvu YouTube channel so you can visit there to see other webinars that we had recently. Without further ado, I will hand it over to Alejandro to take it from here. Thank you. Hello everyone, this is Alejandro or Alex. I am Technical Service Manager in Soluna for America, US, Mexico, Latin America. So I am in charge of the service. If you have questions about technical aspects, you feel free for ask. So in this presentation, I am going to talk about Soluna products. The storage market is growing very quickly. So it is very important to meet the options in the market about the batteries, how to design the systems, what options we have to offer storage systems to the end customers. So I will try to explain better for you about the batteries. So we are the start with company profile. Soluna is a manufacturing company. In the market, as Soluna, we have around eight, seven years in the market. But we have a background as a manufacturer company who fabric the lead himself or other technologies. But in 2015, we launched in the market the Soluna brand. Soluna brand started to offer products in 2017 with all-in-one system. This is the first product to the market. And then in 2018, we launched the high voltage battery. This product is the main product in the American market. So we are going to put more focus in this product for in this webinar. And then in 2019, we got the UL 1973 certificate. 2020, we launched the EOS 5K battery. This is low voltage. So in 2021, we launched the new generation HP battery. This with more benefits, we are going to see it next. And 2022, we got the UL 9540 and 9548 certificate. In last year, we launched two products in low voltage. 5K is another battery in 5K and 10K will be battery for low voltage system. This year at the beginning, we launched the SmartLink product. SmartLink product is a hoop that allows to create a system around 1.5 mWh. We are going to see it next. And then next year, we have launched the 20 kilowatt-hour HP battery. This is the main points over the time about Soluna. So we have presence in a lot of countries in America. America and Europe are the main market for us, most of the Central America and South America and Europe. So we have presence in a lot of countries with technical service or sales. If you need something, you can contact to ramble with us to attend your questions or your request. Okay, we're going to start with product catalog. We have a line for products for different solutions. The small solution, the smaller solution is a portable system. We have two systems, that is cactus, a 5T and a 3D. This product is most for portable solutions like camping or people that need to go to places where it's not great. So you can use this device for us. For these works, the product has LCD screen and L likes two likes. This is around 1.2 kilowatts and this is the double of 2.4. Then we have low voltage solution, the 5K, this is the 5K battery and then this is the 10K battery for low voltage. We're going to see more details in advance. Next, and this is the high voltage. We have two principle two main models, 10K and 15K in high voltage and this is only one system. This product is more popular in South America and we have a commercial or industrial solution. This is the power cell, 150K and we can get systems around 5 uniques in parallel to get around 700 kilowatt power. But now we're going to put more attention in these two products, 10K in LV and 10K and 15K in HV solution. Okay, we're going to start with 10K and 15K solution. This is the battery in high voltage. High voltage is most for grid projects, grid on grid projects because we work with high voltage, so it's better for them in the battery to charge the battery with the solar PV instead if it's low voltage. In low voltage, the current is more high, the cable is more big, bigger, so this is the advantage to use high voltage in systems. Don't matter if it's residential or commercial, you can use high voltage battery. So we're going to see the aspect about security inside the battery at next. Okay, the main features LFP cell. LFP cell is a technology that allowed the battery could be a cool better performance because there are a lot of chemistry about the cells, but now currently LFP is the better technology. If we compare price and efficiency or performance, LFP is the best technology actually or currently. So we have most of the 6000 cycles charged and discharged, so the lifespan is around 15 or 16 years. If you charge and discharge once per day, the battery in the better condition could be could reach these years for lifespan. 6000 cycles. 6000 cycles until 90 percent. This is the diff of discharge. You can discharge the battery almost complete even in very controlled system. You can discharge until 100 percent, but we recommend discharge 90 percent. The battery is once you rate. It means you can discharge the battery in one hour in special condition, about the voltage, about the load. You can discharge in one hour. This is very important for customers that need much energy in a few times. You can discharge the battery in this time. This allows, that's why the current discharge for EMs, you can discharge the battery for EMs to get the whole energy in one hour. All battery have the BMS integrate. The BMS is the battery management system. Inside the battery, all solution from Soluna has the BMS inside. This is very important because the lithium batteries could be a little dangerous if the battery have not BMS, because the BMS is the computer inside the battery that allows control and measure all parameters of the battery. The BMS measures the voltage, temperature, current and other aspects inside the battery. It's very important to work with batteries with the BMS integrate. Another main feature is the WiFi. All battery have WiFi to monitor in the system at 24/7. You can check a part of the embedded monitoring. You can have the monitoring for the battery in the APU, in the webpage. You can see most parameters like temperature, or charge on discharge, current and more. We can get system up to 150 kilowatt hours with 10 units in parallel. Then units 15k. This is possible with the parallel box. We are going to see it at next. We have Blackstone function for off-grid system. We are going to see more details in the future, in the next slide. Also, it is compatible with SmartLink. SmartLink is the hub to get system up to 1.5 megawatts. This is more for commercial or industrial projects. We have SPD protection. When you work with high voltage, it's very important to security. All HV battery integrate the search protection device, because we have work with from 200 voltage until 400 voltage around. It's very important to integrate our security system inside. We have 10 years warranty. This function is optional, but you can let it off. If you need self-hating function, this is most for very cold places when the lead-to-need stay in average temperature. The battery can hide the temperature itself, but this function is optional. You need to let it know if you need this option to produce in mass the battery with self-hating function. We have two main models. 