Ted Lassoes the Sun!

[Mzezman]

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)

View attachment 1347646

Pretty much... can you also add the battery SOC to that so we can be certain? It looks like PV ramped up then by 10 your battery was full so PV throttled to only feed the required load. A little after that heating came online (I assume) and PV ramped up again

 

[RonSwanson]

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

View attachment 1347560

Not feeding back, but drawing from.

 

[RonSwanson]

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)

View attachment 1347646

Nope, you were charging batteries during that time. Click on battery to enable the graph. You were using 4 - 500W at that time as load.

You were missing out between 10H00 and 10H40.

 

[Mzezman]

ignore my reply - Ron is right - i was looking at the wrong time

 

[TedLasso]

Nope, you were charging batteries during that time. Click on battery to enable the graph. You were using 4 - 500W at that time as load.

You were missing out between 10H00 and 10H40.

Thx - You see everything!!

Gawd and to think I do data sometimes in my professional capacity. That outage between 10:00-10:40 was due a a plug being installed next to inverter (essential side) so that I have power for my Raspberry Pi which will be running Solar Assistant.

 

[TedLasso]

Ok so this is probably another stupid question:-

But we had three clear days so far, and while I know PV production is less in winter and in comments on other threads, temp of solar panels also have a material effect on PV generation. So 17-18 degrees must be a nice temp for the panels to operate in

So the question is this: So if I have 4.3kWp of capacity but my solar generation has never gone higher then 3.43 kWp of generation in last two days, is this expected?

The idiot in me, is now wondering if the right panels are installed. I never bothered (or realised that I should) to check the solar panels when they were delivered if they were the 545w panels I ordered. #idiot

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

So the question is this: So if I have 4.3kWp of capacity but my solar generation has never gone higher then 3.43 kWp of generation in last two days, is this expected?

That's normal. Efficiency depends on a bunch of factors - how high/low the sun is in relation to the horizon, time of day, temperature etc...

 

[Speedster]

Ok so this is probably another stupid question:-

But we had three clear days so far, and while I know PV production is less in winter and in comments on other threads, temp of solar panels also have a material effect on PV generation. So 17-18 degrees must be a nice temp for the panels to operate in

So the question is this: So if I have 4.3kWp of capacity but my solar generation has never gone higher then 3.43 kWp of generation in last two days, is this expected?

The idiot in me, is now wondering if the right panels are installed. I never bothered (or realised that I should) to check the solar panels when they were delivered if they were the 545w panels I ordered. #idiot

I have 5.95kWp facing due north at 35 degrees tilt. They max out at a touch under 5kW of production currently.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Ok so this is probably another stupid question:-

But we had three clear days so far, and while I know PV production is less in winter and in comments on other threads, temp of solar panels also have a material effect on PV generation. So 17-18 degrees must be a nice temp for the panels to operate in

So the question is this: So if I have 4.3kWp of capacity but my solar generation has never gone higher then 3.43 kWp of generation in last two days, is this expected?

The idiot in me, is now wondering if the right panels are installed. I never bothered (or realised that I should) to check the solar panels when they were delivered if they were the 545w panels I ordered. #idiot

Pretty normal in winter.

My 6.3kWp facing perfect north averages at a peak of around 5 at the moment and I’ve only had spikes to 6-ish about 4 times in the last month.

Remember the angle of the sun is also completely wrong in winter beyond the temperature and such being an issue.

And the funny thing is my installer is very surprised by my output and has written it up to Canadian Solar simply being better than the JA stuff he normally uses.

 

[TedLasso]

Ok so nothing to worry about . Gonna have to climb on roof in any case, to double check that I have the right panels - eeek!!!

Here's another thing that is confusing me.

So configured batteries to be 100% at day time using just solar and to top up after 6pm.

Right now, I know the system can generate at least 2.5kWp of energy but the house is requiring only 1.5kWh, but the inverter is not ramping up PV to charge the battery. I know if the Grid option was ticked , it would have sucked all that power from Eskom to get to required SoC level. So wondering what it could be doing.

 

[TedLasso]

To my last post, system was generating 3kWp of energy to feed house, geyser but as soon as geyser reached temps , baseload was 300w and for 3 minutes all that was going to battery was like 50w - so I turned on the pool pump to see what would happen

 

[furpile]

To my last post, system was generating 3kWp of energy to feed house, geyser but as soon as geyser reached temps , baseload was 300w and for 3 minutes all that was going to battery was like 50w - so I turned on the pool pump to see what would happen

Looks like it should be charging the batteries to 100% to me, but it could be the BMS preventing that for some reason.

Also if you have batteries set to 100% for the whole day, every time the PV is lower than your load you will be using grid power. You should be using the batteries during the day to cover clouds or peak loads.

 

[TedLasso]

Looks like it should be charging the batteries to 100% to me, but it could be the BMS preventing that for some reason.

Also if you have batteries set to 100% for the whole day, every time the PV is lower than your load you will be using grid power. You should be using the batteries during the day to cover clouds or peak loads.

So you mean set SoC to something like 95%?

