FoxESS Community - Owners & Installers Forum

Hi all and thanks for having me.

I'm brand new to the solar world, i've just had 7 panels installed on my roof and a fox es f3000 3kwh hybrid invertor installed. i was told they wouldnt install any ct clamps on my set up, so on the fox app i can only see what the solar are generating

how many clamps do i need to buy, and do they need to be fox branded ones, and what advantage would i get from adding them.

second question is, would it be worth me getting a battery, my average daily usage over a year is about 7.2kwh per day and my standing using if im not home is about 3.2 over 24 hours.

Cheers

Kris

Hi can I just check you have the F3000 inverter, that is a solar inverter (not a hybrid).

On the question of CT clamps, without them the inverter will provide the PV production information but you won't know how much of it is consumed by the house, or exported - if you add a CT clamp (singular) it would be attached to the live comin out of your supply meter and it would then be able to report real time house load and export.

Sadly the Fox cloud doesn't maintain long term stats for a solar only inverter so all you would get would be the real time readings, but it would be easy to add a home assistant connected to the cloud which would maintain all the stats and give you an energy dashboard.

The key point for the battery is the ability to store any excess solar and recover it overnight so that you don't have to buy at the more expensive tariff, but if you have a heat pump, EV you will likely already have a tariff that goes low overnight and higher during the day.
With tariff's such as those the battery can be used in the winter months when there is (virtually) no solar to charge at low tariff and you will run your house off the battery during the day. That would allow you to recover the 'cost' of the battery all year round.

Thanks for replying Dave. Yes it's a F3000 invertor. Will i need just the one to see what is coming and going from the grid as your right the app only shows what im generating with the PV setup. Would this be the correct one or can i get any ct clamp? https://www.ecowizard.co.uk/home-power- ... FkQAvD_BwE

Sorry for sounding stupid but what is a home assistant and what would you reccomend i get to see that data?

I will have to work out what would be best as im currently on a standard tarrif and dont sell back to the grid is i dont the the mcs cert yet, and dont have an ev or heat pump either.

cheers.

Yes you only need the one CT clamp for an F series, you do have to use the Fox CT clamp, and it is the one you have linked (a 100A/33mA ratio)

Home assistant is a small computer that runs on a raspberry pi or similar, it runs 24*7 collecting information and provides a really nice energy visual dashboard to display your main stats - this is an old video https://youtu.be/mwVGCdx0qwA?is=A2Czbn0vpl3ZXqjg but shows the kind of things it can do

Many thanks for the insight Dave, I've just ordered one there now, there coming back friday to finish some snags, hopefully it comes before then and they can fit it as they were a friendly bunch.

I'm going to monitor how much my bills are going forward and will work out what the outlay for a battery will be. I do plan on moving out in around 2 years so it might not worth getting a battery for that timeframe.