Stromnetz Hamburg requires at least one certificate for a generating unit when applying for a solar installation. A storage unit can also be registered optionally. The MP-II 5000 appears in the list of ZEREZ IDs only under storage units. It is not possible to register the MP-II as a generating unit. I have already contacted Stromnetz Hamburg, but they referred me to the manufacturer (Victron), as the current certificate for the MP-II lists only storage and not PV (generation). For the larger MP-II models (8000+), there are several certificates in ZEREZ: one for PV, one for storage, and another combined one for storage / PV. See also the attached screenshot from the ZEREZ database.
Can anyone here tell me whether a new certificate is already being prepared, or how long this will take? Otherwise, I would have to switch to a different manufacturer, which I would really rather not do. As things stand, nobody in Hamburg should be able to register a Victron installation based on the MP-II 5000 or smaller. I doubt this is really in Victron’s commercial interest.
my Victron system isn’t registered either, although one of my systems still needs to be registered. To use the PV electricity, I simply switch off the mains. However, that also means I can’t feed electricity into the grid; I’m only allowed to do that once the system is registered.
And a Multi is not a PV inverter, after all, but it can feed electricity into the grid, including PV power.
They’re really taking bureaucracy too far again!
However, the larger Multi units (8000, 10000, 15000) are listed as generators on the certificate, as shown in the screenshot. In my opinion, this distinction doesn’t make sense, since a 5000 has the same functionality and is only limited in terms of power.
How exactly does your answer help solve the problem here?
I’d ask you to write only answers/comments that actually contribute something to the topic or help solve the problem; otherwise I may have to start deleting unnecessary comments.
@evilphish On the one hand, it’s nice to have a central system like ZEREZ that the grid operators can access, but once again this seems to do nothing more than encourage the case officers to switch off their brains.
The necessary certificates are stored for the 5000, but the category doesn’t seem to be the one the grid operator wants.
If this is adjusted now, it won’t change anything about the certificates whatsoever; only the category will be adjusted, or the device duplicated.
If you look, for example, at the various entries for the MP-II 48/8000/110, the same certificates are stored for all of them.
Ultimately, the Multi is also the battery inverter, except that the battery is charged via a charge controller… ZEREZ is actually supposed to make things easier for the grid operator, but somehow it’s just created another muddle.
In any case, I’ve already registered the 5000 with the ZEREZ ID, but there was always also an AC inverter involved. I think you’ve simply come across a case officer who isn’t familiar with this type of system. Presumably, the case officer would be satisfied if an AC inverter were included.
Perhaps the “DC-coupled” designation in the metering concept is also incorrect; that would be contradictory as well. In any case, sometimes it helps to have a conversation.
Not quite—the certificates are there, but for the 5000 model only as a storage device (see the screenshot further up). Registering with Stromnetz Hamburg is done entirely online via a form, where you can either enter a ZEREZ ID or search for a device. For example, if you search for MultiPlus under “Generating unit”, the 8000, 10000 and 15000 models are offered—the ones that, according to the screenshot, are also listed as “PV” in the “Primary energy” column of the ZEREZ database.
You can find the 5000 model in the “Battery storage” section of the online form, but that doesn’t help with the registration, as at least one generating unit has to be configured; otherwise, you can’t proceed with the form. If I try to enter the ZEREZ ID of the MP 5000 directly under the generator, I’m told that it isn’t a valid certificate for generating devices.
The complete automation of the registration process means that Hamburg follows whatever is stored in the ZEREZ database very strictly. For a device to be selectable for generation, it has to be listed as such in the certificate—and according to the ZEREZ database, the MP 3000 and 5000 unfortunately aren’t.
I agree with you about case officers; it’s just that in this case the process is completely automated, and the form is only interested in what’s in the database. The only people who can change that are the manufacturers—in this case, Victron.
Thank you for passing this on. I’ve also contacted Mr Dräger and Mr Hopman by email (using the details on the Victron website), at the end of July, but so far I haven’t received a reply.
In the meantime, the registration process in Hamburg is unfortunately fully automated via a web form (see also my reply to Matthias). In other words, I can’t even get through to a case officer. The complaint submitted via the form was consequently answered with: “It’s automated and follows the data in the ZEREZ database. This makes the process the same for all devices and all manufacturers, so you need to contact the manufacturer.”
