Will Victron offer support for trading on the onbalans market?
I see that Frank Energie has designed their environment in such a way that they support the Bliq energy manager.
The Bliq energy manager is a battery-brand independent energy manager that can be used to trade on the onbalans market. So Frank energie opens this possibility to all solar/battery/converter brands.
On this page https://bliq.energy/nl/installateur/compatibility/ they even indicate that they want to support Victron.
What is your opinion about this? and can Victron jump on that boat?
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Got the answer from Frank Energy that they are so busy with other batteries, that they not going to implement new batteries like Victron.
That is a pity, however it is the bliq energie manager they are using, so it is Bliq.nl that develops the support for different battery brands.
Be aware that Bliq does not longer exist. Faillissement Bliq B.V. te Weesp (F.13/24/471) - FaillissementsDossier.nl.
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That is a pity too, this makes our changes very slim 
Thanks for the info.
That’s why they told me they are busy.
Could Victron please contact zonneplan?
Seems solar clarity is bankrupt and Bliq was part of them
https://solarclarity.com/nl
Seems Bliq would make a restart, so still hope Victron can trade on the onbalans market soon,…
Bliq maakt een doorstart onder The Sharing Group. Bliq en Denim Solar maken doorstart onder The Sharing Group als ontbrekende schakel in deelbare, virtuele elektricite... | The Sharing Group Newsroom
Het lijkt erop dat de insteek hetzelfde blijft.
There are other companies who allow unbalance market trading with Victron equipment.
Mind you, accessing the unbalance market is not a straightforward process and you can’t do it individually - you need to be under the wings of a large player, who will take control of your system.
On another note, and this is half my personal opinion: trading on the unbalance market with a home system is not (very) profitable and will likely cost you more in battery wear than it will yield in the long term.
Not true, LFP batteries will degrade from calendar aging long before cycles are an issue. Most cells are rated at 8000 cycles to 80 percent, that is 20 years of 1 cycle per day, which is about what unbalance trading does. As long as your battery is large enough to not pull too high c rates you should be good.
Calendar aging is about 1 percent per year… I guess you know where I am going with this. Might as well use the batteries you paid for and see where you end up, that’s what they are made for.
Edit: the 1 cycle per day figure is for my system which has a 4:1 kWh to inverter ratio. If you have a smaller ratio the figure will most likely be higher and vice versa. Frank energie quotes 1.4 cycles per day but that is not what I am seeing with my system.
Any new for this subject ? I found my self trying to buy and or connect something to work with umbalance market, but simple I can not find.
Could please Victron update the API for something more friendly for the Dutch Energy companies ? Sad that the Chinese companies can do this.
You can not trade on the unbalance market yourself, as I stated before.
To participate in the unbalance trading mechanism you need to sign a contract with an energy supplier who provides this service and supports you battery system.
How they work can differ per provider, but in virtually all cases you need to give them full control over your system, potentially even bypassing your GX device.
The chance that you can any keep control of, or personal tweaks in your system is close to zero - since that could have a negative effect on the unbalance operator’s algorithm.
That’s why there isn’t something like an “unbalance market” API for Victron (or any other vendor).
How they work is by sending raw commands to a GX device or even directly to Multiplus devices.
The VenusOS ModbusTCP commands and the VE.Bus MK2 protocol documentation can be found here: Victron Energy | Independent energy systems engineered to outlast
Hi
Thank you for your feedback. I partial agree but not fully.
Victron as the VRM API the API or other simple need to be similar to other or something that the energy provider like use. I believe should be independent but help both companies to have an easy task.
I know you need a energy contract for unbalanced and follow a set of rules. But technically anyone can do it. There are external companies that did it and being an open market a private should be able to.
You could say I give 50% control of battery for trading. To garantie you have 50 for you use.
I believe Victron ( i a personal comment not a fact) might help om this because this is a VPP ( Virtual power plant ) that Australia uses.
I am super interested in this subject, sorry for possible mistakes , happy to discuss more
Not sure how the rules are in Australia but in EU you need to be registered as an energy company to participate in the unbalance trading market - not possible to do it as an individual.
So if we (in EU) want to participate, we need to give the energy supplier control access to our battery/inverter system (and most of them here support Victron, without having to go through a Victron API).
In return we get a part of the unbalance trading profit - if there is any.
You can indeed configure the capacity amount of your system they can use to trade, so you have the rest available for peak shaving and/or backup capacity.
But other than that you won’t have much left to configure yourself, since any tweaks or local algorithms you make might interfere with their trading algorithm.
I’ve talked with many companies that would like to use your battery system for unbalance trading and according to every sales pitch it’s better than sliced bread or even world peace, but from my point of view participating on the unbalance market with a consumer grade battery system is not worth it.
- extra wear on the batteries
- no profit guarantees
- all profit promises are based on theoretical prices/values, none are based on real world data
- all the big energy players in EU are deploying mega battery farms themselves that are just much more efficient than any home battery system can be.
The cycle cost of the industrial grade battery systems (starting at 100kW / 200kWh per module) that come with airco and fire suppression etc is far better than that of any home battery system.
(To anybody feeling the urge to pitch in with “My DIY battery with JKBMS and EVE cells”: GTFO)
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Hello.
I find your answer very interesting.
In also checking what are the possibility to trade in the unbalance market with a Victron system. You mention that a lot of companies in the EU support it but I aan actually struggling finding any. At least here in the Netherlands.
The only option I seem to find is an Eniris controller which comes very expensive, with a subscription fee on top of the purchase price, and with no real guarantee of properly working with Victron.
Could you share few energy companies able to control a Victron based battery system?