ESS: how to eliminate grid consumption

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Mario Navarro asked Feb 14, '23

ESS: how to eliminate grid consumption

Hello,

Devices:
1x Victron Quattro 15000VA

2x Smartsolar 450V 100A

4x Weco 5K3 Battery

1x Cerbo

I want to eliminate all residual grid consumption, just treat grid as a generator and use it only below minimum SOC.

I cannot set the grid setpoint below 50W cause I cannot inject energy in the grid.

I know maybe ESS assistant is not intended for this, but I cannot see other assistant with the features and easy of control of this one.

As far I know, generator assistants, etc, aren't based in battery SOC but voltage, and that's clearly worse and neither can change parameters from VRM, etc.

Maybe the topic is repeated here: https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/81769/grid-independent-ess.html but cannot find a proper answer there.

Please, any advice to config this or future update to add the feature?

Thanks.

ESS

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Answer 1 · 2023-02-14T14:18:34Z

Alexandra answered · Feb 14, 2023 at 02:18 PM

@Mario Navarro

The only way is to take ESS off and use AC ignore.

There are two ways... well three if you count virtual switch tab, but SOC is a bit harder there.

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Or a mix of the two. Experiment with what works for you.

I have also seen a setup with a daylight switch opening and closing the main incoming contactor to ignore AC when there is good solar.

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Answer 2 · 2023-02-14T15:15:06Z

chrisr answered · Feb 14, 2023 at 03:15 PM

There is a self-consumption hub assistant which switches the mains incoming relay off when the battery is above a set voltage/percentage. It's been superseded by ESS and doesn't look on the face of it to work on the newest firmware :(

If your inverter is firmware 4xx (quattro) or below then you may be able to get that to work. I haven't been able to get mine to work on 501

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Mario Navarro commented · Feb 15, 2023 at 11:16 AM

Hello Chrisr, thanks for answer. I fear I have 502 version.

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Answer 3 · 2023-02-15T12:40:19Z

Mario Navarro answered · Feb 15, 2023 at 12:40 PM

Hello @Alexandra, thanks for answering. We've spent the morning trying those solutions but I fear all of them are a bit "worse" than ESS.

For example, generator assistant doesn't allow quick changes of minimum SOC, "keep battery charged", etc, through VRM or console. I.e. if I see that next days are cloudy, rainy, etc, I would like to change that config quickly because my grid is only 1-2kW.

ESS is very useful, but the only thing wrong for me with ESS is grid residual consumption. As a temporal solution, can a relay be configured to be open/close when SOC is above or below my ESS configuration? I could then install an external contactor for disconnect grid.

As a definitive and clean solution, please Victron team, add the option in ESS to ignore/block AC input when the grid is not required.

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