Ted Lassoes the Sun!

Speedster said:
Solcast is working well for me. Only issue is I have some shading issues which impact my afternoon production and I can't find a way to have solcast keep this in mind.
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Considering they are giving me free access, I would reciprocate and provide my solar production data to them so that their models have more data to learn from. Wonder if this is something they would consider. Should drop them an email.
 
TedLasso said:
So that's the setting for today. Gonna see how much the battery charges via PV i.e will it actually use the PV available that is not being used by Load to actually charge the battery because yesterday the best it got to was 90 during day and it definitely did not use available PV to get to the 100 SoC it was configured for. View attachment 1348392
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Great build Ted. Thanks for all the info. I am considering upgrading my current inverter to the Sunsynk. I am curious about the power value in the screen setting above. Do you know if it can be set to only discharge the batteries up to a pre-set power limit and if the load exceeds this value, the difference will be taken from the Grid? For example, let's say I am discharging the batteries during the night and I only want 1kw max to be drawn from the batteries, and then a kettle + microwave gets used pushing the load to let's say 3.5kw. Will the batteries still discharge at 1kw and the other 2.5kw will be pulled from the grid?
 
cfvh600 said:
Great build Ted. Thanks for all the info. I am considering upgrading my current inverter to the Sunsynk. I am curious about the power value in the screen setting above. Do you know if it can be set to only discharge the batteries up to a pre-set power limit and if the load exceeds this value, the difference will be taken from the Grid? For example, let's say I am discharging the batteries during the night and I only want 1kw max to be drawn from the batteries, and then a kettle + microwave gets used pushing the load to let's say 3.5kw. Will the batteries still discharge at 1kw and the other 2.5kw will be pulled from the grid?
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Yes. Remember that every entry is both charge and discharge. You specify the time, rate and the source from which the battery will charge (if lower than target SoC) and discharge (if higher).
 
So this post by @Mike Hoxbig got me thinking a few days ago
=========
Mike Hoxbig said:
Or on your inverter schedule, just set a slot for your geyser with grid charge ticked to prevent your battery going below a certain threshold. Then on the geyser timer set the same slot for the geyser to turn on.

On days with enough PV it'll draw from that, otherwise it'll draw from grid. No need to micro manage the geyser...
==========

So my last posts in this thread, my inverter settings were SoC was 20% for all slots with no Grid Charge enabled. But I have been concerned at how my my single Hubble is getting whacked on a daily basis. In that, if it's a good day, it will get to 100% charge, but then we take the battery down to 20% (I know it can go lower). Also during the day, if PV is low and load is high, it's taking it from battery so the battery is constantly being charged/discharged.

Now the hubble being rated at 3000 cycles is a concern because it feels like perhaps I maybe getting through two cycles a day. Not really sure how Hubble or battery deals with top up charges and discharges during the day.

So after Mikes' post, I changed my settings to this (ignore the times - too lazy to fix it): Changes: increase SoC to 25% and enable grid charge for evening

1659253565932.png.
Reasons for change:- at 4pm-21:15 slot.
Normally on Good PV days, the battery is at 100% SoC naturally, so nothing is taken from Grid. On poor days , SoC seems to be about 80% by 4PM, so like yesterday, it topped up from Grid to get to 100% SoC (thinking I should leave SoC at this period at 80%) .This is to prevent the battery getting klapped in the evening with the heaters, electric blankets, ovens, etc. I have seen it go to 35% by 9PM when I did not have that setting enabled.

So during the evening load, we use Grid instead of battery now.

The aim for now, is to reduce the number of cycles of battery until I can get another. As I don't have RIOT, I don't know how many actual cycles have been completed by the battery in the last 3 weeks.

1659253875170.png.

Solar assistant installed from 20/July , but according to this stat above , it looks like 10 full cycles (55.2 / 5.5) in 12 days. Is this type of logic correct? If so, I am ok with a full cycle daily - just not possibly 2 per day then I can revert back to original settings (no grid charge enabled at all and SoC 20%)

For more context:
Battery history for last 7 days:- You can see how it tapers of from 29/7 when I made the system changes.
1659254506427.png

As a side note:
I thought solar assistant connected directly to the Hubble, would give me the stats on cycles, etc from the Battery - but I can't seem to see it. Actually don't know what the point of buying the Hubble cable was - because it looks like the inverter is giving stats. From solar assistant -it's connected to both successfully.

