article

Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) posted Nov 28, '23

CLOSED - Dynamic ESS on Beta VRM - part 3 (use new topic please)

Update 2024-01-19: This article has been closed for further comments. The follow up article can be found here.

2023-12-6: Important note

In case your system setup has heavy loads (EV charger, heat pumps) in front of the Victron system, there is a chance that the total load of the system exceeds what your main fuse can handle, causing it to break. See here for more information on this.

2023-12-06: Restricting charging from grid

The system now determines when it makes sense not to charge the battery from the grid. Based on that, it will enforce a restriction on not charging the battery from the grid. This can no longer match all hours of the day and this fixes the bug for systems with a low sell price where the charging from the battery always got blocked.

Dynamic ESS on Beta VRM - part 3

Hereby I present another update considering the current state of Dynamic ESS and VRM.

One of the more common complaints we received was that in cases consumption- and solar-forecasting did not match the actual usage or yield, this resulted in extra grid usage by either charging from or discharging to the grid. This could result in the system to use expensive grid power on moments that the energy prices were high. Our simulations do indicate that penalizing the grid is cheaper than penalizing the battery in the long run, but that does not mean that it should be like that for every hour. Especially when the grid energy is expensive, this is most certainly not the best option.

In order to mitigate this problem, we decided to re-use the global restrictions that we already implemented to follow the German regulations, but use these at the schedule level. Whenever the buy price is considered high, we set the restriction “disable charging battery from grid” for that hour. Then comes the part of deciding when the price is considered high. At the max buy price of the day, the system enforces never to charge from the grid. The other scheduled restrictions look at more factors to determine if it makes sense to charge from the grid. If it does not make sense, it enforces that by setting the restriction.

This system became effective on Node-RED since yesterday’s v0.1.10 release and effective on beta VRM this afternoon for systems running the latest candidate release of Venus OS (3.20~30). There are still more improvements to be made and we keep working on ways to further improve the system. That being said, we almost feel ready to move the system from beta VRM to VRM. Before we do that, we still need to do a bit more testing and add these restrictions to the release feed of Venus.

For those of you who missed the original posts, and wonder what this is all about. Dynamic ESS is an algorithm that aims to minimise the costs made on the grid and battery. Please check the two previous posts on the subject for further information.

You can get started with it on beta-VRM via Settings → Dynamic ESS.

There is a concept manual. All feedback can be provided below.

Note that Dynamic ESS applies mostly to countries in Europe that work with so-called “day ahead pricing”. For fixed priced contracts, the VRM version can also be used outside these countries.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with beta VRM, you can log in through this link with your normal credentials.

A webinar about this subject has been held on the 26th of September. The recording of the webinar can be found on our YouTube tech channel: https://youtu.be/YU9jXyfM-eI

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ronaldt commented · Dec 01, 2023 at 01:11 PM

It looks like the system wants to follow the set SOC target all the time. So when I use less energy and it was predicted to be more and the SOC target was therefore lower, the system starts to dump energy to the grid. But the price is not high at the moment and I rather use thid saved energy to load to the grid when the price is higher.

The picture below shows the SOC targets. My current SOC is 47% and it seems to aim for 45%. I am hardly using energy so it ofloads with about 1500W from the battery to the grid now. When you look at the price (top left) it is clear that later in the day the price is higher and it is therefore more beneficial to save it now and use later.

The impact on charging the car on the prediction iis gigantic. This is the prediction after 4 hours planned charging. It totally invalidates the prediction as near the truth.

Between 10 and 12 there was solar energy available. The DESS decided to send it to the grid and the target SOC (24%) remained unchanged. Probably because there is not much difference in the price at that moment and later in the day. Therefore is is (with the cost of the battery taken into account) better to offload directly to the grid. But.... it is even better to store it in the battery and use it later for my own consumption. It seems that this scenario is not taken into account?!

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grua commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 09:58 AM

Is there a way to parameterize the efficiency of the battery? My 48V battery, which is AC-coupled via Multiplus II, shows approx. 15% .. 20% losses from charging from the grid to being returned to AC, i.e. over all efficiency 85 .. 80%. For example 10% loss at charching from grid and again 10% loss from DC back to AC.

What level of efficiency does DESS calculate or can it be parameterized?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ grua commented · Dec 11, 2023 at 10:19 AM

At the moment we calculate with an efficiency of 85%. This setting cannot be altered yet via VRM, but can via Node-RED (where we first test most stuff before putting it on VRM).
It is the `Settings/DynamicEss/SystemEfficiency` variable under `com.victronenergy.settings` dbus service.

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Henrik Känngård commented · Dec 28, 2023 at 10:52 AM

I’ve been using DESS since the start a few months now. And for most of the time it has been working fine, with a few exceptions and some behaviours which I would like to be evolved.

But the last few days it has really been working strange. When I look at the consumption forecast for the day early morning it looks like almost no consumption at all, meaning the batteries won’t charge during cheaper periods on the night. But then later in the morning the forecast change and looks normal again. But this then means all power will be taken from the grid during the day, even if the price is much higher than during the night. Is this a known bug or something you perhaps need to check up?

The things I would like to evolve is the possibility to avoid purchasing power during high prices, as it works today the system takes a certain amount of power from the battery, but if consumption is higher than forecast for some time, the system purchase power from the grid. I would rather use this power from the battery and instead use less power from the battery when consumption are lower again. Is this perhaps also something you know about/working on?

It would also be very nice to be able to control the relay(s) on the GX or other devices with the DESS, this to control high consumers like heating to only be in use when price is low.

With all this said, great work to have this function in place!

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ojack commented · Nov 29, 2023 at 09:18 AM

"We defined it as the hours where the buy prices exceeds ( the sell price minus the battery cycle costs )."

But this is the case everytime in Germany because my sell price is constant 7ct/kwh and i define my batterycost = 1ct/kwh. It would be the same even if i would make batterycosts to 6ct/kwh.

But i think it would have been a good idea to load the battery from 3 to 5 in the morning because it was the lowest price for today and battery is empty at the moment and very low pv forecast.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ ojack commented · Nov 29, 2023 at 12:04 PM

You are right, the battery still should be charged at that low point. We are aware of this and are working on an improved solution, which should no longer restrict those low hours.

As soon as that improved solution is in place, I'll update the main article with more details.

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daniel-feist Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 01, 2023 at 01:27 PM

I have a similar issue, but the opposite:

Today, in the U.K., between 4.30-6 pm export is paid at almost €5. DESS created a schedule that filled batteries overnight on cheap import tariffs and planned to discharge as much as possible between 4-6 pm (no half-hour support yet). But, given it's cold and the (electric) heating has been on usage has been higher than forecast. This means that at 4 pm the battery is estimated to be at only 45%. I'm pretty sure before this latest change it would have been 100% at 4pm, but this change means it won't be. It's interesting as in most cases I wouldn't want it to punish the grid, but in this case where export is so lucrative it makes sense...

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dirk-s commented · Nov 29, 2023 at 05:30 PM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) Thats a good step forward. Thank you for you effort.

But nevertheless Dynamic ESS doesn't work well with my installation because the consumption forecast doesn't fit well. Below a screenshot of the forecast for tommorrow:

Why there is so low consumption forecast? Especially zero forecast for the marked hours.

I never had hours with zero consumption in the last year. Because of this the target SOC is to high and will be reached very fast and afterwards it takes all the needed energy from the Grid (undependent of the price). If the consumptions forecast would simple take the average of the last 4 weeks for each day, the result would be much better.

I have a simple installation with Multiplus 5000 II GX and 8,22 kWp SolarEdge PV on AC in with 21,3kWh Pylontech batteries. I have main consumption on AC In and some small critical loads on AC Out1 with in average 100-150Wh.

Could you be so kind and have a look on this, please? Either something is broken in my VRM installation or it works in a different way than I expect. Portal ID: c0619ab101c5

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dirk-s dirk-s commented · Nov 29, 2023 at 05:35 PM

And why it changes every time. Below a Screenshot after i wrote the post before. It's 20 minutes later, but nevertheless to less for the marked hours.

