Ted Lassoes the Sun!

[Mzezman]

Your SOC is set to 80 for all times so it will only ever discharge batteries to 80%.

For the times you have Grid ticked, if the batteries get below 80 then the grid is used to top up to 80%

If you want so use battery overnight then set the times from say 10pm to 5am at lower than 80%

 

[Mzezman]

You SOC is set to 80 for all times so it will only ever discharge batteries to 80%.

For the times you have Grid ticked, if the batteries get below 80 then the grid is used to top up to 80%

If you want so use battery overnight then set the times from say 10pm to 5am at lower than 80%

 

[Mzezman]

Sorry for the multiple posts... app issues

 

[TedLasso]

Thanks, so if I make it 20% , then it means it will use the battery until 20% is left and then switch to grid? What happens if it reaches 20% , before 5am. It will switch to grid ( I hope ).

It's seemed easy to read manual and then I got brain fog.

 

[Mzezman]

Thanks, so if I make it 20% , then it means it will use the battery until 20% is left and then switch to grid? What happens if it reaches 20% , before 5am. It will switch to grid ( I hope ).

Yes it will switch to grid to power the house. You may need to play around with that SOC figure to see what works for you and your household. Here's an example of mine

 

[TedLasso]

Thanks, will play. Was just worried that if I got it wrong , there would be no electricity

 

[Mzezman]

Thanks, will play. Was just worried that if I got it wrong , there would be no electricity

All good, you're on the right track. I set mine to 45% incase we wake up with no power and it's a cloudy day. At least we can make the kids school food before starting the day (around 615am) then hopefully by 830/9 am there is some generation to power the house for WFH

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

It's a bit pointless ticking grid charge at night, you will in any case draw from the grid when you hit the threshold. It's only useful when the grid goes down and you drop below the threshold, then the grid will charge it back up to the threshold when power returns. Like now if you're getting load shed in the evening.

Other than that I only use it when there's bad weather to make sure my batteries are 100% by 5pm...

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Thanks, so if I make it 20% , then it means it will use the battery until 20% is left and then switch to grid? What happens if it reaches 20% , before 5am. It will switch to grid ( I hope ).

It's seemed easy to read manual and then I got brain fog.

Yep, but leave a small buffer in case there's no power by sunrise. You'll have to work out your base load as a function of % power hour. For eg I use about 5% per hour, so I don't drop below 40% between 5-9am (4 hour buffer)...

 

[Mzezman]

It's a bit pointless ticking grid charge at night, you will in any case draw from the grid when you hit the threshold. It's only useful when the grid goes down and you drop below the threshold, then the grid will charge it back up to the threshold when power returns. Like now if you're getting load shed in the evening.

Other than that I only use it when there's bad weather to make sure my batteries are 100% by 5pm...

Ah yes, correct Mike 》 grid charge is to top up the batteries to the set SOC using the grid. Gen charge does the same using a generator as input.

If the batteries get to the set SOC in the specified time range the inverter will use the grid to power load

 

[TedLasso]

That's what I saw happen @Mzezman

I used your settings as a guide for tonight. As my batteries were already below 85 , grid took over and charged to 86.

Right about now, it should switch to battery

I've had an efergy monitoring house for last few years , and it's flipping wierd. I thought my base load during day was about 470w and about 650w at night with outside lights.

But the inverter is showing a lower baseload. During the day today, I saw as low as 350w.

The second pic shows house when we were not home and load shedding in progress. It used literally 3% for two hours ..

I thought inverter was supposed to use 150w itself, but it seems to be 40-50w.

The third pic shows house in night mode right now. Only 520w , and all outside lights on as usual, and electric blankets too.

Seems like a bonus , now to see how the battery fairs overnight.

 

[Mzezman]

How did the batteries fare overnight?

 

[TedLasso]

How did the batteries fare overnight?

This stuff is fun and interesting.

Yesterday


Today

So it hit 25% SOC at about 3:30 (having started to run off battery which was at 85% SOC at 8:30PM yesterday.

So I definitely need to think about when I start running on battery. Probably start around 1AM - so that there is enough charge to deal with the geyser boost in morning (so that it is technically 'free') . I definitely should get another battery (and more panels later)

But I also saw this today ... that can't be right - it seems to be sending some electricity to the grid (little thing moves from inverter to grid) even though zero export is ticked. I am on prepaid so don't even know what the heck is happening on the eskom side. It was doing this for a while. Not at home so will check later

 

[Mzezman]

This stuff is fun and interesting.

Yesterday
View attachment 1347528

Today
View attachment 1347526
So it hit 25% SOC at about 3:30 (having started to run off battery which was at 85% SOC at 8:30PM yesterday.

