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sarellandy avatar image
sarellandy asked

Scheduled charging on Cerbo GX

Hi all (again LOL)

I have another dilemma, so residing in South Africa we have 4-10 hours load shedding per day depending on the grid availability. We have 3x Quattro 48/15000 inverter chargers for a 3 phase system, 4x 200 Amp freedom won batteries, 3x 450/200 Mppts and 70x 540W solar panels. We are using on average about 10-15 Kwh during the day and feeding the balance of the rather constant 30Kw into the grid. Now when load shedding is active the solar only makes what we need 10-15Kw so during these hours we loose more than half the solar capacity.

When we have load shedding during the night the batteries drop to around 60-40% DOD, now I only want to charge the batteries during the day when load shedding is active IE no mains power so that we can harness some of the the solar lost when there is no feedback into the grid and then keep them on float charge until load shedding is active at night.

I don't think the system was designed to work like this but maybe there is a way. I have tried scheduled charging in ESS with Minimum SOC at 99% but at night when power comes on the batteries start charging automatically from grid. I have even tried setting charge current limit to 0A but when mains is on and solar panels start making power the batteries charge.


Thanks

Sarel

battery charging
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2 Answers
nickdb avatar image
nickdb answered ·

It is a bad idea to set ESS that high, it just doesn't work that way.

You essentially aren't operating as an ESS and your use case isn't really supported by the conventional modes. You would need to do some integration work with node red to force the behaviour you are looking for by disabling the charger.

Out the box ESS will either keep the batteries charged, using grid where necessary, or will use them for self consumption.

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bigbadbob76 avatar image
bigbadbob76 answered ·

Have you tried disabling charging in the quatro's settings using VEconfigure?

Step 1 in this guide- 10. Charger Settings (victronenergy.com)

I don't know if ESS would over-ride that setting but might be worth a try.

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