OGPS
(Ed @ Off-Grid Power Systems - offgridps.com)
1
The newly announced Superpack NG batteries have internal battery heaters that can be configured to operate on charge current only or maintain temperature using energy from the battery. The manual indicates that the batteries have battery monitors built, but they don’t have a way to communicate their SoC to a GX device. So, when building a system using multiple Superpacks in parallel, it seems that to get a single SoC for the entire battery bank would require an external battery monitor. An external battery monitor such as a SmartShunt can’t distinguish between current flowing into the battery bank because they are charging or current flowing into the battery bank to run the heaters.
Simply put, in areas of the world that routinely fall below 5°C in the winter, how useful could these batteries be in a system that has more than one Superpack installed? Is the target market for the Superpack batteries small, single battery installations where checking SoC is handled via VictronConnect only?
What am I missing?
OGPS
(Ed @ Off-Grid Power Systems - offgridps.com)
2
I understand now. I have it correct, but these are just the first of a series of new Superpack batteries and a future set of Superpacks will solve the questions I had. Nevermind
I am also interested to know how self consumption for heating and such gets accounted for in SoC calcs of a SmartShunt or other. I assume the BMS does some sort of communication with the Cerbo or other. If you or other have any insight, for these new batteries or other batteries with heaters, please feel free to share. Thanks.
OGPS
(Ed @ Off-Grid Power Systems - offgridps.com)
4
Yes, it requires batteries that track their SoC within their BMS and communicating that to a GX device. If there are multiple batteries in parallel, those batteries need to communicate amongst themselves to present a unified SoC. The Victron Smart Lithium NG line uses a single, external BMS that communicates with all the battery modules and requires a battery monitor to track total battery pack SoC. This could be a Lynx Smart BMS that has an internal shunt or perhaps the VE.Bus BMS that uses either the battery monitor in an inverter/charger like a MultiPlus or a SmartShunt. If you want to add heaters to these batteries, it’s a simple matter of controlling the heaters after the shunt, which accounts for the energy used.
The Superpack NG battery line has some forthcoming products that will address this and the timing is unknown.