So I definitely need to think about when I start running on battery. Probably start around 1AM - so that there is enough charge to deal with the geyser boost in morning (so that it is technically 'free') . I definitely should get another battery (and more panels later)

But I also saw this today ... that can't be right - it seems to be sending some electricity to the grid (little thing moves from inverter to grid) even though zero export is ticked. I am on prepaid so don't even know what the heck is happening on the eskom side. It was doing this for a while. Not at home so will check later

View attachment 1347532

What time does your geyser boost in the morning? And are you sure you want to run that off batteries? Ive scheduled my boost such that it only takes a small % from the batteries (hence the 45% SOC at 4:30am) then the rest is from the grid (2kWh). A second (even 3rd) battery definitely gives you more freedom - but the cost needs to be weighed.

In terms of 'feeding back' mine is also set to zero export (since going prepaid) and the CT coil is in the right place but i do also see these instances - usually when a huge load switches off and the battery hasn't started taking that PV power in - it usually cancels itself out though

 

[furpile]

This stuff is fun and interesting.

Yesterday
View attachment 1347528

Today
View attachment 1347526
So it hit 25% SOC at about 3:30 (having started to run off battery which was at 85% SOC at 8:30PM yesterday.

So I definitely need to think about when I start running on battery. Probably start around 1AM - so that there is enough charge to deal with the geyser boost in morning (so that it is technically 'free') . I definitely should get another battery (and more panels later)

But I also saw this today ... that can't be right - it seems to be sending some electricity to the grid (little thing moves from inverter to grid) even though zero export is ticked. I am on prepaid so don't even know what the heck is happening on the eskom side. It was doing this for a while. Not at home so will check later

View attachment 1347532

That won't be free electricity for the geyser though. If you use mains for baseload during the night and batteries for the geyser it will be the same as using batteries for baseload and mains for geyser. The only way to make it free is to have enough batteries for baseload and geyser and then enough panels to charge them during the day.

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

This stuff is fun and interesting.

Yesterday
View attachment 1347528

Today
View attachment 1347526
So it hit 25% SOC at about 3:30 (having started to run off battery which was at 85% SOC at 8:30PM yesterday.

So I definitely need to think about when I start running on battery. Probably start around 1AM - so that there is enough charge to deal with the geyser boost in morning (so that it is technically 'free') . I definitely should get another battery (and more panels later)

But I also saw this today ... that can't be right - it seems to be sending some electricity to the grid (little thing moves from inverter to grid) even though zero export is ticked. I am on prepaid so don't even know what the heck is happening on the eskom side. It was doing this for a while. Not at home so will check later

View attachment 1347532

Zero export will push excess PV to your house. The 22W you're seeing going back to the grid is the trickle feed, that's normal...

 

[Mzezman]

That won't be free electricity for the geyser though. If you use mains for baseload during the night and batteries for the geyser it will be the same as using batteries for baseload and mains for geyser. The only way to make it free is to have enough batteries for baseload and geyser and then enough panels to charge them during the day.

With anything less than say 7kw battery reliance on the grid will still be high - especially for geysers

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Zero export power is what you'll occasionally be feeding back to the grid...

 

[TedLasso]

What time does your geyser boost in the morning? And are you sure you want to run that off batteries? Ive scheduled my boost such that it only takes a small % from the batteries (hence the 45% SOC at 4:30am) then the rest is from the grid (2kWh). A second (even 3rd) battery definitely gives you more freedom - but the cost needs to be weighed.

In terms of 'feeding back' mine is also set to zero export (since going prepaid) and the CT coil is in the right place but i do also see these instances - usually when a huge load switches off and the battery hasn't started taking that PV power in - it usually cancels itself out though

Indeed cost of battery vs just paying eskom a little bit. It starts at 5AM < Technically it should be from Grid but I am playing/learning for now. Today, the geyser is already fully hot, along with the other one (via solar -> and some grid) so I am not going to turn it on tomorrow to see WAF status

That won't be free electricity for the geyser though. If you use mains for baseload during the night and batteries for the geyser it will be the same as using batteries for baseload and mains for geyser. The only way to make it free is to have enough batteries for baseload and geyser and then enough panels to charge them during the day.

Yeah, I get that. But if the battery(s) is charged by the sun, then it can be 'free' ... hence needing another battery when these Hubble AM2 appear on the scene again. I think 2 should be a minimum for all setups (or 10kWh).

Zero export will push excess PV to your house. The 22W you're seeing going back to the grid is the trickle feed, that's normal...

Sweet! So I am not going to get Eskom on my doorstep.

With anything less than say 7kw battery reliance on the grid will still be high - especially for geysers

For now, I am hoping I can get away with the heating of the geyser via Solar and then hopefully no boosting required. Boosting is a winter only thing for us. For the last two days, I have also bypassed the heat pump. I know when the bathroom geyser element gets time to do it's thing, the water is super hot (the ITS heat pump never gets the water to the same temp regardless of how long it runs - I checked all settings!) so tomorrow, if the wife doesn't complain, my plan is to start the bathroom geyser around 11am - 1pm when peak solar is normally generated. Then schedule everything else around that i.e. other geyser and pool pump.

 

[TedLasso]

Apologies for all the dumb questions

If I look at this, I assume it means that between 8:45 to 10AM I had 3KW of PV available that I didn't use right? (this was load shedding time BTW, so all my heating elements were offline being non-essential)