10k and 15k. You can see the design is very similar, the 15k is more tight. 10k, the rate capacity is 10k. Usable capacity is 9kWh, but as I say, you can discharge hold the battery in a very controlled situation with the setting in the better, the setting very clear, but we recommend the 90%. Nominal voltage, as you see, is high voltage. It's not for LBE system. We have bore with two 168 volts, so it's very important to install with the security lines. The maximum charge on this chart is 40 amps into operating temperature, minus 10 degrees and 250 degrees. The battery can work between these degrees. More close of the limit, maybe we can have a degree in the performance, but in average temperature, the battery can work in the better performance. The certificates for the cell UL 1642, for the model inside the battery, 1973, and the security in the whole battery, UL 59540. Communication we have can protocol is for the communication with the better. It's a single cable, Ethernet cable, RJ4A5, and with the monitoring, you can use the Wi-Fi. The dimension is very minimalised. The battery you can see, the dimension is not too big. You can install in places and the battery no need a lot of space. The way is a little heavy, so you need two or three people to install the battery. We have IP protection, IP65. The battery can be installed outside, but we recommend installer cover, even the battery have IP65. The installation way it's possible to install in floor stand and wall mount is optional. You need, let us know, that you need wall mount option because the bracket changes if you need install in the wall. We can connect until 10 units in parallel. So the next model is very similar, only change the capacity and voltage. In this case, we have we're working with 3A4 bolts and the dimension is different. In this side, we have 1.2 meters, 65 centimeters, and 22 centimeters is very, very, very, they say no need a lot of space to install the battery. It's very, very simple. So for the parallel units, it's the same, 1, 2, through 10 units. It's not possible to combine different models. If you installed 15K, you only can connect 15K models. It's not much, one model with the other model is necessary to install the same model. If you need connect units in parallel. Okay, the physical features or characters in the front side, we have the lead indicator and the logo and ground terminal for ground in the case of the battery. In the left side, we have external charge port. In the next slide, I'm going to explain this part. We have the handles to take the battery and wall bracket. It's very important to install the battery with the wall bracket for security. In the right side, we have the connection port, we have the communication port and electrical port, the switch on off. This is the Black Star board that I'm going to explain next label and the other ground terminal because this terminal is for the plate of cover and this one is for the other case because there is a separate plastic separate for insulate the battery. Inside the battery is very important and it's very important mention. The components or electric components inside the battery because it's more related for the security. For example, the BMS, the BMS is in the top of the battery. I say the BMS is very important because the BMS managed the communication with the better measure of the parameters of the battery. We need monitoring the battery for security not only our battery, all lithium batteries need BMS. We have a fuse inside the battery for if the connection is wrong or there is a short circuit in the installation, the battery protects itself with the fuse and with protection relay. This is very important because if the battery has not communication with the better, this relay goes close or open, goes to open and the electricity is not allowed. This is for security. The battery needs communication with the better to close the relay and start to work. This is a point very important for security around the installation, for the people around the battery because it's the better eastern of the battery after five minutes, go to sleep and go to open the relay for security. Also, we have the search protection device or SPD protection inside because we are working with high voltage. Below of the electric box or this part, we have the modules. The 15K has 10 modules and the 10K has seven modules. Each modules inside have the lithium self connect in areas and parallel. Each module has an electronic board in this side. All modules are connected and have communication. It's very important for the BMS because the BMS meet the parameters of each module. It's very important to mention because it's related to the security. Also, each module has two temperature sensors. The BMS is testing every module with the slave board and with the two sensors for check the parameters. Okay, the details for the connection board, we have two CAN1 and two CAN2. CAN1 is connecting better and CAN2 is connecting monitoring. In the future, when we are going to introduce more function for the others for the other sport, currently we need use CAN1 and CAN2, whatever you choose, don't matter. In the future, we are going to add more functions. For example, connect the batteries together without any other device or something like that. We have the two terminal positive and negative switch on off and the black star bottom. The black star, I'm