If I have the three scheduled charging windows set as below, can anyone suggest why period #2 is being ignored?
#1 - 13:00 - 14:00 - SOC:65%
#2 - 14:00 - 15:00 - SOC 70% (all three are set to “use PV & Battery above limit”)
#3 - 15:00 - 16:00 - SOC 80%
Admittedly, having only 5% between #1 and #2 is probably not ideal but I would still expect the system to attempt to charge to 70% at some point between 14:00 and 15:00. What actually happens is that this period is ignored and charging only starts at 15:00 (to get to 80%). The battery appears to be held at 65% throughout period #2.
Is this because the system knows it has a later charge period with higher SOC and it knows it can charge to 80% without the interim period? I could understand that logic but I don’t see it documented anywhere.
Just a quick update. Today I disabled the third charging period and now the second period works as expected. The charger kicks in at 14:05 and charges to 70%. I also tried re-enabling the third charging period after the second had started and this didn’t stop it from charging so I’m still not sure why having all three enabled causes the second to be ignored.
It would be nice if the system could automatically delay charging until the end of the period such that the SOC target is reached right at the end. That way you’d only need to use a single period and still be able to maximise solar use / minimise grid use.
Well obviously you don’t set an end time, although you could. Victron choose to set a start time and duration, exactly the same as setting a start time and end time but either way… It’s Schedule #3 below that’s being ignored for some reason.
This does highlight that the old UX shows the SOC where the new UX doesn’t which is a bit annoying. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed in the near future.
So just a quick update. It worked fine today using the 60%, 70% and 80% steps set with the V1 UI. I’ll re-save these later using the V2 UI and then see what happens tomorrow…
Second update. It also worked OK today after saving everything in the V2 UI. I’m assuming therefore that this is just to do with the hysteresis that Nick mentioned.
As a quick test I changed the 80% period to only 75% and sure enough, this didn’t trigger a charge with the SOC at 70% at the start of that period. The docs don’t specifically mention a hysteresis value for the SOC limit in the Scheduled Charging feature but I’m assuming it’s the same as the Peak Shaving feature which is 5%.
Hi @nickdb , do you know the value of the hysteresis?
I have a charging window defined at 2am, 60min, limit 40% (to get me over the morning hours where energy prices are typically several cents higher). The battery level was at 36% and charging did not start. However, during that time the power consumption of my house was taken from the grid, while the power to operate the Multiplus Units was taken from the battery.
