Solis Hybrid - charge battery using Night rate

ELCAT2009

Screenshot_20211215-183308_SolisCloud.jpg

Screenshot_20211215-183519_SolisCloud.jpg

So I've been charging my Pylontech Batteries to about 85-90% at night to get me through a good portion of the day. Last night rather than a constant level charge of about 1.2kw, it shows spike of 13kw for short while? When I look at the graph for the SOC it is rising uniformly with no spike to reflect the charging spike? Is it just a glitch in the solis software? Wouldn't think spike of 13kw in the battery was possible and if it was I'm sure not good for Batteries! Anyone else ever have similar experience?

reklamos

More than likely a glitch in reading data from inverter. Battery has protection to shutdown if it crosses thresholds. Also the circuit breaker between the battery and inverter would have tripped. 13kW would be 250Amps it would have fried the battery if none of the protections worked. The other thing is you would need 3phases coming into your house to provide 13kW

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118327801#Comment_118327801

I've an 16kva supply, I can pull 13kw without breaking a sweat.. just need to charge the car, charge batteries and stick on a kettle.

ELCAT2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118327928#Comment_118327928

I was thinking I should be able to pull 13kw if needed. I also have 16kva supply and have prob pulled 10kw by having heat pump, kettle and oven on. With electric car coming I expect at night could easily be pulling 113 or 14kw. What kw should I be able to pull max with 16kva?

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118328291#Comment_118328291

Apparently its an 100amp fuse in the the ESB main head, then I have a 80Amp MCB after the meter.

15-16kW is about the limit

reklamos

sorry you are right. I was still thinking about mainland Europe single phase which is way lower what we go in here.

loopymum

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118328435#Comment_118328435

15-16KW seems a bit low for 80amp

I have a 65amp fuses which translates to 15.6KW

I have a zappi and they recommend setting it to 60amp if you have 65 amp fuse for load balancing. It seem to kick in though about 13kw which is fine as leaves room for anything coming on suddenly

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118334739#Comment_118334739

All depends on your voltage, acceptable range is 207-253v

And at higher loads the voltage will tend to drop. Sure 80amps at the nominal 230v is 18.4kW but at 207 it's 16.5kW.

That's why it's set in the charge points as amps not kW .

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087635#Comment_118087635

This thread is really useful and I've gone into the settings and have the battery set up to charge between 4.30am - 6am.

The one thing that's still confusing me is the discharge setting - mine was set to discharge between 8am - 10pm and I have left it at this setting.

I don't understand what the 'self-use logic' is and what difference this would make to the battery discharge times - surely you only want the battery discharging when you are on the day-rate, which is after 8am? Or am I misunderstanding this setting?

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118657963#Comment_118657963

If you rarely look or go into those settings you might want to consider changing that discharge time from 8am-10pm. You should change it to 9am-10pm. The reason is, once we go to "summertime" and the hour goes forward night rate time is from midnight -> 9am. So it's like this to be clear.

Winter = 11pm-> 8am

Summer = midnight -> 9am

Otherwise once summer comes you will be discharging your battery when your house could simply take from the grid at night rate. So you'd have put into the battery and taken out (incurring losses) and not benefited.

This maybe a moot point if you don't charge your battery at night time......after the hour goes forward in March, but thought I'd mention it.

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118657963#Comment_118657963

I tried the discharge setting one day - but it did not work the way i wanted. It drained the battery 100% over a short period (2 hours i think) even though there was no house load needing it. It might be older firmware - but it didnt offer me the result i wanted - limit the time to day rate only.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118657963#Comment_118657963

As @yankinlk says, don't set the discharge period. This is for when you want to discharge the battery at a specific rate during a certain period. Think octopus agile over in UK where you can make a mint exporting at times of very high grid demand.

Just set the charge period and then it will discharge throughout the day according to the demand in the house.

facehugger99

Thanks for the replies - I suppose I should have mentioned that I have geothermal heat pump/underfloor heating set up, so this often runs at night, when it is colder.

So, if I have the battery set to charge up to 6am, and then the heat pump kicks in between 6am and 8am, am I not just draining the power from the battery before I get into the day rate?

I am presuming you don't really want any discharge of the battery until after 8am.

Or should I set it to charge between from 6am to 7.30 am instead and leave the discharge blank as suggested?