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ronaldt commented · Nov 30, 2023 at 05:30 AM

When i chsrge my car the prediction of the power usage for the day is completely wrong. The forecast predicts that my car will be on the charger the whole day. Please completely ignore the car charging into the calculations when the car is on scheduled charge. The schedule is known in Venus when a Victron EVCS is used (is it?) and therefore it is also known when the power consumption stops.
The impact of the car charging is so high that any calculation is wrong when the carcharging is taken into account into the forecast for the rest of the day.

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sarowe commented · Dec 16, 2023 at 09:35 AM

Außerdem möchte ich mich erstmal für die geniale Arbeit bedanken. Ich habe seit 2 Monaten die Beta Version laufen und kaufe seit 2 Wochen über einen dynamischen Tarif Strom ein. Ich bin begeistert um es mal sehr deutlich auszudrücken.

Wie viele hier habe ich immer noch etwas Probleme große unregelmäßige Lasten, wie das E-Auto zu integrieren.

Mein Gedanke oder Anregung wäre jetzt: Eines der frei programmierbaren Relais über das ESS mit einzubinden. Das man im DESS zum Beispiel eine Bedingung formulieren könnte z.b. „Strom besonders günstig“ oder "unterhalb eines gewissen Preises" und das System schaltet dann dieses Relais. Das hätte dann auch den Vorteil, dass das System den Kausale Zusammenhang erkennt, Preis niedrig- Relais geschaltet- höherer Verbrauch.

Ich weiß nicht wie weit das technisch umsetzbar ist und soll nur eine Anregung sein.

Ansonsten macht einfach weiter

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ronaldt commented · Dec 23, 2023 at 07:42 PM

Tomorrow the energy price is zero (or below) for a long period of time. Good moment to charge the battery. But it does not....

I guess because the time window to sell the energy is limited. So it charges just enough to cover for the expected use and the energy it can feed back to the grid and end up with the same SOC as where it started?!
Having a threshold where the D-ESS always charge the battery would be useful. This can be a fixed limit (not so nice), or a calculated one based on expected energy prices from e.g. https://energie.theoxygent.nl/. This is of course a guess, but better then decide on a time window of one day as it is now.
See below the expected behaviour where the battery only charges a little bit and the price (ex taxes) is near to or below 0 for a big part of the day.

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ronaldt ronaldt commented · Jan 02 at 09:09 PM

Today I notice it again. Price of energy (without tax) is zero for 7 hours. But no charging to battery. I am trying to guess what logic is behind it. But a bit of help to understand this would be nice :)

Keep up the good work @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) !

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ ronaldt commented · Jan 03 at 08:45 AM

It looks like you have a typo in your battery cycle costs. According to our logging you have set it to be € 0.20 / kWh. Typically it is somewhere between € 0.01 and € 0.06 / kWh.

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grua Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 03 at 10:40 AM

Hi @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) , similar question at my system (ID b827eb273733):

Buy-price was cheap at night from 00:00 - 06:00, but battery wasn't charged from grid at all.

Later in the moring at 07:00 and 09:00 there was more consumption as predicted and energy was taken from grid at higher buy prices and not from battery.

Wouldn't it be better to charge the battery from grid at low buy prices in order to be able to use some battery reserves later for unexpected load peaks?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ grua commented · Jan 03 at 11:25 AM

That should indeed be the plan. Not exactly sure yet why it did not charge the battery when the price was low on your site. We are looking into that.

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grua Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 03 at 01:37 PM

That’s the plan for tomorrow: battery charching from grid from 02:00 – 04:00:

Let’s see if it really charges, I’ll report!

But another fundamental question: Does it really make sense to plan the SOC curve so that it drops to the minimum SOC (in this specific case 10%) at the end of the day? Wouldn't it be better to charge the battery a little more at night when buy prices are low than just up to the current planned 59%, and/or charge it during the day with PV-excess instead of loading the excess it into the grid, in order to always have a little extra SOC-reserve throughout the day for unexpected load peaks?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ grua commented · Jan 03 at 03:03 PM

Unfortunately there is not general rule that will satisfy all use cases. And, especially for hindsight cases, it is always easy to say that the system should have acted differently. Initially we did have an extra setting for this, but that confused a lot of people.
We settled for this system right now and are mainly working on getting other quirks out of and some extra features into the system before focussing on improving this.

But let's take a look at what the system did tomorrow again.

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grua Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 04 at 10:32 AM

The good news: the battery was charged tonight as planned!

The bad news: In my opinion, as already mentioned, the current SOC planning strategy has too few reserves to be able to supply unpredicted AC loads or less solar than predicted. As soon as a higher AC load than predicted occurs at a moment when the actual SOC is at the level of the planned SOC, energy is immediately drawn from the grid. This is very unpleasant and costs money unnecessarily...

In my opinion, however, the problem could be solved very easily:

When the plan is created, the SOC curve over time should be planned in exactly the same way as before. This basically works very well and thank you for that great work! However, in those phases in which the battery is charged either from grid or by solar power, it should automatically be charged for example 10 or 20% higher than originally planned. This reserve of 10 or 20% above the originally planned SOC should now be maintained throughout the day as long as no draw from the grid is required. However, as soon as unpredicted AC loads occur, this reserve should be used up in order to avoid drawing from the grid. Only when this reserve has been used up and the current SOC corresponds to the originally planned SOC, energy should be charged from the grid.

This reserve could for example be parameterized with a default value of 0%. At 0%, the system would behave exactly as it does now. However, if somebody wishes to use this reserve, he can parameterize it to a higher value. An optional parameter, which is 0% by default, but can be changed at will as an "expert setting", so to speak.

Or you alternatively could set it to a fixed value in the range of for example 10 to 20%, in which case users won't even notice it and nobody will ask questions about it, but everyone would be happy to have a system with less unexpected Energy from the grid.

In my opinion, this would be an absolutely essential function in order to be able to use DESS properly. Otherwise, nobody will understand why energy is drawn from the grid even though you have a battery that is still enough charged...

For me personally, this would actually be an absolute must have ... :-)

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grua grua commented · Jan 04 at 02:55 PM

I realize that this would mean a somewhat greater intervention in the algorithm, but the resulting cost advantage would certainly not be negligible.

In addition, my wife keeps asking me why we are drawing energy from the grid again, even though the battery is not yet empty. It's often difficult to explain. She then always advises me to deactivate DESS...

So here is my idea presented as pseudo-code. It's very simplified, of course, but just to make my suggestion clear:

reserve := 10%;

while (true)
{
   if (scheduled battery charching)
   {
      charge battery till actual SOC >= planed target SOC + reserve;
   }
   else if (currently DESS system without reserve would draw energy from the grid)
   {
      if (actual SOC > actual target SOC) 
      {
         if (solar > AC load) // solar excess
         {
            if (actual SOC < actual target SOC + reserve)
            {
               charge battery from solar till SOC >= actual target SOC + Reserve;
               If there exists more solar excess than needed for charching the battery, feed it to grid;
            }
            else // actual SOC >= actual target SOC + reserve
            {
               feed solar excess to grid;
            }
         }
         else // no solar excess --> use reserve
         {
            hold grid set point == 0W by discharging the battery till actual SOC <= actual target SOC
         }
      }
      else // actual SOC <= actual target SOC
      {
         hold actual SOC == actual target SOC by drawing energy from the grid;
         
      }
   }
}

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ojack grua commented · Jan 04 at 03:36 PM

But there is also the case that more PV yield is available unplanned. Then you want the battery not to be too full so that you don't "give away" too much PV to the grid.
Then your wife asks you why you had charged the battery from the grid more than necessary during the night even though the sun is suddenly shining so beautifully ;-) You should have known that ;-)

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grua ojack commented · Jan 04 at 04:01 PM

Absolutely correct :-) , and that's why I would set such a reserve with e.g. only 10% SOC as an additional buffer above the originally planned target SOC and not more.