going to explain the black star in the next slide. In the other side, we have the external charge port. This port is for a situation when the battery is over discharged accidentally. Maybe the better turn off and the end customer knows it that the better is turned off. If the battery around two weeks is not charging, is not charged, the voltage goes to down. In this case, we will be necessary to recharge the battery with ACDC power supply. In this case, we can charge the battery externally with DC power supply with this port. The cable or the connector for this port is included in the battery accessories. You connect the ACDC power supply. You choose in this now, you choose the model, for example, 10K, 15K, 20K. You choose at first and then you can recharge the battery to back to life, the battery insitation over this charge or under voltage sleep. That's why it's very important setting correctly to avoid that the battery discharged itself. We have a fuse for security in this side. This situation is not very common. If the system or if the setting in the better is not correct, but it's not happening every day, no need use frequently just in situation with the battery over the charge accidentally. Black star function is most for off-grid system. For example, at the night, we have not a solar Pb, but if the inverter is not possible to on the inverter again, because we have not a solar Pb. In this situation, you can press the black star bottom and the battery will send a signal to the barrier to start. This is very usable in off-grid system because in emergency situation, you can start the battery with starting better with the battery, with the black star function. Or another situation could be an on-grid system, but there is a blackout of the grid, so on the inverter off, you can start with the black star function. Okay, we have the LED indicator. We have five status status. So if the LED is color white, it means that we have installed a single battery, or if you have parallel system, the master battery will be a white color. The slave battery in a parallel system will change to green color, the LED. So if the color change to purple, it means that the battery has the battery lost communication with the mirror, and after five minutes, different minutes, without communication with the better, the LED will change to purple. Yellow color, it means that the battery is in the cell protection status. This could happen with the battery, it could be a high temperature or low temperature, high voltage from the better, and the battery will protect itself, and close communication with the better to avoid discharge and charge. If the LED is yellow, we can check the monitoring for check what happened with the battery, or to see which alarm is in the battery. And red color, red color is not dangerous, red color, is when you press the black start button for 10 seconds, the LED change to red color. We have monitoring. This is the Wi-Fi stick. You can connect the Wi-Fi stick in can two of the battery, and we have the Soluna Eclow is the APP, and you can check the historical information from the battery. For example, charge and charge current, the voltage from each model, or for each cell, we can check the voltage for each cell. We can get reports, we can update the battery, even if the battery needs a software update, we can do it through monitoring. It's very important to install the monitoring to if the battery needs an update, we can do it through monitoring, or you can check reports, alerts. So it's very important to install the monitoring. If you install a battery, try to install the monitoring. Okay, this is parallel connection, and this is the parallel box. We have this device for parallel connection, so each parallel box, we can connect four units by parallel box. In this case, we have six battery, and these three battery belongs. So for this parallel box, and this other battery belongs in this parallel box. And then the parallel box is connect together, one is master, and the another is a slave, and the parallel box master is connected in burden. You can see one Wi-Fi stick in this, so you only need one Wi-Fi stick if you have until 10 units. For 10 units, we can use three parallel box. We can connect three, three, and four in each parallel box to get 10 units in parallel. This is the parallel box. We have the inputs, the outputs. It's very easy. It's like a like a combiner box. Forget until 115 kilowatt hours with 10 units, with 10 15K units. Okay, this is a compatible inverter. Currently, we work with this brand around the world. Could we hold my solids, high-pontage, solid tech, so planet? So we have more inverters compatible, but another inverter is not commercial in America. So if you need the complete list, you can request through Rambo. We can send them the compatible list. Now you can start with Godwin in California, or solids. These two inverters are very popular in America, so you can choose wherever you want. Okay, until now, this was the HP solution, so we're going to see the LB solution. We have two models, 5K and 10K in low voltage solution, but in this webinar, we are going to put more attention in 10K. This is the battery, 10K in low voltage, so we're going to see the main features. If you have questions, you can write in the Q&A section, and after finish, we're going to reply. Okay, the cell is the same technology, or the same chemistry, LFP cell. The difference between the HP and LB battery is the structure cell. In the HP battery, we use cylindric cell, and in low voltage battery, we use prismatic cell. The difference is the form, but the chemistry or technology is the same. We have the same cycle life. Most of the 6,000 cycles charge and its charge. The DOD is the same, this of the charge. We can discharge the battery up to 90%. Once you write, in this case, that is low voltage. We can work with more current until 200 amps to discharge. BMS integrate Wi-Fi monitoring, a scalable up to 120 kilowatt hours in this case with 12 ONIX in parallel. Self-hating function, this optional that I said before. The smart link, we're going to see the smart link in the next slide, but the smart link device could work with HB or LB batteries. It's the same device and could work with the two solutions battery. 