ESS Scheduled Charging logic problem

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Jaco van Niekerk asked Jul 2, '23

ESS Scheduled Charging logic problem

I am brand new to Solar and Victron. I did some research before selecting my solution and I might have miss understood the Victron Scheduled Charging.

I am extremely happy with the solution and I am busy looking at optimizing my system:

9x 460 panels

1x MPPT 450/100

1x Multiplug II 48/5000/70-50

1x Cerbo GX

1x ES12K Lithium Battery

Currently we are in Winter in the southern hemisphere om South Africa, Johannesburg. The next couple of months we will have perfect solar production. Clear sky and great sun periods.

Looking too our summer and raining months I want to optimize the battery charging:

Expected behavior:

Optimized with battery life

1. During the day - Charge the battery via PV

2. Grid Scheduled Charging - Between 17:00-17:30 charge the battery SOC to 80% (Poor PV production days/week)

3. Minimum SOC (unless grid fail) - 40% (As long as the grid is available it won't allow the battery to go below 40%, if grid is not available it will run until empty/battery limiter activates)

4. Active SOC limit - 50%

Observed behavior:

Optimized with battery life

1. During the day - Charges battery via the PV

2. Grid Scheduled Charging - 17:00-17:30 or SOC < 80% PV and battery (Grid charging took place outside of the hours specified) I am assuming because of the OR

3. Minimum SOC (unless grid fail) - 40%

4. Active SOC limit - changed to 80%

Any solutions will be welcomed and also please correct me were I am miss understanding?

NB: Can't get the Active SOC limit changed, it's stuck at 80%. Waiting for a 100% full charge to take place.

ESS scheduled charge

2 |3000

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Modifications Space

Node Red Space

Answer 1 · 2023-07-02T07:38:21Z

nickdb answered · Jul 02, 2023 at 07:38 AM

"With batterylife" really is a northern hemisphere feature, it can be unhelpful at times especially if a system is undersized and it struggles to charge.

I would disable it (don't use it in SA myself) and manually compensate limits for seasonal changes, or build/size a system suitably so it doesn't matter.

You can't change the active limit, it gets there because you are not fully charging with PV, this is documented in the manual.

The active limit will increment up and down depending on how close/far you are from fully charging on a daily basis.

June is usually the worst PV month in SA, due to weather and change of seasons. Same happens around October. We lose about a third up here, the coast is worse but that always is the case year round.

Here's a video on scheduled charging https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUcN5HC8ZT4

If you set a start time of 17h00 and a duration of 30 minutes with a SOC of 80% the system will block discharge for 30 minutes and if below 80% it will grid charge. Console will show a state of sched charge. If it does not show this and is charging from grid that would usually show you have discharged beneath the active minimum - the console should show ESS#1 ESS#2.

The 80% is the target for the duration of the schedule only but also happens to be your active minimum SOC for ESS so the system will always grid charge below this anyway.

I think you are confusing the SOC active limit with the scheduled charge active limit which would match what is in the schedule. The active limit will remain unchanged from what it was.

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Answer 2 · 2023-07-02T18:55:47Z

Jaco van Niekerk answered · Jul 02, 2023 at 06:55 PM

I have changed to "without batterylife"

but the scheduled charging is still not behaving correctly:

It showing that the scheduled charge is active at 20:51 because the battery is =80% by I have specified it should only do this between 17:00 - 17:30

1688324028965.png (18.9 KiB)

1688324132878.png (16.1 KiB)

4

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nickdb ♦♦ commented · Jul 02, 2023 at 07:07 PM

You set the duration to 17 hours and 30 minutes, instead of 30 minutes..

It is a time period, not an end time.

That would let the charge continue to 10:30am the next day.

All in the manual.

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Jaco van Niekerk commented · Jul 02, 2023 at 07:08 PM

Could it be related to monitor for grid failure being disabled?

Thus it ignores minimum soc limit (unless grid fails) of 35%

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1688324854713.png (18.4 KiB)

nickdb ♦♦ Jaco van Niekerk commented · Jul 02, 2023 at 07:09 PM

Change duration to 30 minutes..

(Read the manual)

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Jaco van Niekerk nickdb ♦♦ commented · Jul 03, 2023 at 05:49 AM

Thank you. I totally miss read the, I believe it to be start time and end time.

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