At the moment, I simply see too frequent charging of energy from the grid. For example, this was the original plan for today:
and this is the current status:

This could certainly be largely prevented with a certain buffer above the originally planned SOC line and wife would be happy. And happy wife, happy life :-)

And any excessive solar production that would cause the battery to charge to a value above the "originally planed target SOC + reserve" should always be sold to the grid. Never would charge the battery higher than "originally planed target SOC + reserve". I have taken this into account in my pseudo code above.

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ojack grua commented · Jan 04 at 04:26 PM

What speaks against charging the battery with PV far beyond the planned soc up to 100%? The less you have to recharge from the grid the next night. At least in Germany, feed-in should always be the last option because the feed-in tariff is always far below the purchase price.

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grua ojack commented · Jan 04 at 04:37 PM

Yes, but DESS currently works differently. The cost optimization of DESS generates a SOC plan in which PV is also sold as soon as the SOC would move above the actual target SOC. This target SOC is then obviously strictly adhered to, depending on demand by buying from the grid or selling to the grid.

I think it is possible that selling to the grid can be more cost-effective. Victron has supposedly simulated this extensively, @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) may be able to say more about this.

But my suggestion would be not to sell PV as soon as the target SOC is exceeded, but only after the e.g. 10% reserve above the target SOC has been reached.

Charging to target SOC + reserve both when charging from the grid and when charging from solar, at least always at target SOC + reserve, but not necessarily above. I think this would reflect the current DESS concept very well with the additional advantage of a buffer for unexpected AC loads or to low PV.

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ojack grua commented · Jan 04 at 06:52 PM

Not exactly. It is true that DESS creates a plan after which the surplus is sold if it makes economic sense. With the price structure in Germany (7ct sale to >20ct purchase), sales are only planned when the battery is full as expected.

BUT even if DESS had not actually planned to sell for good, economic reasons, it still does so when the PV surplus is surprisingly higher than planned in the SoC plan. Exactly the same as with unplanned higher consumption, which is not removed from the battery even if the purchase price is very high if it would violate the SoC plan.

Dirk-Jan knows both issues and has promised improvement.

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grua ojack commented · Jan 05 at 08:59 AM

After yesterday's helpfull comments by ojack, here is my summary of what optimizations I would suggest for DESS.

Basically, we have to distinguish between the following phases:

1. Scheduled charging the battery from grid

2. AC consumption without or with only low PV production (no PV excess)

3. PV excess

My suggestion for these phases would be as follows:

1. Scheduled charging from grid:

Charge up to the planned target SOC plus a certain reserve (e.g. 10%). This reserve is used to cover unexpected high AC loads later in the day without having to buy energy from the grid.

2. AC consumption with no or only low PV production (no PV excess):

As long as no unexpectedly high AC loads occur, the SOC should be kept at the current target SOC + reserve. As soon as unexpectedly high AC loads occur, the reserve should be used up first instead of buying energy from the grid. Only buy energy from the grid as soon as the SOC reserve has been completely used up, i.e. the SOC has fallen to the originally planned SOC.

3. PV excess:

A distinction should be made here between times when the next day's prices are not yet known (morning and midday) and times when the next day's prices are known (afternoon):

3.1 PV excess in the morning and at midday as long as the next day's prices are not yet known:

As it is not yet known at this time whether charging will be cheap the next day (night) or not, the PV excess should be used for charging the battery.

First, the entire PV excess should be used to rebuild the SOC reserve if it has already been used before.

Then plan the SOC curve over time so that 100% SOC is reached at the end of the predicted PV production. This means that the entire PV excess does not always have to be charged into the battery, but only enough to reach 100% SOC at the end of the predicted PV production. The remaining excess can be sold into the grid.

3.2 PV excess in the afternoon as soon as the prices for the next day are available:

Decide whether it makes sense to continue using the PV excess to charge the battery to 100% or whether it is more cost-effective to sell the further PV excess to the grid and charge the battery from the grid at a later time.

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) , @OJack and all other users here: Your opinion on this would be very interesting :-)

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Henrik Känngård grua commented · Jan 03 at 10:54 AM

I see similar behavior on my installation, where I would like the battery be as much charge as possible during low prices (usually at night) to be able to only use battery during higher price (mostly during the day), but now the system takes energy from the grid much more than it seems necessary during the days. My system ID: c8df84d34272.

And it would also be nice to be able to put in different grid-fees for on and off peak, since we have different price set up here :)

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Henrik Känngård commented · Jan 03 at 11:20 AM

Taking the consumption from the battery instead of from the grid while the price is high is on our list of things to fix.

As for the on and off peak grid fees, that will probably end up a bit lower on the todo list, but it has also been noted. Are those fees both for buying as selling? Can you tell a little more about that, so I can update the ticket with as much info as possible?

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grua Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 03 at 11:42 AM

Taking the consumption from the battery instead of from the grid while the price is high is on our list of things to fix.

perfect!

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ronaldt commented · Dec 27, 2023 at 08:36 PM

Does DESS save the energy for later use, or sell it to make money and then later buy it back to use it?

Today it sold everything that was left in the batteries (down to 10% SOC) and decided to buy from the grid for higher prices. The sell price was lower than the buy price later in the day.
Is this scenario taken into account?
I rather would have saved some energy from the battery to use it later in the day when the prices are higher.

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colin-jones commented · Nov 30, 2023 at 03:28 AM

When you "disable charging from the grid" does that still mean you power consumption from the grid if solar is less than that load, eg cloud passing over, rather than discharging the battery to make up a temporary shortfall?

I still can't enter negative export price on the VRM form.

Regards

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brainbubble commented · Nov 30, 2023 at 05:52 AM

Hi and thanks for all the effort you put in DESS…

Since approx. 2 days, I encounter that my system is not charging from grid anymore… does this maybe come from your recent changes?

Additionally tonight there was again this „no schedule available“ error…

EDIT: @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) … sorry, just read your comment to ojack‘s above. That explains also my problem.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ brainbubble commented · Dec 06, 2023 at 02:21 PM

@brainbubble . Sorry that it took so long, but this has been fixed now.

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brainbubble Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 11, 2023 at 06:23 AM

Thanks, now it’s working again….

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ojack commented · Dec 01, 2023 at 08:42 AM

I have a question regarding the configuration:

"First thing we need to know is whether or not you can sell back to the grid or not. If you can, you get additional questions on the power limits when selling back. This is the lowest one of either your grid connection or what your system is capable of. So if your grid connection can do 4 kWh and your system 2.5 kWh, fill out 2.5 kWh."

My system can sell to grid but only PV not from battery. The system is equipped with 3xMulti3000 and enough mppts to let them feed in 7.2kW. There are additional AC-PVs at ACin and ACout which could feed in 11.5kW. So together with the Multis the whole system could feed in 18.7kW at ideal conditions. So which value should be inserted for max. export power? The grid fusing is much higher.

Grid fusing is 3x63A so max. import power would be 44kW, correct?

In the battery section I have to set max. charge power. Is this the max. power the Multis can charge from grid (my 3xMulti3000 = 3x35A ~ 5kW) or the sum of the multis and mppts?

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jimg commented · Dec 01, 2023 at 09:07 AM

We have 2 x Multiplus ll 48 5000 70-50 in parallel with CerboGX. All updated to latest firmware as of 30/11/23. Grid tied system.

Using Beta VRM with Dynamic ESS, when I manually hit the buy button and the system starts to charge our US5000 batteries, VRM is only displaying the power and current of one of the inverters, so half the actual value, so 68A instead of 136A of the combined parallel units output. I think the system is charging at the full combined rate, just showing half the values.

If I hit the sell button to export back to the grid, the correct power and current values are being displayed.

If I disable Dynamic ESS and set a scheduled time to charge the batteries, the correct power and current is displayed for the combined units.

