DESS whats happening here

[kevdav100]

I keep switching on DESS, but its not really that intelligent, or I have something set up wrong, surely DESS shouldn’t be pulling from the grid when I draw a load, surely that should come from the battery, seems that just under 1/2 is coming from the grid, and the rest is coming from battery/solar

I dont want to be taking any electricity from the grid, the battery is 94% charged and all should be coming from the battery or solar.

So is this just because DESS is still not sufficiently refined to work this out, or do I have some settings wrong.

If I switch off DESS, all consumption comes from the battery and/or solar, nothing from the grid

[B51-technician (Alfredo)]

Just upfront:

• I know DESS is still in an early state and improvements in the algorithm might be available sooner or later
• DESS often does a good job in my setup: MP5000, MPPTs, 9KWh battery, Tibber, Green Mode, Optimize without battery life, Min SOC 15%
• The parameters are set to realistic and correct values in DESS
• I do not want to deploy Node-RED Hacks since I am at the opinion DESS should do a good job without additional hacks

The current behavior of DESS is quite strange and, in my opinion, can only be seen as terribly incorrect.:

• Yesterday was a sunny day. Battery 100% at 11 AM already
• Consumption was always far less than battery SOC can provide
• The next days are again sunny days
• DESS sets its own SOC to 60% which leads to charge from grid in high electricity cost hours for no reason
• The whole night, consumption was taken from grid although battery was 60%

I don’t want to switch off DESS and hope the algorithm will still learn and improve.

Can anyone from Victron comment on known bugs and plans for improvement?

My system: Small House DESS

[kevdav100]

Im actually in the process of writing a sophisticated control system in node red, DESS is not suitable for my needs.

This is a brief rundown of what the system does, i am still working on it.

DECS (Dynamic ESS Control System) and Victron DESS (Dynamic Energy Storage System) both aim to optimize energy management in systems with solar, battery, and grid connectivity, but they have distinct approaches and benefits. Here’s a brief comparison highlighting the benefits of using DECS over Victron DESS:

Benefits of DECS Over Victron DESS

1. Greater Customization and Flexibility:

   • DECS: Built on Node-RED, DECS offers extensive customization. You can tweak logic, add new features (e.g., custom tariff handling, advanced forecasting), and integrate with external APIs (like Solcast for solar forecasts or Google Drive for backups) directly in the flow.
   • Victron DESS: While effective, Victron DESS is more rigid, with predefined algorithms and limited user customization. It’s designed to work within Victron’s ecosystem, offering less flexibility for unique use cases.

2. Advanced Tariff Optimization:

   • DECS: Supports both dynamic tariffs (e.g., Octopus Agile) and fixed tariffs with off-peak rates, optimizing energy flow based on real-time pricing. It calculates profit potential and adjusts setpoints to maximize earnings (e.g., exporting during high-price periods).
   • Victron DESS: Also supports dynamic tariffs but focuses primarily on self-consumption and grid independence, with less emphasis on profit maximization through tariff arbitrage. Its tariff integration is more basic and less user-configurable.

3. Enhanced Solar Forecasting:

   • DECS: Integrates with external services like Solcast for precise solar forecasting, enabling predictive energy management (e.g., charging the battery before low-solar periods).
   • Victron DESS: Relies on Victron’s internal forecasting, which may not be as accurate or configurable as third-party services like Solcast, potentially leading to less optimal decisions.

4. Profit-Oriented Decision Making:

   • DECS: Calculates real-time financial metrics (daily/total earnings, expenditure, profit) and estimates profit opportunities based on solar production, battery state, and tariffs. This makes it ideal for users focused on maximizing financial returns.
   • Victron DESS: Prioritizes energy self-sufficiency and battery longevity over profit, which might not align with users aiming to optimize for financial gain.

5. User-Friendly Dashboard:

   • DECS: Provides a custom Node-RED Dashboard with detailed visualizations (charts, gauges) for PV generation, battery SOC, consumption, grid setpoints, and financials, plus controls for tariff modes and overrides.
   • Victron DESS: Uses the VRM Portal for monitoring, which is less customizable and may not offer the same level of real-time financial insights or user control.

