I am a bit confused regarding the ESS setting “Self-Consumption from battery”. There are two options available: “All system loads” and “Only critical loads”.
The documentation describes these two aspects, but I haven’t found a way to explicitly define/tell the system which loads are considered “critical”.
My Setup & Goal: I have a system based on a MultiPlus-II. I have some non-critical loads connected to AC Out 2. I would like to keep these loads running on battery power if the SOC is above 50% (for example), but I need to be able to choose when this happens.
For instance, if I anticipate a short power outage, I might want to run AC Out 2 from the battery. Otherwise, I might not want that scenario.
What I have tried: I’ve searched the internet and this forum extensively but haven’t found a concrete answer.
I did find a workaround using the “Programmable relay” Assistant. I configured it to switch the Relay ON if SOC > 50%. While this works, I cannot change this behavior dynamically.
I assumed that controlling this was the specific role of the “ESS/Self-Consumption from battery” setting, but it doesn’t seem to work that way.
Can anyone help clarify this or suggest a better approach?
All system loads is anything in the system from the external meter before the inverter and all loads on the putput of the inverter.
Critical loads are anything backed up by the inverter whether they are load shedable with the ac2 out or not.
Ac2 out is off in default progamming if the grid is disconnected.
There are ways to use the GX relays to have ac2 out interactive from the GX when you get more comfortable with the system. Where you wire it up to a temp sense or aux or k1 depends on your model and use its state to drive the ac2 out relay state.
@lxonline can you control AC Out 2 with assistants while using ESS? I have seen contradictory info on this matter. I would assume if the grid is not available, ESS is effectively off.
Yes you can control ac2 out with assistants. We use it alot even on systems rhat are offgrid.
You can also set up a way to manually override the on and off as well
Of course many features of ESS drop away when grid goes out. Such as min battery in case of grid faliure and scheduled charge. ESS is totally different to ac out 2 though