Self Consumption mode importing from grid

[Tsopic]

Hey,

I wonder why I see this behavior with a device with 44kwh capacity, but it still states that it is importing energy from the grid on low-consumption periods when PV is not charging.

I'd expect it would relay on the battery as much as possible, only import from gid, when battery low or consumption > output W

[egaryw2011]

Yes I am having similar concerns, I check the logic and it does not make sense in a lot of cases. For example ion some cases my system export to the Grid before fully charges the battery. I check it on their server just to make sure and the Sungrow server shows the same. Through this integration I have managed to turn off the export function or at least set it to 0, (not sure if you can turn it off)
In other cases I see I am importing to charge the battery and to supply the house, see screenshot below. Do you know if there is a way to control the logic - for example control when the grid supplies the house - PV charges the battery etc?
PastedGraphic-1.png

[egaryw2011]

[mkaiser]

hmm can you set a non-zero value for the "start battery discharging power", e.g. 50 W ?

[egaryw2011]

Yes I can? How would that help though?

[Tsopic]

These values are most important for self-consumption - the house consumption from battery and PV charging power to the battery.

I'd keep these max values, as I want my Consumer to consume from the battery whenever possible.
Therefore Max discharge power is needed to support the consumed "load".

[Tsopic]

This value is important when I want to sell the Battery capacity to Grid

So far only usecase I've found is:

• High price, 1/4 capacity of PV charge. Then I would sometimes look to supplement the "earnings" or "export" by 1/2 of battery power capability + PV energy to the grid If I expect a cheaper period coming, where I'd look to refill the batteries from PV and export less to grid.

Previous example in numbers:

3400w energy generated from PV
5000w from battery discharge
Exported = 8400w

[Tsopic]

When you experiment with such things, keep in mind to not overheat the inverter.

Discharging a battery to the grid with max watts I've seen the inverter temp increase from normal 30-40c, to 60c.
It's not wise to run it hot, thinking long-term.

[egaryw2011]

Heres a challenge :-) - see how the Grid is supplying the house below, it shouldn't be! The correct logic would be that the PV should only be supplying the house, if it has more than required charge the batteries.
Are there any other settings that are not exposed as yet that could help control this?
Awesome integration by the way.

[Tsopic]

So far I've found these numbers to be the sweet spot for the configuration of the SH10RT inverter by spec.

Not even sure if there are any advantages of 80w starting battery discharge or not. Probably just take whatever possible from battery if the capacity is filled with PV anyway.

[egaryw2011]

I have similar however these adjustment will not fix the Sungrow logic. My screenshot is below;
Over here I have set the following by time only due to tariffs, but the logic in the Inverter doesn't seem correct, I am speaking with Sungrow through the installer at the moment. However I do not expect them to change their firmware due to me.
The default "Reserved SOC for backup is 5% which is fine
The tariffs we have are:
3pm - 9pm 50c per kwh
9pm - 9am 22c per kwh
9am - 3pm 8c per kwh
The logic that I use to control what I can control is the following;
1 - Charge batteries during 9am - 3pm (8c per kwh) using PV at 2pm grid will help if required, by 3pm I have a full battery
2 - Battery will start discharging 3pm - 9pm so I don't pay the high tariff at all (50c per kwh)
3 - Battery will remain to discharge during 9pm - 9am until 5% left of battery usually around 3am then grid will kick in.
My issue is that, if you look at the inverter you see strange logic, when supplying the from and to the GRID. I have now turned off the export via this integration which worked very well, so now I have stopped sending power to the grid as the inverter was doing that instead of charging the battery in some cases.
I hope that there is additional parameters to expose that we can control the supply on a priority basis which seems logical to me, obviously harder to do through the inverter.
Priority would be in my case
Supply priority -
1 - PV supplies house - remaining to the battery. (Sungrow logic fails here)
2 - GRID supplies house only when PV shortfall (Sungrow logic fails here)
3 - GRID charges battery when required based on time (Sungrow has this available however logic fails in some cases)
4 - Batteries discharge when required based on time (Sungrow has this available however logic fails in some cases)