6. Data Persistence and Backup:

   • DECS: Includes backup/restore functionality (e.g., to Google Drive), ensuring financial and operational data persists across reboots or failures.
   • Victron DESS: Relies on Victron’s cloud (VRM Portal) for data storage, with less user control over backups and no integration with external services.

7. Open-Source and Community-Driven:

   • DECS: Being Node-RED-based, DECS benefits from an open-source community, allowing for rapid development, troubleshooting, and community contributions.
   • Victron DESS: A proprietary solution within Victron’s ecosystem, limiting community-driven enhancements or third-party integrations.

When to Choose DECS Over Victron DESS

• Profit Maximization: If your goal is to maximize financial returns through tariff arbitrage and detailed forecasting.
• Customization Needs: If you need a highly configurable system to fit specific requirements (e.g., custom tariff logic, additional data sources).
• Advanced Monitoring: If you want a tailored dashboard with financial insights and real-time control.
• Integration Flexibility: If you need to integrate with external services (e.g., weather APIs, cloud storage).

When Victron DESS Might Be Better

• Simplicity: Victron DESS is a plug-and-play solution within the Victron ecosystem, requiring less setup and technical knowledge.
• Official Support: Backed by Victron’s official support, which might be preferable for users seeking a fully supported solution.
• Basic Self-Consumption: If your primary goal is maximizing self-consumption and grid independence without focusing on profit.

In summary, DECS offers greater flexibility, advanced optimization, and detailed monitoring for users willing to invest in customization, while Victron DESS provides a simpler, officially supported solution for basic energy management.

The above will give you a little insight into what i am trying to achieve, stillgot a long way to go to get it how I want, adding lerning logic, more displays, better solar forecasting, and better realitime financial analysys amongst other things.

[B51-technician (Alfredo)]

My utmost respect, @kevdav100, for so much commitment To be honest, I’m probably more of a standard DESS user. Just deployed the standard (small) firmware on my Cerbo.

Even though I always find it impressive what some forum members here customize with Note-RED. You take it to the extreme

[teejay (Tony Jarvis)]

@kevdav100 That is all very interesting and your system appears to provide a great deal of flexibility. I will be watching developments with great interest. The one area with the standard DESS that I find frustrating is the consumption profile, which rarely matches my actual consumption, often leaving my battery running very low and needing top-up at the wrong times. Will you be adding the ability for users to implement their own set of consumption profiles? Even the ability to set a safety buffer on top of a calculated profile would assist greatly.

[kevdav100]

My custom node red control system appears to be doing well, this is yesterdays stats, very happy, 12.6kWp system, 6.3 on North East roof and 6.3 on South West roof, DC battery so I can store all that loverly solar energy I am generating. Still working on the control system, got lots of improvements to do, finding it a bit difficult to integrate accurately solar forcast from Forcast.solar, tried solcast but that wasnt accurate enough.

I attempted to pull the forecast data from the Victron system, but kept hitting a brick wall .. anybody have a node red flow that will do that ? (I think that is solcast data too).

still lots of tweaks to be done,

Battery charges in the off peak 00.30 to 05.30, and discharges (exports) from 05.30 untill the sun wakes up, then exports and charges the battery, then discharges (exports) the battery in the evening and night ready for the next off peak charge the next day.

Prior to this system, I seemed to be losing generation once the battery maxed out, and my export limit of 6.3kW was reached, now the new system is intelligent enough to know that if its a sunny day, when is the best time to charge (off peak) discharge and export, to stop any lost generationm i have given the control system explicit instructions never to pull power from the grid in peak times unless it is absolutley critical.

In the node red dashboard, you can see the solar forcast is way off, it should be reading around 45kWh

ignore the figures in the financial group, it keeps resetting at the moment while I am updating the control system

[kevdav100]

I will be extending the user unput group to allow for greater variable inputs, its going to take some time though, first need to get the logic as best I can, and the forecast data, which is supposed to pull every 15 minutes for better accuracy, but the output is wrong

[grua]

@kevdav100

I attempted to pull the forecast data from the Victron system, but kept hitting a brick wall .. anybody have a node red flow that will do that ? (I think that is solcast data too).