GrootBaas' Solar

GrootBaas said:
Wait, I have to think about that. Are you saying that at the moment it will solar charge to 100% during those hours (grid charge is unticked) but instead of utilizing the battery together with solar, it will use solar first and grid second for consumption and just keep the battery at 100%? By setting it to say 55% it will mean consumption is coming from 1- solar, 2- battery (if needed but only down to 55%) and only 3- grid (if more is required). So as consumption exceeds pv it pulls from battery first, and when consumption drops below pv it will just charge the battery again.

I think that's what you are saying and that does sound like a better config. Less pv will go to waste during the day and rather grid charge in a next time slot after the sun has weakened (if necessary).
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That is what he is saying
 
GrootBaas said:
Wait, I have to think about that. Are you saying that at the moment it will solar charge to 100% during those hours (grid charge is unticked) but instead of utilizing the battery together with solar, it will use solar first and grid second for consumption and just keep the battery at 100%? By setting it to say 55% it will mean consumption is coming from 1- solar, 2- battery (if needed but only down to 55%) and only 3- grid (if more is required). So as consumption exceeds pv it pulls from battery first, and when consumption drops below pv it will just charge the battery again.

I think that's what you are saying and that does sound like a better config. Less pv will go to waste during the day and rather grid charge in a next time slot after the sun has weakened (if necessary).
Click to expand...

Sorry I should have clarified further

Tick grid charge during those times is my opinion, and set it to 55% (or whatever works for you as you tweak it)

If you unselect grid charge, let's day you have a day of heavy usage AND it's really cloudy, you may run down to below 55%, and then loadshedding hits or a sub station blows up, and you start the night with 30% battery level

Hope that makes more sense?

My understanding (and I'm happy to be corrected by more knowledgeable forum members) is that if grid charge is not ticked, grid will not be used, even if present, during those times
 
My setup is batteries at 55% in settings,

Grid charge always ticked

That way - if my batteries go below 55%, grid kicks in to keep them topped up to a max of 55%, rest runs on PV if available, and the battery

Hope I haven't muddied the waters too much
 
Cool, thanks. I see what you are saying, but my thinking is that my first interpretation of what you said makes more sense. But will mull it over.

Right now I'm not going to prepare for a substation to blow up or even for a 4 hour loadshedding shift. Will rather maximize my overall savings by using the battery more.

Actually still have a small mecer inverter and battery setup inside for the home office and TVs, so should I drain the battery and loadshedding hits I will be okay in that sense.
 
Remember the grid charge is to specifically charge batteries from the grid to that %.

If it’s not ticked the system can still use grid to supplement load of combination of PV and battery is low. It just won’t charge the batteries from the grid
 
Mzezman said:
Remember the grid charge is to specifically charge batteries from the grid to that %.

If it’s not ticked the system can still use grid to supplement load of combination of PV and battery is low. It just won’t charge the batteries from the grid
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Thanks for the clarity
 
Generated 11.9kwh on day 1, very happy with that considering it was very overcast during the morning especially. GF even baked a swissroll during loadshedding.

Is it possible to remotely update the inverter timer settings we spoke about above?
 
GrootBaas said:
Generated 11.9kwh on day 1, very happy with that considering it was very overcast during the morning especially. GF even baked a swissroll during loadshedding.

Is it possible to remotely update the inverter timer settings we spoke about above?
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Excellent!

I see you have a deye, I'm not familiar with the app layout as I use sunsynk

On sunsynk app it's

Plant Screen (home screens) ->
Equipment ->
3 dots next to Inverter Name ->
Settings
->
System Mode
 
GrootBaas said:
Generated 11.9kwh on day 1, very happy with that considering it was very overcast during the morning especially. GF even baked a swissroll during loadshedding.

Is it possible to remotely update the inverter timer settings we spoke about above?
Click to expand...
You can use either of Deye cloud or Solarman business for this
 
Cool. I'm using solarman business, will dig into it a bit and see where those settings are.

Edit: Found it.
 
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GrootBaas said:
Don't know how you guys get any work done. Can't stop checking the app constantly. Even walking outside to check the clouds every now and again, it's ridiculous!
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I would say, it gets better and the urge blows over but it doesn't. It gets worse. Tell me... Are you already planning your next upgrade?
 
eepr0m said:
I would say, it gets better and the urge blows over but it doesn't. It gets worse. Tell me... Are you already planning your next upgrade?
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Yup, have started to give it some thought. After what, 3 days of use my gut feel is that an additional battery will help a lot. But not right now, will continue to monitor usage first and fine tune.

Reckon that there's a point where you will have a big enough system to get you 90% off grid, but the investment required for that additional 10% in panels & batteries would not make sense. Rather consider a generator for those edge cases.

But I can maybe see a HA and Solcast setup in the not so distant future...
 
GrootBaas said:
Yup, have started to give it some thought. After what, 3 days of use my gut feel is that an additional battery will help a lot. But not right now, will continue to monitor usage first and fine tune.

Reckon that there's a point where you will have a big enough system to get you 90% off grid, but the investment required for that additional 10% in panels & batteries would not make sense. Rather consider a generator for those edge cases.

But I can maybe see a HA and Solcast setup in the not so distant future...
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Just use Eskom for that 10%.
Take a look at solar assistant. Not sure if it integrates into HA.
3 batteries took us mostly off the grid. For The months of 2022. August - April 2023 we only used 150eksdom units in that period(9 months).June was a bad month for solar where we generated only 50% of our combines usage.July was pretty decent and August started off good aswell.
 
Today a bit more overcast so couldn't get the battery back up to 100%. I guess the positive there is that means I maximized the potential PV as the battery never maxed out.

Very happy with yesterday though - despite it being a bit cloudy (you can see the blue line drop as the clouds came through):
1692021148039.png

I'm going to change my geyser settings a bit later to overlap better with possible loadshedding shifts during the night, can then set the battery to drop a bit lower and thus maximizing its use. Close to what is visible in the graph between 5-7AM, but this graph shows the weekend config and need to align the weekday one.

Biggest challenge I probably have is that my GF doesn't have a routine that can be programmed for. Her day often starts anything from 3AM and then it's the geyser, heater etc. Also use the oven late in the evening regularly (not complaining as I am spoiled with food, cake etc). But yeah, that's quite impossible to cover unless you have huge battery capacity. When I got up this morning she already used something like 10kwh for the day (mostly oil fin heater).
 
Today should be my first day of full sunshine. Set the battery last night to drain to 25% overnight so starting low today. Panels already generating 1.5kW at 9:10AM.
 
Peak generation today 3.25kw, which is 75% of 4.32kWp. Seeing that my panels are angled pretty well, I'm going to guess that's decent for this time of year.
 
GrootBaas said:
Peak generation today 3.25kw, which is 75% of 4.32kWp. Seeing that my panels are angled pretty well, I'm going to guess that's decent for this time of year.
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My non essential loads are connected to the Aux port. And set to stop working when the battery bank drops to 66% 10kwH of storage to carry us through the night.This way, even if my wife uses the oven at night it will stop when the battery drops tto those levels. The 1 geyser heats between 6-7am but we only shower in the evenings unless it's summer then we might shower twice daily.
 
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