As a test, I set Grid to on, to see what it did, but 10 mins later, has not changed. It's just trickle charging.

I think Battery temp is fine. That spike this morning was when system was configured to charge from Grid at 08:30AM and boy did it take the energy from grid.

 

[furpile]

So you mean set SoC to something like 95%?

As a test, I set Grid to on, to see what it did, but 10 mins later, has not changed. It's just trickle charging.

I think Battery temp is fine. That spike this morning was when system was configured to charge from Grid at 08:30AM and boy did it take the energy from grid.
View attachment 1348120View attachment 1348122

It can be set much lower, even to 25%. That will give you the most use out of the batteries. If the weather is bad or there is loadshedding you will want it at a higher % to make sure you have battery power available. But if you don't use the batteries during the day you will use grid every time solar is not enough to cover the load.

 

[TedLasso]

It can be set much lower, even to 25%. That will give you the most use out of the batteries. If the weather is bad or there is loadshedding you will want it at a higher % to make sure you have battery power available. But if you don't use the batteries during the day you will use grid every time solar is not enough to cover the load.

Thank you. Good to know.

 

[RonSwanson]

Ok so nothing to worry about . Gonna have to climb on roof in any case, to double check that I have the right panels - eeek!!!

Here's another thing that is confusing me.

So configured batteries to be 100% at day time using just solar and to top up after 6pm.

Right now, I know the system can generate at least 2.5kWp of energy but the house is requiring only 1.5kWh, but the inverter is not ramping up PV to charge the battery. I know if the Grid option was ticked , it would have sucked all that power from Eskom to get to required SoC level. So wondering what it could be doing. View attachment 1348088View attachment 1348090

Next time that it happens, take a pic of the LiBMS screen, it will tell you what the battery BMS is allowing. My 3 Hubbles typically start throttling charge rate (amps) after reaching 96%. My Pylontech US3000Bs after 88%. Every battery BMS has its own easily recognisable "signature".

 

[Speedster]

It can be set much lower, even to 25%. That will give you the most use out of the batteries. If the weather is bad or there is loadshedding you will want it at a higher % to make sure you have battery power available. But if you don't use the batteries during the day you will use grid every time solar is not enough to cover the load.

Mine is on 10%. Batteries allow for 95% DoD so guess I should probably make that even lower.

 

[TedLasso]

Mine is on 10%. Batteries allow for 95% DoD so guess I should probably make that even lower.

Ok, so I am now confused (as usual).

If on system screen, I assume SoC = DoD ? So if you set it to 10% , the max the battery would go down to is 10% and charge to is also 10%.

Considering my previous logic , I thought setting 100% SoC would be the value the battery would be charged to and kept for that period e.g 08:45-18:30 PM

That's what I saw on the inverter when I played e.g. if SOC for certain time period was 25 then once it was reached e.g. discharge, it stayed at 25.

If the next time slot , the SoC is 45%,the inverter charges the battery to 45% and keeps it there.

So if you keep it at 10 DoD , then how does battery get fully charged during the day using Furpile and your settings?

Or is there another screen to manage DoD? (Which I don't think I have found yet)

 

[Speedster]

Ok, so I am now confused (as usual).

If on system screen, I assume SoC = DoD ? So if you set it to 10% , the max the battery would go down to is 10% and charge to is also 10%.

Considering my previous logic , I thought setting 100% SoC would be the value the battery would be charged to and kept for that period e.g 08:45-18:30 PM

That's what I saw on the inverter when I played e.g. if SOC for certain time period was 25 then once it was reached e.g. discharge, it stayed at 25.

If the next time slot , the SoC is 45%,the inverter charges the battery to 45% and keeps it there.

So if you keep it at 10 DoD , then how does battery get fully charged during the day using Furpile and your settings?

Or is there another screen to manage DoD? (Which I don't think I have found yet)


View attachment 1348182

It'll only charge up to the set SoC using grid, but beyond that using PV (if available)

 

[Mzezman]

Ok, so I am now confused (as usual).

If on system screen, I assume SoC = DoD ? So if you set it to 10% , the max the battery would go down to is 10% and charge to is also 10%.

Considering my previous logic , I thought setting 100% SoC would be the value the battery would be charged to and kept for that period e.g 08:45-18:30 PM

That's what I saw on the inverter when I played e.g. if SOC for certain time period was 25 then once it was reached e.g. discharge, it stayed at 25.

If the next time slot , the SoC is 45%,the inverter charges the battery to 45% and keeps it there.

So if you keep it at 10 DoD , then how does battery get fully charged during the day using Furpile and your settings?

Or is there another screen to manage DoD? (Which I don't think I have found yet)


View attachment 1348182

Because 8:45 - 18:30 has no grid charge selected - the inverter will use PV to charge to 100% (or as close as it can get - based on what else is using power in the house). If grid charge was set then it will always get to that set % regardless of what power is being used elsewhere - because the grid will be used to do that

If you set your SOC to lower than 100% but there is more than enough PV (or the load is very low) then the batteries will still get to 100 using PV