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ojack commented · Dec 02, 2023 at 01:31 PM

Hello @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

What do you think of the idea of adding manual correction options for the users to the forecasts?

Today is another day where both forecasts cannot be correct. And it's not the algorithm's fault.

The PV forecast doesn't fit because there is snow on most of the modules and the consumption forecast doesn't fit because there is an extraordinary amount of cooking and baking today. Another case for correcting the forecast could be for example holiday.

Maybe the forecast bars in the diagram could be made movable? Or simply a field in which you can enter something like: 12 p.m. -3 p.m. +4kWh consumption.

Best regards

Olaf

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john245 ojack commented · Dec 03, 2023 at 12:06 PM

I like this idea. Here a PAP and SAP and in case price at PAP is lower than the price at SAP the PV will go to the SAP and the Victron System will not see this PV power.

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marceldb commented · Dec 03, 2023 at 05:05 AM

When I increase min SOC from 10 to 20, both on vrm and min dess soc, the battery won't charge and stays on the previous level. Only when I set DESS from Auto to Off, the battery starts charging. I have 2 installations, but only one installation has that behaviour. What goes wrong?

I use vrm dess, dvcc max charge current is 250A.

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marceldb marceldb commented · Dec 03, 2023 at 05:08 AM

Dess settings

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marceldb marceldb commented · Dec 03, 2023 at 06:30 AM

I updated gx to the latest candidate release 3.13. The cerbo rebooted, but stil not charging to 20%.

When i set dess to Buy, or Off, it starts charging. Back to Auto, it stops charging.

Target soc is also 20%.

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ojack marceldb commented · Dec 04, 2023 at 07:26 AM

I think it's the bug I described a few days before. They tried to integrate a new feature which should avoid buying from grid at high buy prices. But in many price structures it stops buying every time.

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dirk-s ojack commented · Dec 05, 2023 at 01:10 PM

I tried it yesterday and changed from 20 to 30%. After one hour or more the forcast for the charging on the next day increased during the times with the lowest price. And also the SOC forecast for the end of next day increased to 30%. For me it looks fine.

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Ants Kosmos dirk-s commented · Dec 06, 2023 at 07:11 AM

Electricity prices without transport cost. 22-7 transport cost + vat is lower than 7-22. Today prices and victron what thinking ?????

DESS thinking : steal my money. Night transport is 7,427 cents, day cost is 10,872 cents.

how to charge battery every night automatically ?

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ojack Ants Kosmos commented · Dec 06, 2023 at 08:27 AM

I think this is the bug described in the second post from the top. The schedule planned to charge battery at the lowest price. If you look at the schedule in the evening you should see it.

Unfortunately charging battery from grid is blocked when sell price is below buy price. So the battery is not charged at night.

The developers know that and are working on a solution

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Ants Kosmos ojack commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 07:53 PM

OK. Thank you for answer.

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david-hruska commented · Dec 03, 2023 at 12:31 PM

I'm also experiencing an issue where the DESS plans to charge, but it hasn't charged once in the last 2 days. Now, I've initiated a forced charging to increase the SOC a bit, and it takes several minutes before it starts charging. Previously, it would start charging immediately after switching to 'keep batteries charged.' I haven't downgraded yet and I'm still on 3.20 ~ 30.

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m1kkel david-hruska commented · Dec 03, 2023 at 10:37 PM

Why downgrade?

I’m in 3.13 and can’t find a higher version. And Dirk claims in the beginning:

latest candidate release of Venus OS (3.20~30)

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ojack m1kkel commented · Dec 04, 2023 at 07:30 AM

At the moment there is only 3.13~1 available for beta testing to make a stable version with the basic features. https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/246506/venus-os-v3131-available-for-testing.html

The beta test for 3.20~30 is interrupted for this.

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ojack commented · Dec 04, 2023 at 11:58 AM

Hello,
I just saw that Tibber, for example, has an API that you can use to retrieve the purchase price. This means you don't have to enter a formula and you can use the exact price that's right for exactly that Tibber customer. This would certainly be helpful, especially for Germany where (stupidly) there are different network fees etc. for almost every village.

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ronaldt commented · Dec 04, 2023 at 08:11 PM

Using node-red.

It seems that the target SOC is leading over more sensible choices. When for some reason (e.g. less usage than expected) the SOC is higher than the target, DESS is dumping the energy to the grid although the price is bad (=low). I would rather save this energy and dump it when it is high.

I don't know how the target SOC is set exactly. But when the SOC is higher than the target SOC and the price is low, then the system should not dump the enrgy but adjust the target SOC in my opinion.

Target SOC is 50%. System SOC is 51%. It dumps the energy until it reached the 50%.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ ronaldt commented · Dec 05, 2023 at 12:24 PM

According to the manual: "We keep the battery stable and not the grid: in our internal testing keeping the battery usage stable (basically the same as the plan) has been a lot more cost-effective than otherwise, because of the battery costs that pile up."

Agreed that there are moments where this is not ideal. We are working on a way to improve this behavior (partly already deployed in the latest node red version).

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marceldb commented · Dec 05, 2023 at 06:25 AM

Tonight, my car was charging at L3 at 24A (car charger is connected to AC IN), but DESS decided to fully charge the batteries from all 3 Multis. The result was that the grid current at L3 exceeded the set current limit of 25A, and increased to 32A. That was a tricky situation, because the main circuit breaker at L3 could have tripped. Usually with ESS the battery will get charged from sun power, so no problem for the main fuse, but DESS will charge from the grid as well, sometimes at full power.

It is very important that in any case the grid current will not exceed the set limit. My request is to limit the charge current so that in any case the grid current stays below the set limit, even when the load is connected at the AC in side.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ marceldb commented · Dec 06, 2023 at 03:00 PM

I can acknowledge that there is a chance the main fuse can break when not all the high loads are behind the Victron system. While DESS is not perse to blame for it, it may be triggered earlier by it.

We are working on a fix for this (which will take some extra time to make and test). From the Node-RED implementation you can already set the AC input current limit to a lower value (if you can detect the higher load).

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marceldb Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 09:22 AM

This is one of the reasons that I love to work with Victron products: as an installer, I see what the products do in practice. When I post an issue, you guys take it seriously and work on a solution. I have a lot of orders for DESS installations in the pipeline and people love the products as well. I believe that there is a huge market for (D)ESS and when Victron keeps working on improvements, there is a leading position for Victron in this area. So keep up the good work, guys!

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m1kkel commented · Dec 05, 2023 at 09:17 AM

My data is missing since yesterday.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ m1kkel commented · Dec 05, 2023 at 12:25 PM

The battery is too low and thus Dynamic ESS got disabled. Your system switched to regular ESS because of this. If you charge the battery again to be above min SOC, it should be functional again.

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m1kkel Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 09, 2023 at 07:10 PM

Ok. I’ll do that. Thanks

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ojack commented · Dec 07, 2023 at 12:42 PM

Hello @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

In the manual I think you have forgotten to edit this part:

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ ojack commented · Dec 07, 2023 at 12:48 PM

You are right. I've updated it. Thanks!

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puredroll commented · Dec 09, 2023 at 01:52 PM

A question re: Dynamic ESS and Octopus Savings Sessions. These are a hour or two adhoc where selling energy back to the grid can yield much higher grid price returns. Usually these are notified in advance of a few hours. Is there a way of scheduling discharge for an hour or two or does it have to be done manually using the menu selection to Sell? Thank you.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ puredroll commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 11:03 AM

At the moment that is only possible via the control menu. Via Node-RED you may be able to automate that already.

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puredroll Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 02:24 PM

Thanks @Dirk-Jan Faber - really enjoying using this product. Really looking forward to seeing how it develops!

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freese commented · Dec 09, 2023 at 02:15 PM

Hey, any recommendations?

What can I do to change that the system use the battery when the price at its lowest point?

Happy to read your comments.