[egaryw2011]

By the way, we do not get compensated if we export back into the GRID if the inverter is more than 5KVA :-(

[egaryw2011]

So I have a strange result that maybe someone can help with, I turned off the GRID to test the system, however the Graph shows that the GRID is on and supplying the load and the PV is on but low? The Inverter does switch to off Grid mode so not sure if its a bug or me :-)

[Tsopic]

Export limiter = turns off selling to the grid | does not affect importing from grid
I think this inverter needs to run "Off-grid" instead of "Self-consumption" mode if we are looking to get rid of the import from the grid.

Again this figure above is daily data, and should not be used to monitor "live" inverter statuses. Use the history tab of HA and add relevant entities to graphs 👍

[egaryw2011]

Are we able to put the inverter into "Off- Grid" mode from the integration, if so, I will create an automation to place it into "Off Grid" mode on certain times of the day.
If not, I will just purchase a 3 phase switch and disconnect the grid when required! That way I will know for shaw :-)
https://www.shelly.cloud/en/products/shop/shelly-pro-3

[Tsopic]

So I have a strange result that maybe someone can help with, I turned off the GRID to test the system, however the Graph shows that the GRID is on and supplying the load and the PV is on but low? The Inverter does switch to off Grid mode so not sure if its a bug or me :-)

This particular figure is:

1. Delayed
2. Daily data.

I would suggest you use the home assistant history and add entities there for close to real-time monitoring.

For my use case, I do not see any "hard coded" timestamps for logic relevant. As a guide for desired price-related behavior, I would use Nordpol integration instead to get the energy prices +1 day. https://github.com/custom-components/nordpool/tree/master

[egaryw2011]

Arrr okay thank you, still new to HA but I will have a play and see what sensors I can create so I have more of a real time view. How often is the daily data updated?

[egaryw2011]

Okay I have been doing some testing and it looks like the graph is basically in real time (little lag)
For example the graph uses the Import Energy sensor which updates around every 10 sec, when it updates the graph value changes accordingly. I then tested it by turning on the Hot Water Service and it all updated accordingly?
Am I missing something?
Here are a couple of screenshots.
Sensors used by the card

Import Power Sensor showing 10 sec updates

These updates are reflect in the graph below as they occur

[egaryw2011]

Unless you thought I was using the Sungrow graph below which is delayed a lot.

[mkaiser]

all the values in the HomeAssistant power charts above are real-time values, which are updated every 10 seconds.

Maybe the values are not updated within the inverter logic, when the grid is down. (Just fishing here, because the data seems so wrong)

[Tsopic]

Would be useful if we could make sense of the following Modbus values...
Think it could be related to the "Inverter allowing to consume the battery for a load"

Communication.Protocol.of.Residential.Hybrid.InverterV1.0.22_20201117.pdf

[Tsopic]

Did you change your battery charging power settings?

Mine are almost always full :D Last picture u sent, u had limited the Battery charging wattage to 100

[Tsopic]

Set these values to max, to take advantage of the battery capacity

[Tsopic]

The current energy flow without the off-grid mode.

So far satisfied, as it's the first time I see noticeable battery utilization.

[egaryw2011]

No I never, however I changed the export value from 0 to 5K limit. Made a positive differance. In terms of the battery, the battery gets charged fully every day, I have it set to charge during the low cost rate (between 9am and 3pm), if its not fully charged before 2pm, I get the grid to fully charge it. The battery will then last through the peak time (most expensive between n3pm and 9pm). The battery will then run until around 2pm waiting for the sun to go down.
With this cycle one should expect no peak charges (between 3pm and 9pm) however I do, both on the system and from the electricity company. However with the latest change by brining the export limit from 0 to 5K seems to have helped for some reason. See the graph below.
Turned it up on the 27th of Aug, now have roughly 5k of import a day.

[egaryw2011]

My daily usage below

[egaryw2011]

Oki doki - got it

[egaryw2011]

It came up Failed to Call Service here are the inputs in case I did it incorrectly