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Egberth Bashweka avatar image
Egberth Bashweka asked

ESS Scheduled charging not working / Quattro 3 x 10, 000VA

Hi Community

My system has 3 x 10000VA Quattros , 1 Venus GX and Lead acid 2400 Ah 48V Back up system. And I have a separate grid tie SMA system 50kW which is charging loads and feeds non critical loads.

My back up system is not used 6 months now as there is not frequent grid outage and incase happens there is backup generator. So the backup works if there is no generator and grid.

I wanted to use my back up system during a night time and charge it during a day between 0800-1900 .

I just configured the scheduled charging option but the system was still charging even outside the time range. Please find my settings below and let’s share if there is someone experienced the same.

3 phase
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3 Answers
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@Egberth Bashweka

Is your time zone set correctly?

Have you set the number of hours to charge? I found a common end user error on this setting is that the start time is set and the second one is how long the charge is for not the stop time.

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Egberth Bashweka avatar image
Egberth Bashweka answered ·

@Alexandra Thank you , for the answer i just fixed and it works . The system was configured to the correct timezone .

One more question am experiencing during a battery discharge the quattro is tending to power the grid through Ac input . Is that normal?

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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·

@Egberth Bashweka

You should not feedback to the grid unless you have set it to do so.

Sometimes in ess you have to be pulling from the grid a few watts to prevent that. It does depend on what resistance the connection is.

For us sometimes we can set a system to pull as little as 50W others as high as 400w.

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Egberth Bashweka avatar image Egberth Bashweka Alexandra ♦ commented ·
@Alexandra thank you , I just connected a power logger and seen the power feed back to the grid ranges from 50-500W.


But , there is a drop in power factor drop to zero PF. Is there a setting that i can rise the power factor to 0.9 or i have to use power factor correction unit.

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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ Egberth Bashweka commented ·

@Egberth Bashweka


There is no setting for power factor correction in the victrons themselves.

You can offset the back feed by pulling from the grid a bit in the ess menu.

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As for buying a pf correction unit i guess It is more a regulatory thing?

Does it cause an issue with your service provider? In some places you have to use power correct or you get penalised.

And if it is messing up your system goals it may be a consideration for your setup.

It is not unusual to get back emf in electrcity supply, pumps switching off etc cause this in systems without inverters normally. Its just we are usually less aware of it then.

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Egberth Bashweka avatar image Egberth Bashweka Alexandra ♦ commented ·
@Alexandra thank you for your reply.

In our country the service provider is penetalizing a customer with a poor power factor , so i will opt to look for a pf correction unit.

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ganderpe avatar image
ganderpe answered ·

Helo,

I have the same problem, that the Quattro feeds back to the grid sometimes (not often, every couple ow weeks).

Since the latest FW update of the Quattro, the ESS Scheduled Charge is no more reliable.

Sometimes it does not work and sometimes it is charging althoug the Battery is already charged enough.

I have the Grid Setpoint to 50W.

Peter

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