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Ants Kosmos freese commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 08:01 PM

Maybe you can bought more battery for all day. How with you electricity transport cost ? Us transport price at night 22-7 and weekends is cheaper than 7-22 weekdays, 0,04€. I set battery cycle cost to zero. Why ? I have already paid them. Simple :D

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freese Ants Kosmos commented · Dec 15, 2023 at 06:13 AM

Thank for your reply. That does not help.

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Fredrik commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 09:06 PM

I am still unable to get DESS as an available option in the settings menue.

The software version is 3.20~33

I use the Beta VRM

I have the EM540 energy meter that is listed as compatible.

I've scoured the internet for answers but now all the links I find even remotely linked to the problem at hand are purple and I cannot find anything more to read on the subject. It seems so available to the whole community but I still cannot get it to even show up in the system.

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Peter Fredrik commented · Dec 10, 2023 at 11:17 PM

Just try competition: gbbvictronweb.gbbsoft.pl

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andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 11, 2023 at 09:11 PM

Checking in betavrm - no menu Settings - Dynamic ESS

Could be no support for multi RS 6000 yet.

Feel free to include my config to beta/alpha testers, @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 12, 2023 at 08:53 AM

Your system type is set to Hub-1. Dynamic ESS requires ESS or Hub-4. So you need a different ESS assistant, which can be configured through VE.Configure.

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roger-seibel commented · Dec 13, 2023 at 12:49 PM

Confusing SoC-Handling since introduction of Dynamic ESS

I am using ESS mode 'Optimized _with_ Battery Life',
Dynamic ESS via VRM Portal _disabled_ and checked via MQTT (mode = 0),
newest beta versions

In the last years i let the Cerbo decide in increasing or decrasing the ./CGwacs/BatteryLife/SocLimit (not the MinimumSocLimit).

I sometimes corrected these values via Node-RED / MQTT in special cases:
When there is a actual high value and the next day(s) will become sunny (via SolarForcast), i reduced to e.g. 10% to get the battery empty for the next day(s). But letting the system running alone worked fine, too.

Since some weeks (i guess after 3.20~17), i cannot manipulate this value anymore, more exactly: i can set and query this value via MQTT but with no effect.

After a short time the system uses always a very high value from 'system/0/Control/ActiveSocLimit'. This value is also displayed in the VRM Portal.

When i try set 'system/0/Control/ActiveSocLimit', it is shown for a short time an then reset to the previous value eg. 75%, same after reboot of the Cerbo. This value is now read only in the Cerbo gui.

I assume the system is always overwriting 'ActiveSocLimit' with the ones from Dynamic ESS (from the ./DynamicEss/Schedule/x/soc) and then starts a forced slow charging to this high limit.

Trying to do it the old way, i disabled battery live, but then i am not able to set 'SocLimit ', only 'MinimumSocLimit '. In this case the system is discharging to this 'MinimumSocLimit' , not to 'SocLimit ', as before.
'ActiveSocLimit' is set to 'MinimumSocLimit' , not to 'SocLimit ', as before.

So my question is: Can you implement the old logic in the case of DynamicESS = off ?

It would be nice to have './CGwacs/BatteryLife/SocLimit' writable in the gui and via MQTT / Node-Red again.

Regards, Roger

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ roger-seibel commented · Dec 13, 2023 at 01:48 PM

You should write to /CGwacs/BatteryLife/MinSocLimit, and set the ESS mode to Optimised without batterylife to accomplish what you want.

The /CGwacs/BatteryLife/SocLimit path is read-only (and will remain so). Also see https://github.com/victronenergy/venus/wiki/dbus#settings

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roger-seibel Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 13, 2023 at 02:23 PM

Thank you for clarification. Too bad, the combination of 'optimized _with_ battery life' and manual adjustments was very nice, semi-automatic ...

So I have to rebuild the battery life for myself only for this special use case ...

I will think about that, perhaps is switching the modes a solution, but im a little bit confused, why the initial value is set so high (75%) after activation battery life. If it would first start at a lower value, this would be better for me.

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frbuceta commented · Dec 13, 2023 at 04:19 PM

Hi, I don't know if anyone has talked about this....

Here in Spain there are tariffs where the holiday comes out the price of electricity as the weekend. I have seen that I can not add this setting in the Dynamic ESS.

On the other hand, I have seen that my GX has ordered the inverter to buy electricity at 20 c€ instead of 14 c€ and being the battery at 85% (I attach some photos).

And finally in the configuration it asks me if I have a different price on weekends and I said yes and then in the summary it says no but the price of the weekend appears.

Greetings and thank you very much for this functionality. It is very necessary to get through the winter.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ frbuceta commented · Dec 13, 2023 at 06:21 PM

Thanks for reporting. We'll take a closer look at it.

The summary not showing the correct values is obviously a bug, which needs to be fixed.

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frbuceta Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 15, 2023 at 07:45 PM

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Every day, when 1PM arrives, it starts charging in the most expensive part of the period and with plenty of battery.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ frbuceta commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 04:23 PM

@frbuceta Can you enable remote support on your site for tomorrow? Our logging is not sufficient to find the cause and there is definitely something weird going on.

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frbuceta Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 19, 2023 at 05:55 AM

Done. Already active, do you need any data?

the battery did not go above 14% until the sun came out and there was plenty of renewable energy. I had the power to keep discharging and to charge and not use expensive energy.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ frbuceta commented · Dec 19, 2023 at 02:26 PM

Thank you for helping out with the remote support. We've been able to identify a new issue where applying both restrictions (no exporting from battery to grid and no importing from grid to battery) don't work well in combination with a PV-inverter on the output.

Unfortunately, with the holiday season coming up, it is likely to take some time before we get this issue solved.

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frbuceta Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 20, 2023 at 03:11 PM

I am glad to hear that you have already found the problem. I will leave remote access active until you tell me that you have corrected the problem.

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meyo084 commented · Dec 15, 2023 at 07:04 PM

Hi, because of the fan noise during charching at night iam trying to use the "silence fan" assistant in the MP2. This results in very strange behaviour like constantly switching between "external control" and "discharging" wich looks like normal ESS mode.. has anyone else tried using this assistant in combination with DYN ESS?

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ojack meyo084 commented · Dec 15, 2023 at 07:42 PM

The silence fan assistant reduces the fan speed so much that the Multi gets quite warm and then reduces its performance. This is intended more for lower loads.

There is a retrofit kit for Multiplus to reduce the fan noise. You can order this for free from your dealer.

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achim-gruber commented · Dec 16, 2023 at 12:29 PM

Only one question.

is there a timeline to implement/add other options for the grid costs - like awattar/spotty/dynamic energy contracts in austria for example.

or is there any other option to do this manually.... :-)

thx.

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grua achim-gruber commented · Dec 16, 2023 at 01:03 PM

You can already enter this as a formula:

aWATTar HOURLY: (p x 1.03 + 1.5) x 1.2 + grid costs

SmartEnergy SmartCONTROL: (p + 1.2) x 1.2 + grid costs

Only with aWATTar would you actually need the absolute value of p so that the formula is also correct for negative prices:

(p + |p| x 0.03 + 1.5) x 1.2

Absolute value isn't available now, but I've already put that in here a few days ago.

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grua commented · Dec 16, 2023 at 03:09 PM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) some days ago you wrote:

"As the source for the spot prices we use the API from ENTSO-E. All EU providers base their prices on this source. (https://transparency.entsoe.eu/transmission-domain/r2/dayAheadPrices/show)"

But as far as I can see, slightly different prices are used in different countries:

Germany:

Austria:

Do you take this into account at DESS by specifying your country here?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ grua commented · Dec 17, 2023 at 03:13 PM

Yes, that selection determines the one we take from the entso-e site. Every country has different day ahead prices. Mostly caused by transportation costs and different energy sources (in Spain you get more solar than in Sweden). Transporting energy from one country to the other must also be paid for. Even within some countries there are several zones. Sweden for example has 4 different zones.
Within a bidding zone, all of the energy providers that operate there use the same source (entso-e) for their dynamic prices.