1659254249436.png

Thanks as usual for your valued advice!
 
TedLasso said:
So this post by @Mike Hoxbig got me thinking a few days ago
=========
Mike Hoxbig said:
Or on your inverter schedule, just set a slot for your geyser with grid charge ticked to prevent your battery going below a certain threshold. Then on the geyser timer set the same slot for the geyser to turn on.

On days with enough PV it'll draw from that, otherwise it'll draw from grid. No need to micro manage the geyser...
==========

So my last posts in this thread, my inverter settings were SoC was 20% for all slots with no Grid Charge enabled. But I have been concerned at how my my single Hubble is getting whacked on a daily basis. In that, if it's a good day, it will get to 100% charge, but then we take the battery down to 20% (I know it can go lower). Also during the day, if PV is low and load is high, it's taking it from battery so the battery is constantly being charged/discharged.

Now the hubble being rated at 3000 cycles is a concern because it feels like perhaps I maybe getting through two cycles a day. Not really sure how Hubble or battery deals with top up charges and discharges during the day.

So after Mikes' post, I changed my settings to this (ignore the times - too lazy to fix it): Changes: increase SoC to 25% and enable grid charge for evening

View attachment 1357133.
Reasons for change:- at 4pm-21:15 slot.
Normally on Good PV days, the battery is at 100% SoC naturally, so nothing is taken from Grid. On poor days , SoC seems to be about 80% by 4PM, so like yesterday, it topped up from Grid to get to 100% SoC (thinking I should leave SoC at this period at 80%) .This is to prevent the battery getting klapped in the evening with the heaters, electric blankets, ovens, etc. I have seen it go to 35% by 9PM when I did not have that setting enabled.

So during the evening load, we use Grid instead of battery now.

The aim for now, is to reduce the number of cycles of battery until I can get another. As I don't have RIOT, I don't know how many actual cycles have been completed by the battery in the last 3 weeks.

View attachment 1357135.

Solar assistant installed from 20/July , but according to this stat above , it looks like 10 full cycles (55.2 / 5.5) in 12 days. Is this type of logic correct? If so, I am ok with a full cycle daily - just not possibly 2 per day then I can revert back to original settings (no grid charge enabled at all and SoC 20%)

For more context:
Battery history for last 7 days:- You can see how it tapers of from 29/7 when I made the system changes.
View attachment 1357139

As a side note:
I thought solar assistant connected directly to the Hubble, would give me the stats on cycles, etc from the Battery - but I can't seem to see it. Actually don't know what the point of buying the Hubble cable was - because it looks like the inverter is giving stats. From solar assistant -it's connected to both successfully.

View attachment 1357137

Thanks as usual for your valued advice!
Click to expand...
I think that I understand what you are trying to do, but those settings won't do it. You need more battery capacity.

You like crocodiles, so you have bought a lizard. You can feed the lizard steroids, and it will get really big and fat, but it will remain a really big and fat lizard. It won't turn into a crocodile.
 
You can also use the 100% battery setting without ticking grid charge. In that slot all your load will run off mains but you won't be charging your batteries from the grid. Avoids an unneeded cycle on them and you won't be running the geyser from the batteries.
 
Done!

1659364912739.png

Looking at stats on Monthly solar production page, I am wondering what some okes are running at home. Or is that PV going to top up all those large battery banks they have. But it is amazing to see.

I obviously am never going to have high generation. The system literally had nothing left to do today. Battery charged, all heating for the day done including running pool for a bit longer but then it was done. I should run the pool longer which will be good for summer, but I need to get time to build the automation to look at PV generation stats, like what @Speedster is trying to do to decide next actions. But I do think this 4.63 kWp is going to be more than sufficient for my needs.

