Grid feed in excess power not working anymore in ESS (keep batteries charged) mode

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gilemon asked Jan 23, '21

Grid feed in excess power not working anymore in ESS (keep batteries charged) mode

Hi,

After I have replaced my Smart Solar 150/85 with a brand new VE.can rev2 model, the ESS Grid Feed-in option does not work anymore in "keep batteries charged" mode.

The system is attached to the grid most of the time and I'm using the batteries for UPS application.

Basically when batteries are fully charged, the MPPT does not output any power anymore.

If I disconnect the grid input momentally and I reconncet it so that the batteries get recharged, I can verify the PV and charger output some power.

Also with the old Smart Solar 150/85, this function was working perfectly.

I have no DVCC and this is what's shown on CCGX under SmartSolar MPPT VE.Can 150/85 rev2 > Networked operation tab:

So far I tried:

Updating CCGX firmware to latest 2.6.
Changing battery monitor from BMV-700 to Quattro

but nothing helped. What am I missing?

Let me know if you need more information about the configuration.

ESS

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Answer 1 · 2021-02-20T14:16:41Z

gilemon answered · Feb 20, 2021 at 02:16 PM

It has been a month now and I'm still in same situation.

I have tried "Optimize, and set the minimum SOC to 100%" but it is oscillating constantly. When battery is fully charged it starts using inverter (MPPT/solar + batteries) after 5 seconds it recharges the batteries, then after 5 seconds for a moment (1 second) it does not use MPPT anymore. This dance makes the battery balances go crazy. It does not seem healthy to me.

I also tried enabling DVCC (I had to upgrade Multi firmware to v481), without any change.

The only way I found to force using all the solar input, is by cutting the grid input and forcing battery discharge for 10s. After this the solar is used again to charge the battery back. And after it reaches 100% the excess solar it used in the Multi again.

This is quite annoying because I need to constantly monitor the ESS/CCGX and still this leads to a lot of wasted solar energy.

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seb71 commented · Feb 20, 2021 at 02:31 PM

Not sure what is the cause (except maybe the new MPPT, since you say that your system worked perfectly with the previous MPPT), but try "Optimized without BatteryLife" in ESS and set the minimum SOC lower than 100%. For instance 85%. Then see if it works as it should and then go from there.

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gilemon seb71 commented · Feb 21, 2021 at 04:32 PM

Thanks a lot for your advice, but I can't use "Optimized without BatteryLife" in winter. My battery bank (1300Ah AGM Gel) cannot handle the AC load (>5kW) for more than 15 minutes.

Just for better understanding of the issue, following is today's VRM historical data (very sunny and warm).

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seb71 gilemon commented · Feb 21, 2021 at 04:39 PM

Well, above you said that you "waste a lot of solar energy".

You don't have to use this mode permanently. Just for a day or two, for testing.

85% SOC is not that low, anyway. If your battery can't handle the load for more than 15 minutes, then what's the difference?

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gilemon seb71 commented · Feb 23, 2021 at 05:22 PM

Thanks again. I get your point. So I tried it and I'm indeed using all available solar power now as you can see:

But at the cost of depleting the batteries, having constant "Low battery" alarms, and the multi is changing mode every few minutes. This doesn't look like it's really usable long term.

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seb71 gilemon commented · Feb 23, 2021 at 05:56 PM

With 95% SOC you get low battery alarms?

What are your low voltage limits set to?

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gilemon seb71 commented · Feb 24, 2021 at 10:12 AM

Indeed there is something I need to get clarified here. The inverter settings in VE Configure are:

DC input low shut-down=37.20V
DC input low restart=43.6V
DC input low pre-alarm=43.60V

But the alarms show as soon as voltage is below 48V.

This happen when there is a load >5kW, so I thought it was normal, but when compared to these inverter DC settings, now it seems odd.

Is there something else I need to check? BMV?

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seb71 gilemon commented · Feb 24, 2021 at 10:14 AM

When using ESS (as it is your case), those values are overridden by the Dynamic cut-off values you set in the ESS assistant.

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gilemon seb71 commented · Feb 24, 2021 at 12:56 PM

Thanks again for clarifying this as quickly.

So the setting on the ESS assistant are:

AGM batteries 1300Ah
Sustain voltage during first 24 hours 46.00V
Cut off voltage for a discharge current of:
- 0.005C=48V
- 0.25C=46V
- 0.7C=45V
- 2C=44.8V
Inverting is allowed again when voltage rises 1.2V above cut-off

It seems there is something wrong as the load equivalent would be:

0.005C ≃ 78W
0.25C ≃ 4kW
0.7C≃ 10kW

I have set the max inverter power to 4kW and this function works well.

So according to these I shouldn't go over 0.25C and alarms should only comes if V < 46V. Right? Which is not the case as I do have alarms when voltage is under 48V. Kind of like it behaving if C was much lower. Do you know how this is calculated by the ESS?

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seb71 gilemon commented · Feb 24, 2021 at 01:24 PM

Those are cut-off voltages, not voltages for alarms.

This is not clearly explained in the manuals, but when using ESS the low voltage alarms apparently are given at (cut-off voltage for that current draw) + (the hysteresis which is set for inverting again after a cut-off: 1.2V).

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gilemon seb71 commented · Mar 09, 2021 at 01:22 PM

I found a automatic solution which is really far from optimal with a crontab job on the ccgx.

2 13 * * * dbus -y com.victronenergy.vebus.ttyO1 /Mode SetValue 2
3 13 * * * dbus -y com.victronenergy.vebus.ttyO1 /Mode SetValue 3

This is kind of doing the trick so far, as it's avoiding wasting these few solar KW every days.

But still, I'm sure I'll need to add some more thinking into this as it might become a problem in some situations. An obvious one being, when I need peak current exactly at this time (13:02).

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gilemon gilemon commented · Apr 01, 2021 at 08:20 AM

Following on this issue.

I have replaced my Gel batteries + BMV with a lithium solution with integrated BMS and the problem is gone. The MPPT is now fully charging all day long (without the nasty cron job trick...).

I guess something was wrong with the battery monitoring.

I'll reinstall this battery bank + BMV on another ESS system. So if the problem comes back and if I managed to fix it, I'll explain how I did it here.

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