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smejfi commented · Dec 17, 2023 at 08:53 AM

Hi, Im sorry I didnt have time yet to read through all of the posts here, so Im just going to describe how the system worked for me for the past few weeks with last official version of Venus OS (3.13). Today I have breefly gone through the introduction of this thread and found out that some of the unexpected behaviour of the system might have been already fixed in the release candidate so today I switched to the version 3.20~34 and for that one the notes bellow might differ.

Im running 3 phase system with MP-II 5000VA/48V, Fronius Symo 17.5 (15 kWp installed) and 58 kWh LiFePo4 battery in Czech Republic and I have both buying prices and selling prices variable (spot). Since it is a winter and we have a big house which uses heat pump as a heat source, most of the time the system is used just to overcome the spikes of the electricity price during the day and doesnt do much with the solar power because there is very little of it, but when it does, some unexpected behaviour usually occures.

So here are listed some pluses and minuses of the system functionality that I noticed:

+ It seems that the system works well as for the figuring out when to buy from grid to battery and when to power the house from the battery instead from the grid

- In the begining I noticed that the system was sometimes discharging the battery back to the grid, which didnt seem reasonable to me (I would get it if the selling price at present was higher than the buying price at some point in the past but that wasnt even the case), so I checked the option in Dynamic ESS settings which should restrict discharging the battery to the grid, but that sadly hasnt changed much, so even though this is restricted, the system still sometimes discharges the battery to the grid and I dont know how to prevent it

- Another unexpected behavior is that even though it is pretty clear that the total consumption during the day will be much higher than the solar production and again, the present selling price is still smaller than the lowest buying price in the past e.g. 12 hours, it happens often that system uses all the energy from the battery and feeds all the solar production right into the grid although it is clear that it would be better to use solar to power the loads and if there is any solar left, store it to the battery (and dont sell it for low price to the grid). I get that this has probably something to do with the inaccuracy of the solar prediction, but nevertheless should be solved somehow. For example yesterday it happened that the battery was on 40% and for about half an hour the solar went unexpectedly to about 10 kW. Dynamic ESS sold everything to the grid low cost and used the battery to power the loads. Which wasnt so pleasant to watch, but I endured it for "science purposes" (so I could share it here and hope someone from Victron will fix it :-D ).

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ojack smejfi commented · Dec 17, 2023 at 09:18 AM

All your points are known by victron as you can read above in this indeed very long and unwieldy thread.

They are working on improvements.

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smejfi ojack commented · Dec 17, 2023 at 09:53 AM

Thank you for the quick summary :-), thats kinda what I thought, but still wanted to be sure they get the message.

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andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 02:29 PM

Installed on my MultiPlus-II @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

Added Standard ESS + Pylontech 5kW

Adde Dynamic ESS via BetaVRM portal

My stats are here

1 issue - no Ukraine in country list

2 issue - adding night/day tariffs slightly glitchy - by default it starts from 00:00, can't be changed

So I had to add 3 lines, which could be solved only by having 2

3 - The menu name is 'dynamic_ess'. Added comment in poeditor for proper translation and correcting a source string. ( fixed already by Michael Angelo Groeneveld )

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 19, 2023 at 02:28 PM

Ukraine is in the dropdown list now.

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andrii-podanenko Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 25, 2023 at 09:17 PM

Thank you.

After selecting Ukraine - No grid providers there (understandable) and it asks for grid formula.

It's quite confusing, in fixed prices I have timeframe based prices (clear), in Dynamic - formula. Looking at docs I found

The buy price formula and sell price formula (if you are allowed to sell back to the grid) looks typically something like: (p+0.02+0.13)*1.21. It this example it breaks down to:

p - the dynamic price / kWh

€ 0.02 - energy provider profit share

€ 0.13 - DSO working price + contributions/levy/taxes

21% - tax

I'm not sure how to find this information, especially "profit share", which sounds like closed info of every provider here in Ukraine, or I misunderstood requirements here.

In fixed prices still no ability to define timezone. Does DESS pulling it from Cerbo GX?

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tuxedo0801 commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 03:46 PM

Just checking the latest changes... Still works bad... Plan ist to use the battery (now), but it consumes from grid... Why?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ tuxedo0801 commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 04:37 PM

It is a bit hard to judge on just the screenshot of a single moment. What I can see in the logging is that the battery did discharge during that hour from 98% to 92% for consumption.
And you disabled DESS again just after that screenshot.

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dirk-s commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 05:59 PM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

Since some hours the controls in betavrm doesn't load. Neither on Firefox nor Edge.It shows "Connecting". Have you maintained or changed anything?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ dirk-s commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 06:15 PM

Thanks for reporting. We are looking into it.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 06:22 PM

That should be fixed now.

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dirk-s Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 18, 2023 at 07:18 PM

Yes, it‘s working now. Thank you

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emilleopold commented · Dec 20, 2023 at 05:16 PM

I am using DESS for app. 1-2 months. In general it works well, but I beleive that the development is not finished.

For me I have seen some strange behaviours at 20.12.2023, 04:00 - 05:40 :

1.) I write Schedule 0.soc in a influxdb database as DESS_SOC

2.) Additional I have a NODE-RED implementation of DESS but set the DESS-MODE to "1". As I understand in that case the NODE-RED implementation is only for monitoring. The control is from the GX device by BETA VRM.

3.) When I look at the DESS NODE-RED DASHBOARD, the Battery SOC do not change between 0:00 and 10:00.

4.) When I look at the data in Grafana, then at 04:00 the DESS_SOC change from 30% to 65% and at 04:40 back to 30%. Then at 05:00 to 40% and at 05:40 back to 30%

Question 1 : Why is the DESS_SOC in the INFLUX DB different than the battery in the DASHBOARD. I have a 20kWh battery so 5,5kWh is app. 36%.

Question 2 : The charging of the battery starts at 04:00 / 05:00 but is finished 10 min later , even the DESS_SOC is still much higher than the battery soc (EEL_SOC). Why it do not charge the battery all the time. Because the price is at app. 20ct/kWh it should use the low price.

Thanks for any hint.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ emilleopold commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 12:49 PM

> Additional I have a NODE-RED implementation of DESS but set the DESS-MODE to "1". As I understand in that case the NODE-RED implementation is only for monitoring. The control is from the GX device by BETA VRM.

That is not correct. In order to use that, you will need to import and configure the "nodered-ui-with-vrm-dess" example. With your current flow your have 2 captains on the same ship, which probably explains the problem. Your current Node-RED flow injects data into the schedule.

That being said, I'll add some influxdb logging to another site to make sure that there is no problem.

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emilleopold Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 24, 2023 at 01:17 PM

Now I have changed the NODE-RED flow to „nodered-ui-with-vrm-dess“. Let see what happens in the future.

Is there any date defined, when DESS will leave the BETA status and gets part of the standard VRM ?

Thank you very much for the hours you spend for DESS. I think this will be a game changer in the future. Merry Christmas to everybody.

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some-user commented · Dec 20, 2023 at 07:54 PM

It looks like Dynamic ESS doesn't respect absorption time. I'm using 3 Quattro's in a dynamic ESS setup. It's not possible to configure a absorption time less then 1 hour in VEConfigure. I set it to 1 hour in VEConfigure but it doesn't seem to be respected.

Picture from 20 dec:
Absorption was about 12 min then the system went back to bulk. This has various consequences:

- Batteries don't get time to balance.

- Because the tail current is still high after 12 min its impossible to find setting that will reset the Lynx shunt to 100%.

If you wan to check the setup is called "Bereklauw"

Thx for your great work!

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ some-user commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 02:15 PM

Not sure which type of batteries you are using, but this typically is only a problem for lead acid batteries.
I've noted it, but with the holiday coming up it will probably take a few more weeks before we will look further into this.