I immediately agree with anyone who shakes their head at this. All that shaking has given me a headache by now. ZEREZ was supposed to make everything nice and easy: no more having to hunt down data sheets, and so on. Unfortunately, it currently does nothing to change the fact that the Hamburg registration form won’t let you proceed if the certificate data doesn’t contain what it expects.
Just put any old 1,000 W AC inverter in the form so that, at the very least, the grid compatibility assessment can get under way.
What’s important is that all the details are correct by the time of the IBN; the installer takes care of that, and they’ll have other contacts to sort out any issues. Changes between the initial application and the IBN form have never been a problem for me.
But perhaps your grid operator is the problem too.
ZEREZ has been mandatory since 1 February, after all, and you seem to be the first person to have problems with it.
I don’t believe you’re the first person to register a Victron system with a 5 kVA MultiPlus with their grid operator in the past six months.
If this were a general problem, there would surely have been a post about it here before now.
That may well be the case, but the fact is that we don’t have a standardised registration process across Germany. Different grid operator, different form. In other words, it’s entirely possible that nobody in Hamburg can register a 5000 series device, while they can in Berlin, for example, because the form there doesn’t have that restriction.
The difference in the certificates is also obvious according to the database. The 8000 series, which has PV in the relevant column, can be selected in the form. When you search in the form, you get exactly the entries that appear when you filter directly for PV devices on Zerez. Together with the grid operator’s statement that the input form works as described, it’s therefore obvious why the registration isn’t working. That can’t really be argued away and, since the registration process is public, anyone can verify it themselves (including Victron).
So who can do something about it? Certainly not me. Either Victron, by standardising the certificates and categorising the 5000 series in the same way as they did the 8000 series. Or Stromnetz Hamburg, by adapting the form. My hypothesis: While the grid operator doesn’t care whether someone buys a Victron device or gets fed up and switches to another manufacturer, Victron really ought to care. I just want to finally order my system
@dennibu Thanks, that’s useful information. I’ll discuss it with my electrician straight away.
I recently registered, or rather had an electrician register, a system in Hamburg based on 3 Ă— MultiPlus-II 5000 units. It went through without any problems. The application was submitted on 4 March, and on 14 March I received the following information:
Thanks for the information! Do you happen to know how the electrician submitted the application? You don’t have a case officer through the online portal, which is the problem. The form doesn’t even let you get far enough for a human being to look at it. I can imagine that the electrician has another way of getting in touch. Do you happen to know any more about this?
Hi everyone, unfortunately it’s the same problem here in the south. Apparently Victron hasn’t changed anything in the entries. Our grid operator, netzeBW, simply refuses to register the smaller MultiPlus units.
Anything below the 8000 model isn’t accepted. We’ve now even had to replace the 6k5 with the 8000 in order to register the system.
So it looks like Victron isn’t going to work for us here after all…
It’s not the certificates themselves that are the problem, but rather the classification in ZEREZ. There is a tab called “Primary energy”. The 8k, 10k and 15k models are listed there as “PV and storage”, while the smaller MultiPlus units are listed only as “Storage”.
The setup is as follows:
MultiPlus–Pylontech–SmartSolar–PV system
This only concerns registering the PV system; the separate registration of the storage system would have been approved. However, you have to submit two registrations: one for the PV system and one for the storage system.
Unfortunately, this is why the registration is being rejected. The three larger MultiPlus units also appear in the list for automated registration, while the others do not. Even after corresponding with the utility company in writing, the registration is still not being approved.
According to the utility company, we should notify Victron briefly, as it would apparently only require a minor change. But here’s the catch: there is no contact person, no hotline and no direct way to communicate with Victron.
So the only option is to go through the wholesaler, and Victron does not seem to have responded to them so far…
Unfortunately, this matches my case exactly. The small MultiPlus units are classified solely as storage and therefore cannot be selected as generators. I even contacted Victron’s sales managers, Dräger and Hopman, directly, but did not receive so much as a reply. Apparently, Victron has done nothing about this for a year, and the more grid operators switch from case officers and individual decisions to automated processes that take the classification in ZEREZ literally as a decision criterion, the more often this problem will occur. Consequently, contacting the authorities, as in my case, always ends with the explanation that they are bound by the classification in ZEREZ. If something has been entered incorrectly there, the respective manufacturer must correct it. In my area, a double-digit number of PV projects have now been implemented using products from other manufacturers, after registration with the small MultiPlus units was not possible because of their classification.