As @RonSwanson so eloquently put (great analogy - l love it) , One extra battery will allow me to run overnight but happy to pay to keep Eskom in business. ROI for an additional battery doesn't make sense for now, considering we may not be in this house next year this time. Thanks to the incident on weekend, wife want us to accelerate the move back to Europe. I should have just told her I lost my phone.
 

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So to save my battery from being klapped approx 2.1 cycles a day, I set the SoC to be 60% for all time periods with no grid charging. That now brings me to about 1 cycle a day which is fine (but just may let it get klapped with 2.1 cycles a day at 20% SoC as I am definitely not taking this when we leave)

Anyway, why is it that even though SoC is set to stay at 60%, the Hubble battery keeps on losing energy? What is taking the energy, as technically, once 60 SoC is reached, only grid should be used if available. Screenshot_20220811-074438~2.jpg
 
TedLasso said:
So to save my battery from being klapped approx 2.1 cycles a day, I set the SoC to be 60% for all time periods with no grid charging. That now brings me to about 1 cycle a day which is fine (but just may let it get klapped with 2.1 cycles a day at 20% SoC as I am definitely not taking this when we leave)

Anyway, why is it that even though SoC is set to stay at 60%, the Hubble battery keeps on losing energy? What is taking the energy, as technically, once 60 SoC is reached, only grid should be used if available. View attachment 1362801
Click to expand...
I think the battery might still be powering there inverter itself?
 
TedLasso said:
So to save my battery from being klapped approx 2.1 cycles a day, I set the SoC to be 60% for all time periods with no grid charging. That now brings me to about 1 cycle a day which is fine (but just may let it get klapped with 2.1 cycles a day at 20% SoC as I am definitely not taking this when we leave)

Anyway, why is it that even though SoC is set to stay at 60%, the Hubble battery keeps on losing energy? What is taking the energy, as technically, once 60 SoC is reached, only grid should be used if available. View attachment 1362801
Click to expand...
Hubbles's BMS does use energy from time to time in order to balance the cells.
 
TedLasso said:
So to save my battery from being klapped approx 2.1 cycles a day, I set the SoC to be 60% for all time periods with no grid charging. That now brings me to about 1 cycle a day which is fine (but just may let it get klapped with 2.1 cycles a day at 20% SoC as I am definitely not taking this when we leave)

Anyway, why is it that even though SoC is set to stay at 60%, the Hubble battery keeps on losing energy? What is taking the energy, as technically, once 60 SoC is reached, only grid should be used if available. View attachment 1362801
Click to expand...
I need to get myself solar assist, but will be so sad to lose all my solarman stats :(
 
semaphore said:
I need to get myself solar assist, but will be so sad to lose all my solarman stats :(
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you dont have to lose solarman - you can have both connected.

edit: oh the stats you mean - my bad - i didn't read properly
 
That's my stats for one month to the hour.

I still have questions on whether my solar panels are the ones I bought. I have seen the panels (4.4 kWp) only hit 4kw twice in the month. It seems to max around 3.8kWh on the good days at the peak hours. Unsure if I will only see 4.4 in summer.

Regardless, solar generation could have been higher which is impressive in itself I just end up having all jobs done daily and solar having nothing to do. Screenshot_20220813-142211~2.jpg
 
That's my stats for one month to the hour.

I still have questions on whether my solar panels are the ones I bought. I have seen the panels (4.4 kWp) only hit 4kw twice in the month. It seems to max around 3.8kWh on the good days at the peak hours. Unsure if I will only see 4.4 in summer.

Regardless, solar generation could have been higher which is impressive in itself I just end up having all jobs done daily and solar having nothing to do. View attachment 1364133
 
TedLasso said:
That's my stats for one month to the hour.

I still have questions on whether my solar panels are the ones I bought. I have seen the panels (4.4 kWp) only hit 4kw twice in the month. It seems to max around 3.8kWh on the good days at the peak hours. Unsure if I will only see 4.4 in summer.
Click to expand...
That efficiency is not too bad actually.

On 6.3 kWp the highest I've seen outside cloud effect is 4.9 kW...
 
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