10 years warranty. Okay, technical features, ready capacity, 10.24, usable capacity, 9.20 kilowatt hours, nominal voltage, voltage range, maximum charge and discharge current. In this case, we can discharge the battery in one hour if we need the 100 amps. For discharge, in this situation, we need to keep the voltage of the battery. If the voltage is very slow, it's not possible to discharge the battery in the maximum current. So we need to keep the battery in the nominal voltage for discharge the battery in the maximum discharge current. For charge, maybe we can take two hours for charge hold the battery because for charge is 100 amps. Operate temperature is the same that the another solution, Minus 10 degrees Celsius degrees. I have not bought in Fahrenheit, sorry, but you can make the conversion because this is Celsius degrees and this is the range. Certificate, we have UL 1642 and UL 1973. Communication can and Wi-Fi is the same the same that the HB dimension. We have 73 in this side, centimeters, 15 centimeters in this side and 21.5 in this side. The way is 94 kilograms and we have IP 65 floor stand, 1 mount and rack. In this case, you can install whatever you want. It's not. The three ways to install the battery is for the file. You don't need let us know that HB case because in HB, if you need install in the world, you need make the order with this with this detail. In this case, no need. The battery can install with these three these three ways. Parallel units, one until 12 units. Physical characteristics, we have the lead indicators on the front from all the battery. Logo, switch off on in the left side, the handles and connection port in the right side. The connection is very similar than HP. We have Can2 and Can1 and the electric ports. For parallel connection, we can use the parallel box. We have a special parallel box for a low voltage solution and for each high voltage solution, the parallel box is different because the parallel box in a low voltage is much bigger because the cable is much bigger because we have more with more current, so you can use for that. Comparable Embeddeders, AP System, Homile Solark and Bitron. With Solark, we are working in the official list. We hope the official list will be ready in Q4 in this year to appear in the official list from Solark. But we have we have some system already installed with Solark and Bitron in the market. Okay, this is the SmartLink. The SmartLink is a communication manager and we can connect until 10 racks. In HB, in HB 10 racks of 10 batteries, you can see rack one to rack 10. We can imagine 10 racks of 10 batteries connect in this hub and in LB solution, 10 racks of 12 units. So the SmartLink is about to connect this kind of project, most for commercial or small industrial. It's very functional for that. We can monitor it by Wi-Fi also. And no need to install the Wi-Fi in each battery, only in this SmartLink. Okay, before to finish the presentation, we are going to see some reference project. This is HB with Solis S6. You can see the installation are very clean. The design of the battery is very clean, minimized. You can check. You can see the lead. This is the master battery in color white and this is the slave battery in color green. With project with good wind, you can see it dim better, hybrid in better with the new good with generation. Another with good with solar. This is the 5k battery. It's not 10k, low voltage, but the BMS and the protocol is the same. So you can install solar with 10k also. This is the rack for 5k, the rack. You can install 6 units in this rack and the rack is available with IP 65 if you need to install outside. And this is 10k with Victron and 5k. 5k is available in color white and color black. You can see the connection and more with 5k and Victron AP, AP storage. You can see the connection is very easy. Volmals in low voltage and finish. Thank you for for your day, the presentation. And if you have questions, my colleague Parthur, we can help to reply. You can follow in Instagram and Facebook, Soluna and Soluna Latam. You can find in social networks. Thank you. Let's go over some of the questions that Arthur already responded. Wanna to me, can you include the latest inverters that have UL 9540 with these batteries? I see that the Arthur said that the Soluna high voltage battery has your 9540 with solis. And with low voltage battery, with solar is in progress. This is from our discussion before we were talking about the Q4 2024. But that's exciting. The AP systems is not UL 9540 certified yet. The AP systems inverter. Okay. Another attendees asking, watching from Nairobi, Kenya, are you planning to enter the Kenya market? And Arthur said yes. Is monitoring required for a warranty? And you don't need to have monitoring in order to use your warranty if there is any issue. Any n-phase inverter compatibility? Arthur says that Soluna is not compatible with n-phase, but we have projects of people that are AC coupling. So you can, in addition to your n-phase, you can purchase a high-breed string inverter just like the Solis one and use them together. Yes. It is an AC couple. Beto is asking, I have two Soluna's batteries connected to my Solis high-breed inverter. It was one of the best investment in my life. Zero problems. Cool. I paid zero dollars, sometimes twelve dollars. Sounds good. Thanks for that review. These are all the questions that came in. If anybody have more questions, that's the time to ask them. Here it comes. The customer is used to fix us. Cool. Okay. If no other questions, thank you, Alejandro and Arthur, for a insightful presentation. We recorded that webinar and we'll share with everybody the recording in the next few days with several campaigns or offers on the Soluna batteries. So if you're looking to purchase Soluna batteries hang tight, we are offering, I think, $250 gift card care battery. So it's a good opportunity to get extra discount on these batteries. If you need a quote for project, just contact us at info@renvu.com. And as I mentioned before, the recording will be uploaded to our YouTube channel and will be shared in an email. So thank you everybody and have a great rest of your week. Thanks Arthur and Alejandro. Have a good rest of your week. Thank you so much.