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some-user Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Mar 05 at 12:31 PM

I'm using LFP, not that big problem for this battery type but even LFP needs some absorption from time to time. Nevertheless DESS should respect absorption time....

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andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 21, 2023 at 12:22 PM

So far, all seems like working for my multi-ii backup for communications in my home

https://betavrm.victronenergy.com/installation/380883/share/813a14fb

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) I love the idea of having ESS controlling my setup based on prices.

Hovever, this setup is in a cascade after the main production system, based on Multi RS Dual tracker.

https://vrm.victronenergy.com/installation/370388/share/c0152a83

I understand unique config I have, but would be great to have ability to switch from "Optimized" to "Keep Batteries charged" for this Multi II when there is an excess power from PV on previous Multi RS Dual tracker.

This power is "free" and would work well for savings.

If there is a plan ir solution y leveraging Node-RED for this, happy to hear suggestions

Otherwise, wanting to hear what should I be looking in Dynamic ESS specifically for this test in order to provide you proper feedback

Thank you

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 11:04 AM

At the moment that is only possible via the Node-RED implementation. And that still requires some modifications to work correctly for your case. Switching the mode of the multi can quite easily be done via Node-RED, though the correct node and path can be hard to find. Even I usually search on https://github.com/victronenergy/node-red-contrib-victron/wiki/Available-nodes to find the node I need. In this case you'll probably need the ESS control node and Venus Settings with the ESS state measurement.

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andrii-podanenko Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 27, 2023 at 09:08 AM

Thanks @Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

Question about Node-RED

If I would be switching with Node-RED DESS from ESS state "Optimised without BatteryLife" to "Keep batteries charged" in the sunny day back and forth, will this skew alghorytm of Dynamic ESS ?

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m1kkel commented · Dec 21, 2023 at 02:33 PM

Hello.

I think its strange that DESS does'nt charge my battey fully up when the electriocity is almost free of charge, or at least really low priced.

Electricity prices tomorrow is free the first 6 hours (plus taxes ofcourse):

As you can see below, it plans on charge 8+6 kwh. But i have almost 40 kwh battery.

I have set target SOC to 30% because i thought that was a setting which defined how much remaining power i need to power my house loads, but it never discharges below 30%.

The forecast for tomorrow is 44Kwh so i think the logic would be to fill the battery when elctricity is so cheap?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ m1kkel commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 10:54 AM

This probably does not explain all, but looking at your site, it does appear that the buy formula is not correct. Currently you have: `p+(0.1129)*1.25`. I believe that the brackets should be moved to show `(p+0.1129)*1.25` as you probably pay taxes on the whole price instead of just on that offset).

Regarding the planned buying from the grid when the price is low. The system did in fact plan to charge the battery, but not as much as it probably should or could have done. Part of that can be explained by the predicted (and actual) consumption during those hours as well.

We are working on improving the consumption forecast and coping with high loads on the input side.

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m1kkel Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 07:24 PM

thanks a lot Dirk. I will correct the formula. And yes in my opinion the system. Should buy as much as possible in those extreme low hours.

Thanks for the effort and have a nice Christmas.

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adj commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 06:46 AM

Nice touch all these Christmast attribures in the portal.

First I'd like to ask if the Dynamic ESS energy energy (twice on purpose) graphic still needs work? The ones from yesterday and before are available. The today graphic keep loading. If you switch from yesterday to today and back with the arrows the yesterday graphic becomes visible today.

Due to the fact that there is no today graphic with predictions I am now looking at the advances page widgets to see the prediction. Widget Gateway - Dynamic ESS scheduled SOC (%). Yesterday evening I've seen a good prediction to load the battery to 100% since the cost was low all night. With good hopes I looked this morning and found the battery at the minimum level. In stead of going to a higher SOC the prediction was changed to the minimum SOC of 15% at 2 AM. The rest of the day the same target 15%.

Any idea how this situation could happen?

Is there a way to see what influences the prediction to make this change?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ adj commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 07:08 AM

It looks like the graph problem only happens on your site. We are looking into that.
And we are also investigating why the battery did not charge fully. Expect an update later today.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 22, 2023 at 02:35 PM

The cause of the energy graph not showing is because you don't have PV connected to your system. We are working on fixing the graphs for those systems, which should be deployed within 2 weeks.

It seems to be a bug why your system did not fully charge. For some, yet unknown, reason the system keeps on setting the target SOC to 15%. I don't expect that the cause of that will be found before Xmas, but it is being investigated. So meanwhile, I suggest disabling Dynamic ESS for now on your site.

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adj Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Dec 29, 2023 at 05:18 AM

Thanks for your quick response. One of my mates has a similar system running. He suggested that the ESS should be on phase one. I'm using a one phase ESS on a 3 phase grid connection. We changed this and now I see DESS calculations that look better. However last night the price was low and the DESS did not plan too charge but instead discharge fully and start charging when the pricing went up. Unfortunately still no graphic of today.

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mrstackit commented · Dec 23, 2023 at 09:56 AM

Hello,

for a while the DESS ran very well. Then I deactivated it again for personal reasons and now since I activated it again it wants to be unloaded today at €0.26 even though the purchase price last night was €0.18. The loss is greater than the benefit. Why?

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ojack mrstackit commented · Dec 23, 2023 at 04:45 PM

Maybe you have activated battery life and this has set a high minSoC?

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mrstackit ojack commented · Dec 28, 2023 at 02:58 PM

No, I have not activated battery life.

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Show more comments

andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 25, 2023 at 08:27 AM

Annoying bug when using widget on Android desktop to switch from Keep Batteries charged to ESS with Battery life(any to any actually)

It switches but after a minute rises push notification about no MQTT connection

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andrii-podanenko commented · Dec 26, 2023 at 02:33 PM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

Question in this context

As we are adding battery and number of cycles to the formula, can we also add panels and hardware ( PV chargers ) to the formula.

I'm sure there is average time on market how long specific hardware is working until replaced.

Cause if we have cost of a single cycle for the lifepo4 somewhere 0.02-0.05 Euro, then similar could be added for PV chargers, cause they are working 5-10 years and there is a cost associated with using them. Same for Panels - they are loosing 10-20% in 20-30 years, which could be also calculated.

Ideally I'd like to understand from Dynamic ESS what should I invest into next, should this be battery, PV array, or just a diesel generator which has its own cost/value

Overall - looking forward to having Dynamic ESS enabled for Multi RS 6000 Dual traker. Feel free to rely on me on alpha/beta testing. I'm going to purchase 1-5 more if results would be great.

My backup system for communications only where DESS enabled https://betavrm.victronenergy.com/installation/380883/share/813a14fb

Also, I've managed to enable DESS for Multi RS in VRM, but it doesn't have ESS control yet in VRM, so the hope at least to see a graph about what source is used and when until full support added

https://betavrm.victronenergy.com/installation/370388/share/c0152a83

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joeknx commented · Jan 01 at 05:49 PM

Is the correct use of the DESS dependent on the Venus OS Version?

I'm using OS v3.10 and I'm able to set up the DESS in the Beta VRM.

Are there any differences to v3.20-35?

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ joeknx commented · Jan 02 at 07:17 AM

You need at least v3.13 of the official release. Older versions miss some of the capability bits and some bugs have been fixed in the systemcalc process between v3.10 and v3.13.

Either use v3.13 or the latest candidate release.

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grua commented · Jan 01 at 05:50 PM

Problems with DESS-Settings:

I enter a fixed the sell price for each day of the week for the hole day from 00:00 till 23:59:

But when I confirm it, the summary says from 00:00 till 00:00:
and this Warning appears:

And also when I try to change the battery costs, I can't confirm them:

My VRM Portal-ID: b827eb273733

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grua grua commented · Jan 02 at 09:27 AM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) I tried it again today, on 3 different PCs, with different browsers. Always the same problem. I can't change my settings. So I can't use DESS...

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ grua commented · Jan 02 at 11:10 AM

Taking a look at it.

