Solar PV System Upgrade Suggestions Wanted

Thanks for the reply's. I will try to address some of the questions and thoughts.

First of all I see the installer every morning when I shave so the blame stops here! The local PV supplier does mostly grid tie systems and really didn't know much about off grid systems. I wanted to do most of the work myself so I could better understand and maintain the system. I am pretty comfortable working with electrical and mechanical but am self taught and have some gaps in my knowledge base. It has been obvious that I have a lot to learn which is why having access to a group of folks who have real world experience is so helpful. I did most of the house build with the help of a general contractor/friend and spent a lot of time doing hands on work rather than doing in depth research. Taking a year to find my hydrometer was an example of how things got prioritized. I assumed the PV system was set up and working well enough so I focused on putting out other fires. During the initial setup we used a lot of factory default settings and I have frequently talked to HUP and Outback's technical support people over the past several years as questions arose. The bottom line is I do not know if I have the system set up optimally and am not sure how to find that out. The issue of only being able to use 4500W from a 10K generator has always been an annoyance. When running the generator I am usually only putting 3.9 to 4K into the batteries during bulk charging. Outback tells me that this is the maximum I can get out of the system. This is why I was thinking of finding a industrial 48v.battery charger so I could better use the 10k generator capacity and decrease run time. Reviewing my charging settings the absorb voltage is 59.4 for 4 hours (3 hours when I am running the generator), float is 54.7v., re-bulk is 50.0v. and the current limit is 80A. When possible I equalize weekly and after adding battery water. The inverter AGS is designed to automatically start at a preset low voltage but then runs a full charge cycle before shutdown hence the 3 hour setting now. If I am home I will shut it down when the bulk is complete but when I am not here it runs the complete charge cycle wasting fuel.

I believe a fundamental error occurred during the initial install of the batteries. We did not have a 48V. charger and installed the batteries with the factory charge expecting that the system would be able to fully charge them. It is now my understanding that the system assumes that the batteries are fully charged when initially hooked up and then uses that as the baseline for recharge. It wasn't until I checked the specific gravity that I figured out we were undercharging. During that time the water levels were maintained and a number of equalization charges were done. I also did not know how inaccurate the Outback Mate3's state of charge numbers could be. I now rely on SG or resting battery voltage as an indicator of actual SOC.

The house was built with ICF block from from foundation to roof and has especially energy efficient appliances. I do have a small window AC unit but if we are careful to cool the house down overnight and button it up in the morning it stays pretty cool without it.  We sized our system for 2 people and no deep water well or mound pump. It was sized to recharge the batteries fully on a sunny day even in December. It turns out that our county requirements for use of a traditional septic is stricter than the states so we had to build a mound with pump. Our well pump is a Grundfos SQFlex submersible with a soft start and fairly low draw but it still takes a fair amount of power to pull water from 380 feet. We had initially designed a rain water catchment system to use with a cistern to eliminate the need for a deep well but could not get approval from the county. We were told that they wanted to make sure we had safe drinking water. I suggested to them that since I was the one drinking the water that I wanted it to be safe too. I had designed a LED UV based water purifier to use ahead of a Berkey water filter but that was not good enough for them. The fact that we had lived in Africa and safely managed to live with truly bad water didn't matter to them.  We also load manage running heavy draws during sunny days or while on generator. We could do better managing phantom loads and do run an efficient freezer too.

There was a suggestion for use of an autotransformer powered by a small generator.  I am not sure what you are referring to by "autotransformer". I have had numerous small generators in the past including an EV4000 Honda used during the house build as well as several Honda EU series gensets. The problem using one now has been that the Outback is setup for 220v. AC and cannot use generated 110v. AC directly. It either uses batteries/solar or generator 220 to power itself. When the generator is running the inverter checks its power quality and if clean enough passes it through to run the house and battery charge. That requires me to run a large enough generator to power house loads and charge batteries. The 10K generator is loafing when running but has to run a lot longer than I would like.  My vented battery bank is located in an interior utility room with the inverter so temp control is not an issue. I have not had any concerns with FLA inside the structure but the potential fire hazard with Lithiums concerns me. I would consider installing them there if I got a fire suppression system installed with them.

This winter has been especially cloudy which is forcing the issue of upgrading but it was inevitable that we were going to have to do something. The return of an adult child and their spouse has necessitated turning storage space into living quarters which brings additional unplanned electrical demands. We are slowly beating the concept of off grid living into them but it is taking time for them to learn. For example his diesel truck with a electric block heater can no longer be plugged in constantly. He now has it set up with a remote control timer switch which helps but he has to think about it now.The bottom line is that we now have an undersized PV system for our current and future needs .I welcome your collective insight and suggestions.

Very interesting to learn that. I did not realize that UV sterilization was frequency specific.I had intended to use a bank of UV LED's and glass tubing. 

At least I still would have been using a Berkey!