My Node Red control system I call DECS - Work In Progress

[kevdav100]

Just thought I would share some images of the control system I have designed, I call it DECS (Davis Energy Control System)

I wasnt happy with the Victron DESS, it didnt give me the control I wanted or needed, My very specific needs are a system thats optimised for maximum profit, while ensuring consumption is covered (I’m looking for a quicker payback of the system).

I could write a description of the DECS system, but AI can do it better

"DECS (Dynamic Energy Control System) is a sophisticated, custom-built management system for my Victron-based solar and battery installation, designed to achieve optimal energy independence and cost efficiency. Its core function is to intelligently orchestrate energy usage by constantly analyzing key data streams: real-time solar generation, hyper-local multi-array solar forecasts from Forecast.Solar, dynamic Octopus Agile and fixed ‘Go’ energy tariffs, and my household’s historical and predicted consumption patterns.

A key strategy within DECS is the proactive prevention of solar curtailment. By accurately forecasting upcoming solar generation and daily load, the system strategically creates headroom in the battery. This involves controlled discharge during early morning or opportune export periods, ensuring maximum absorption of self-generated solar energy later in the day, rather than letting it go to waste or being forced into uncompensated export.

Based on this comprehensive analysis, DECS makes automated decisions about when to charge or discharge the battery, when to import from or export to the grid, and how to best utilize available solar power. This aims to significantly maximize my self-consumption, drastically reduce reliance on expensive peak-rate grid electricity, and strategically leverage tariff arbitrage opportunities.

The system currently includes robust financial tracking, automated backups of operational data, and a detailed user dashboard within Node-RED for real-time monitoring, manual control overrides, and system diagnostics. We are currently enhancing DECS with a new centralized ‘DECS Core Settings’ flow . This will provide a dedicated, user-friendly interface for managing all critical system parameters—from PV array configurations and battery specifications to tariff details and API keys. This improvement will make the system more adaptable, easier for me to fine-tune, and more robust by ensuring user-defined settings are persistently stored and prioritized.

Ultimately, DECS is evolving into a highly personalized and intelligent energy hub for my home, with a clear roadmap for further enhancements like automated tariff switching and potentially smarter integrations."

One isuue I have found, is as the system is expanding, its taxing the Cerbo GX, so I have ordered a Rasperry PI and an SSD drive, will also integrate Home Assistant as the dashboard graphics are limited in node red.

Here are some screen shots, a lot of values have been reset as I have been playing around with the code today, and had to reboot and restartr node red, the Pi will give me more persitent backups to draw from.

[Steve85737]

Wow that’s a lot of work. Are you managing to achieve your aim of improving profit/payback period? Have you quantified how much improvement you expect to achieve over the standard DESS?

[kevdav100]

To be fair, its turned into a bit of a vanity project now, just seeing how far I can push it, improve the dashboard, optimise the system etc.

What I do know is that I have now stopped all curtailment (which I was seeing a lot of), the battery is fully automated for profit, charging off peak, selling peak, etc, and when the automatic switching between tariffs is implemented, that can increase profits/savings substantially.

My system is a 12.6kWp array, 6.4kW export agreement, 32kWh battery storage (I have another 16kWh to add when I get round to it)

As an estimate i reckon somewhere between 15 - 20% improvement on profits/savings

I had a lot of issues with DESS, had to constantly monitor it, even manipulate it regularly to export when I thought is should export, especially early morning if there was a good solar generation day, this always used to lead to curtailment.

[kevdav100]

These images kind of show the issues I was having, I temporarily switched DESS on just as a comparison, you can see I am generating 10.52kW, and the battery is 59% full, but I am only exporting 539w, all my generation should be going to export now (up to 6400w) because the battery has plenty of SOC, and if the battery is charging, and then it exports later, then I incure round trip losses, as it is, practically all generation is going to charge the battery (9386w) direct export is the most profitable (after solar to consumption), this could also very quickly cause cutailige, loss of generation as once the battery is full, and max export is reached (6400w), there is nowhere for any excess solar to go, so it just gets lost

This second image I have immediately switched over to DECS, and you can see now that I am exporting at maximum, the battery is still getting charged, but only with excess generation, but this is now giving me maximum profit as max export is direct from solar, I wont get any curtailage as the battery is the third element to take solar (after1 - consumption, 2 - direct solar to export), so no round trip losses, the system will then in the evening when solar generation is low or zero, start discharging and exporting from the battery untill off peak cheap rate 00.30 - 05.30, where it will fully charge again, and immediately after that, decide based on the solar forcast and historical consumption (along with real time data), decide how much to discharge the battery and export until the next solar generation period to avoid curtailment.

[Ersus]

Interesting project!