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grua Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 02 at 01:29 PM

Solved: I had to fill in the numbers of cycles with a value > 0:

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ grua commented · Jan 02 at 02:53 PM

That is correct. But we will fix that on our side as well. No need to stop people from submitting when that has not been filled out.

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meyo084 commented · Jan 03 at 06:52 AM

Hello Dirk-Jan, somehow the history of consumption is not working at my site.. c0619ab38e24 could you please check this? Also a question, is my observation right that "predictate consumtion compensation" is now changed in like "normal ESS mode" ?

Thank you and all the best wishes for 2024!

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ meyo084 commented · Jan 05 at 06:48 AM

Did you press on the label in the legend? That toggles showing the items.

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meyo084 Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 05 at 10:56 AM

Hi, yes i did.. from and to grid is also empty..

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ meyo084 commented · Jan 05 at 02:51 PM

It looks like there is a problem with your grid meter. You may want to create a new question about that in the modifications space to get that solved.

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dirknie commented · Jan 04 at 10:29 PM

Hi,

is there a fix release date known for the dynamic ESS? Somewhere I have seen the first days this month is timed?

Regards Dirk

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dirk-s commented · Jan 14 at 12:48 PM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) :

In my eyes there is an issue in connection with large batteries and less forcasted consumption. If observe it for a long time now to understand the issue.

In case the battery reached the target SOC e.g. 55% in the previous hour and switched the inverter off (idle) it will not switch on again if the target SOC in the next hour is 1 percent less e.g. 54%. It will be the whole hour in idle mode also if the battery SOC is 55% and the target SOC ist 54%. There must be at least a difference of 2% e.g. 53% to switch on again. It does not sound like a big issue, but if the target SOC will be recalculated every hour and the forcasted consumption will be only 1% of battery SOC during the night, it can happens that for some hours the inverter will not switch on again. It sounds less, but hour for hour it will sum up during the night.

In this example the battery SOC did not decrease to forcasted 54% in this hour, the target SOC for next hour will be recalclulated from prior 53% to 54%. As the result the difference is still 1% and the inverter will not switch on.

Below some screenshots. The issue started in the hour 02:00 because the target SOC was reached (real comsuption was higher than forcasted). You can see the result in the hours 03:00 and 04:00. It does not start to invert again.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ dirk-s commented · Jan 15 at 06:55 PM

That's perfectly accurate. There is a hysteresis of 1%. It is impossible to make it less, because CAN-bus BMSes have no more granularity than that. The hysteresis is required because it is not possible to put the battery power at exactly 0W, so it will always charge or discharge slowly, and we don't want it to oscillate. What we'll probably do, is invalidate the hysteresis if it moves out of a charging slot into a new one, ie if the start time of the slot changes.

1% can be a significant chunk if the battery is large.

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dirk-s Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 15 at 08:04 PM

@Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy)

Thank you. That’s what I also assumed.

Perhaps another idea to handle this and also to get a little bit more flexibility:

What about a kind of threshold? If the internal calculation give a target SOC of 54%. Why not generally reduce by 1 or 2 % ( perhaps a individual parameter in the configuration of DSS) in the Venus OS ESS menu eg to 53 or 52% percent. This would also solve the problem and also gives more flexibility in case the real consumption is higher than forecasted.

It would also help to reduce the issue that real solar energy is lower then forecasted solar energy and will avoid to get the difference from the grid.

What do you think about? Could it help?

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grua dirk-s commented · Jan 16 at 08:03 AM

Yes, you are right, we need some more flexibility (reserves in SOC) in the case that either there is more consumption than forecasted or less solar energy than forcasted.

I also had some suggestions for that, starting here:

https://community.victronenergy.com/articles/245772/dynamic-ess-on-beta-vrm-part-3.html?childToView=252840#comment-252840

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freese commented · Jan 14 at 01:43 PM

Why?

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ahtih commented · Jan 14 at 07:15 PM

I'm unable to configure Dynamic ESS. Enter all data and at the end I get a message "The value you selected is not a valid choice."

Any idea whats's wrong?

System

Edit

Can you sell energy back to the grid?	No
Maximum import power	3 kW

Battery

Edit

Battery capacity	9 kWh
Maximum discharge power	5 kW
Maximum charge power	5 kW
Total estimated battery cycles	-
Battery price	-
Battery cycle costs per kWh	0.06 €/kWh

Buy prices

Edit

Buy prices type	Dynamic
Energy provider country	Estonia
Energy provider bidding zone	Estonia
Energy provider name	Elektrum
Price calculation	(p+0.06)*1.22

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asiepel ahtih commented · Jan 15 at 09:25 AM

I have the same message.

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ asiepel commented · Jan 15 at 06:51 PM

An update on this. As far as we could find, this only happens on 3.13. That version does not yet support restrictions, 3.14 will, but that is not out yet. Because the restrictions where not there, the configuration could not continue.

We've adjusted the logic behind that to disable restrictions in the configuration for systems running 3.13, allowing the configuration to continue.

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ahtih Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 16 at 06:44 PM

Thanks, it works now.

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kudos50 commented · Jan 15 at 07:45 AM

Anyone having this ? I have this in my usage forecast every day. It is supposed to work like this and am I simply misinterpreting ?

The forecast screen and all others are + so this is the only graph this is structurally - and has been for months now.

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asiepel commented · Jan 15 at 08:55 AM

I am trying to setup the Dynamic ESS but i am getting a message:

'The value you selected is an invalid choice'

I does not say wich value is invalid. I tried with different values but nothing is changing.

Maybe somebody has a solution or I am missing something. Will add a screenshot of settings and fault message.

fault message.png settings.png

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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) ♦♦ asiepel commented · Jan 15 at 06:51 PM

As far as we could find, this only happens on 3.13. That version does not yet support restrictions, 3.14 will, but that is not out yet. Because the restrictions where not there, the configuration could not continue.
We've adjusted the logic behind that to disable restrictions in the configuration for systems running 3.13, allowing the configuration to continue.

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dirks-1 commented · Jan 16 at 10:09 PM

Hi, by when is EV consideriation for DESS planned? I already use the latest NodeRed DESS Flow with v3.13 and it mainly meets my expectation. But sometimes it will load my EV out of the batteries, i have another NodeRed Flow which should prevent this situation due to ineffiency. If no PV is available it should always load the EV from the Grid by setting the target grid value dynamically with the load of the EV. I'm using OpenWB and expose this via MQTT as EVcharger to the VenusOS (with dbus mqtt)

But my custom EV flow seems not to fit the DESS flow. So how can i prevent to load the EV from the batteries if DESS decided to not use the grid at all?

Funny (or not) point is that i also use a MyPV ACthor9s with 9kw heater controlled by VenusOS via ModbusTCP. All of my PV surplus should go into the heater before leaving my house to the grid. Mainly this works fine.

But if i notice that the EV is charged from the batteries and stop manually the EV charging then this amount of energy seems to be flagged as PV surplus and the heater is starting to use that amount of energy from the batteries.

I would like to have an option that really NEVER any energy instead of PV surplus is going to the ACthor an never any energy is going from the batteries to the EV.

Would this be possible via DESS in the future?

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bozydarstarzyk commented · Jan 19 at 09:22 AM

Guys,

My DESS still seems not to work. I described my problem below:

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/255617/dess-not-working-at-all.html

Could you please help?

Thanks!

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kudos50 commented · Jan 19 at 11:11 AM

I was kind of hoping DESS with efficiency calculations would make a distinction between PV inverter and PV charger.

Found a buy/sell price range that would effectively result in PV inverter going directly to grid because 2 conversions + battery costs would not be beneficial whereas a single conversion + battery would be. But the schedule does not change.

The system has 2x PV inverter with 7.5kWp and 1x PV charger with 2.8kWp. If I observe behaviour I think I don't see any difference in Inverter versus Charger. It seems to treat PV as generic PV except during low SOC conditions where DC PC always charges the battery before it starts inverting. But that's not DESS I guess.

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