This is certainly an option. I already use Node Red and I have power meters, so I’m sure I can puzzle something together.
But I was hoping there would be a default way to configure this. I’m biased ;-), but this use case sounds pretty basic to me.
It’s essentially peak shaving that I want to do. Sadly the peak shaving feature itself can’t be used because it works per phase and in Flanders we work with the sum of three phases instead.
You probably should talk to a belgium Victron-Installer about this. I can’t imagine, that this is the only way, the system is allowed to run.
It is the only way described in the C10/26 list:
You sure sure? Isn’t the requirement just not to feed back to grid?
“EnFluRi EnergieFlussRichtung = Direction of the energy flow
If a storage charging system is connected to the public grid, it must be technically ensured that the electricity charged from the grid is not exported into the public grid from the battery.”
If that is the case, I would see no reason why all non-producing, load only devices would not be allowed to be wired to the grid before the EnFluRi sensor (= MPII internal OR current clamp)
In Belgium a battery system can inject back into the grid, but there must be a system in place (which they call EnFluRi but that seems a poor choice) that ensures that at the injection cannot exceed the maximum power of the available production.
In my case I have 4.6kW solar so I must configure the battery that it will never exceed this. Because the limit applies to solar + battery together, the battery must measure the grid connection so it knows how much power it can generate so that it doesn’t exceed the limit.
Battery systems including their EnFluRi must be certified and for whatever reason Victron did this with the external CT clamps and not with an external power meter. So only external CT clamps are allowed.
I want to elaborate a bit on my question, because I now noticed that my situation is not unique at all because I need the exact same thing now for a very common use-case.
Assume a setup where the whole house is on AC Out. The next 3 days I will not be able to cover my full energy use from solar. In Belgium however it’s important to manage your peak power, so I want the system to peak shave and I need to be sure I keep enough energy in the battery to do that.
Remember that I can’t use the peak shave feature because that works per phase instead of on the sum of all phases and I can’t use it anyway because it requires an external grid meter and I must use the CT clamps.
Default I have the grid setpoint at 50W, but if I keep that setting I will at some point run out of battery and can no longer peak shave.
So I would like to set the grid setpoint higher, ultimately worst case at the peak power. This means anything below that power I will use grid and above the battery helps out.
But any time my house requires less than the grid setpoint the battery starts charging from the grid, which I don’t want.
My intended behaviour is identical as before:
If excess power from solar → charge battery
Between 0W and Setpoint demand (after solar fully used)-> Use only what’s needed from grid, don’t charge
Above Setpoint demand (after solar fully used) → use battery to peak shave
My special use case was fairly easy to automate, because I just need to detect when the (pretty constant) load starts/stops (not frequent at all). This use case (which I assume everyone faces at some point) is much more dynamic and more difficult to manage via e.g. Node Red.
Again: the only thing I need is a “don’t charge from grid” setting, but I don’t think it exists.
PS: If whatever needs to be changed is Open Source and I can just add this feature myself, I am more than happy to do this if someone can point me in the right direction.