I’m a complete novice and would welcome help in layman’s terms.
Based in Scotland, I have a MultiPlus-11 inverter, Cerbo GX and MPPT RS 450 1 200 charge controller along with two x 16kWh batteries. Solar Diverter linked to Sunamp hot water system.
Generally everything works fine BUT, I now have an export MPAN and would like to earn income from exporting surplus to the grid.
With ESS at 100% and and the solar diverter system full, the system is modulating generation to suit consumption and will not export the surplus solar electricity.
Grid set point is 0W
Can you check your Peak-Shaving Settings? Eventually that is set to a maximum export current of 0?
Here are the screenshots. What does peak shaving mean?
@MorayFinch Venus OS v3.30 - Peak shaving for ESS - Victron Energy Do you have a gridmeter installed and where is it installed in relation to the solar diverter?
Yes I have a grid meter, on the incoming grid supply after the billing meter.
@MorayFinch Nothing else and obvious jumps out at me. Just double check the system’s grid metering is set to external. Do you have loads on the ACIN and ACOUT? The installer should be able to help as I gather a MCS installer was used to get export unless you went DIY with Octopus?
I’ve been hunting around and I think the issue relates to the Victron DVCC which is effectively protecting the Fogstar batteries by switching off the Solar once the batteries are full.
If my suspicion is correct what is the risk of disabling DVCC? Will the battery life be reduced or worse, be damaged?
@MorayFinch Since the houseloads are still served, the system appears fine from what you tell me. Forget DVCC and also ensure the system is in the correct mode e.g. optimised without battery life. One should start with the basics and look at your installation’s wiring diagram. Do you have a CT or energy meter and, if latter, wich one? If CT is it installed facing the right direction and also configured on the inverter to reflect it. If it is an energy meter, is it configured with the correct role etc. Best to get the installer to look at it as it takes time and raises too many questions for a forum if it is not easily solved beyond the obvious things as above.
Thanks, the mode is optimised without battery life. I’ll disable the DVCC and see if that resolves the issue.
There is an energy meter installed on the consumer unit, see attached photo
DVCC will only shutdown solar, when the system is not allowed to feedin. (And therefore effectively protecting the batteries, yes)
Your Peak-Shaving settings look ok, they should not limit that.
I see, you are running a MPPT 450. Can you make sure it is on the most recent firmware?
IIRC, there was a bug, where the MPPT 450 missed the voltage setpoint required to produce the DC Voltage offset to allow for feedin when the battery is full. Eventually you are running on an affected firmware?
What happens, when you set a grid-setpoint of -2000 or -3400? will the inverter feedin, or is that prevented as well?
Thanks for this.
The firmware is v1.26
I have been running with a grid set point of 3000W and the inverter feeds in just like I would want it to do (except it keeps doing so even when there is no surplus generation)
Thanks again
okay, so that means there is no general setting preventing energy flowing into the grid.
If I figured out the right system, I saw it feedin today? Did you change something already?
It was overcast so I had the grid point at -500W. So yes it was exporting a small amount. But I’ve not disabled the DVCC yet
@MorayFinch Best to leave the grid setpoint at -50 if you want to limit grid consumption to as close to 0 as possible. As you discovered any negative grid setpoint will result in an equivalent constant feedin indiscriminate of source (battery or solar if exporting).