Bobeagleburger

Agreed about the discharge. Don't set a time at all. It then discharges when required.

ELCAT2009

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118658443#Comment_118658443

Yes you need to leave the discharge times l at 0. Then set your charge time to end at 8am when night rate finishes. This is because batteries will start to discharge to the house once they stop charging (if there is a load more than solar panels are providing). It also worth checking the clock on your esb meter that the time is correct as I know mine is gradually going out of sync and is now 25mins out. As a result my night rate is effectively from 1125pm to 825am so i set my charging times accordingly.

facehugger99

Checked it this morning and the battery was fully charged by 7am, so I'm going to adjust it to charge between 7.10am and 7.55am - that should stop it from getting right up to 100%.

I'll check the meter clock later.

Completely unrelated question, but does anyone know what the lightbulb symbol represents on the solas unit display? - it doesn't appear on the app.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118661946#Comment_118661946

Why are you charging the battery at 100A? It is easier on the battery to charge at a lower charge rate over a longer period.

The light bulb on the Solis display is the 'critical loads'. This is the load from the EPS or backup socket (if your installer put one in for you).

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118662010#Comment_118662010

I'm charging at 50A.

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118662120#Comment_118662120

Jonathan beat me to it. What size is your battery? Mine is 5Kw and I charge at 10A from 00:05 to 755am. This gets me roughly 99% - if you want less drop a few amps. Soon i will be lowering the Amps as the springtime arrives - but i will keep the same time.

facehugger99

It's a 4.8KW Dyness - I was going by the suggestion in post 11 to charge at 50A but I'll drop it down a bit and increase the charge time.

I presume setting the charge limit lower only affects charging from the grid and not when the battery is charging from solar?

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118662201#Comment_118662201

Surplus solar will continue to charge the battery at up to 100A.

mrm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118662010#Comment_118662010

So, would the advice would be to stay away from the EV tariffs that provide a 2 to 3hr low cost nighttime window to fully charge the battery? Will this reduce the battery life? by much?

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118664205#Comment_118664205

In general, yes. Advice is to stick with a day/night meter over a smart meter for as long as possible.

yankinlk

Question - What rate should i see going into the battery when the sun is shining? I have seen roughly 2.5KW coming out of the battery - but only around 1KW going in today when the sun was hitting 3KW. House load was minimal so loads going to grid. Normal? Dyness 4.8 and Solis 6Kw Hybrid.

reklamos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118673003#Comment_118673003

Not normal. The usage pattern is Sun>House load>battery>diverter(if exists)>grid

Ir could be that you charge rate is limited on the inverter side to 1kW, chaeck your settings. Also it could be that the battery is telling to limit charge rate for some reason.

yankinlk

Not sure what setting to change...

I checked and i only see two places where it might matter:

Under Time of Use for Self Use: Charge Limit is set to 50.0A. Im not using Charge time here - but i still increased it to to 75A and no difference.

Also under Control Paramter I can see: Charge Limitation 20.0A but even if i increase this it reseets back to 20 after saving. Battery current here is 20.A as well.

Any ideas?

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118673490#Comment_118673490

Check the Solis Cloud app. Device -> Inverter -> Battery -> From BMS, and you should be able to see battery (dis)charge limit there. If showing 100A, check historical values for earlier today using the custom graphs.

yankinlk

Pasting output below. 50~V battery voltage times 20A Charge limit would give me the roughly 1kW im seeing right? Dont see how i can change this though.

Battery Status: Normal

BMS Power 0.116kW

BMS Battery Voltage 50.28V

BMS Battery Current 2.3A

Battery SOC 99%

Battery SOH 100%

Battery Charging Current Limit 20A

Battery Discharge Current Limit 50A

Over Discharge SOC 0%

Force Charging SOC 0%

Battery Fault information

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118673599#Comment_118673599

That is the source of your problem so. Battery BMS is restricting the amount of current it will accept. Your maths is spot on. 52V * 20A ≈ 1kW.

Not sure what is causing that behaviour though.

Edit: never mind, just saw the SOC. That would be normal for the charge current to be restricted when top balancing. Was the current restricted with a low SOC earlier in the day.

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118673643#Comment_118673643

Well I empty battery every day for sure. so from say 8 to midnight it gets down to 10%.

Do you think i need to increase these?

Overdischg SOC: 12%

ForceCharge SOC 10%

ForceChg Limit: 100A