Solar PV Monitoring/Automation Thread

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121809503#Comment_121809503

Thanks, I'll check it out.

jasgrif11

I have 2 Sofar string inverters. I'm trying to get PV data into HA via the Solarman integration. Both inverters logger starts with 23xxxx. Has anyone managed to do this and if so how?

Device serial number: 23xxxxxx

Firmware version: LSW3_15_270A_1.68

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811050#Comment_121811050

You might just be better building a sofar2mqtt, or buying same

allinthehead

Managed to get home assistant working last night on my laptop. Found the tutorial to boot in Ubuntu and flash the haos file that way.

Just need to get my head around everything else now.

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811414#Comment_121811414

Doing it yourself makes so much sense. Apart from leaning something new, you will better know the system, and where to look when it goes wrong.

I personally went the Docker route on Linux Mint. Knew nothing about Docker previously. Very happy now that I went that route, as I add all sorts of other stuff to the same PC - some HA related, and some not. But it's far from plain sailing.

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121811435#Comment_121811435

Very true, my head was spinning at the beginning but got there in the end.

The laptop I used is an old one that was gathering dust, good to give it a second life.

allinthehead

Looking to pick up a screen to sit in the living room to display HA. Was thinking something like this which will double as a web browser. The only issue I see is that there might not be a way to keep the screen on. Most android devices seem to turn off the display after about 30 mins max.

https://www.soundstore.ie/xiaomi-redmi-pad-se-4b-128gb-11-fhd-grey-tablet-vhu4496en.html

insular1

I've done something similar with an old table I had lying around. Just used the fully kiosk browser to display HA and it has options to prevent shut down etc. Very handy.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817126#Comment_121817126

Check out Fully-Kiosk Browser. You can control it via HA so turn on the screen when you are in the room based on a presence sensor etc.

Tree

I've a tablet with HA on it in the kitchen. The app can also keep the screen active too

allinthehead

Excellent, thanks all.

allinthehead

Another issue I've been having today. I'm trying to add Eph Ember sensors to monitor my heating. I've copied and pasted to config.yaml but I cant see the entities. I'm sure there's a step I'm missing.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ephember

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817257#Comment_121817257

Did you use Dev Tools to validate the YAML before restarting HA?

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817461#Comment_121817461

Ya, it said all was good.

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121817461#Comment_121817461

I think I just found why it didn't work.

"Sorry but it doesn't work anymore. And is unlikely to again.

The reason is that about a year ago (Q1 2021) Ember rolled out a pile of things on the server-side which broke the integration. The guy who created the original integration had a look last year and saw that it was non-trivial to fix it. I think he simply didn't have the time to essentially start over again."

From Reddit.

jasgrif11

Since getting a large battery (54kWh), I've been looking at ways to optimise my system. How can I run the house all day on battery only? I'm fairly close, but I think there are a few more tweaks, and I'm looking for some advice.

I noticed that I use about 7 to 10 daytime units with sufficient battery power. Sometimes, the load is higher than the 7000+ watts the Deye can deliver. As an example, my son takes (a long......) electric shower in the morning, and that pulls 9kW + the existing house load.

However, other times during the day, there is sufficient battery power, and the reason I think I draw from the grid is due to the HeatPump (Nibe 1240) kicking in and possibly the Inverter not responding quickly enough. I'm unsure about this, so please provide your thoughts. If this is the case, is anyone aware of adjustments on the Nibe that can help prevent this?

I've added some charts below from today between 8am and 11.30am

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121823062#Comment_121823062

So is that 54kWh of battery one one or multiple inverters and are they AC-coupled or hybrid inverters? How many solar-only inverters do you also have? Out of all of the inverters how many have CT's attached and how many are just AC coupled with no CT?

A few thoughts:

1. An inverter is only as reactive as the frequency that it reads the attached CT clamp. For highly variable or spiky loads that's going to be a problem. The difference between the demand at the load and the supply from the inverter is made-up of current off the other inverters and the incoming mains.
2. If you have a mixed install-base of inverter brands and models (as I think I recall that you have) then you're probably in no-mans-land in terms of syncing these and you don't know what the response-time is for each model. That's the problem with a mixed-hybrid model such as this. Not sure what if anything you can do there. You might find that one inverter is generating power to match the load, but the second inverter also then jumps on and attempts to also match that same load, meaning that you end up spiking the incoming ESB feed... not sure if you've seen jumps like that on the graphs?
3. Given that you have large motors (heatpump, etc) you probably have a lagging power-factor (pF) during these times of high load. Power factor matching is a black art at a DIY level, but normally the settings on the inverter are modified so that it moves away from just providing active power (pF of 1). Good video on this here: https://www.greenwoodsolutions.com.au/news-posts/real-apparent-reactive-power . Installing capacitors might be an option, but that's normally used in commercial environments where the consumer is billed by their offset from a pF=1. Residential customers are not billed by pF, so I don't know whether caps are ever used in residential or not, but power-factor matching on solar inverters should be a topic which you do some research on.
4. You might also recall a number of months ago I was suggesting that you should have your main loads as electrically close to the inverters as possible. I still have some theories on that but I'm still looking for examples where that's done to see whether it can benefit what you're seeing.

SD_DRACULA

Kill the electric shower 🤣

But unless you can bump up your battery draw to over 12kw not sure how you can get around it.

One thing that might help with response times is to use an eastron meter instead of the CT clamp to read the grid.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121823689#Comment_121823689

Actually - good point. Moving to a pumped shower fed off a A2W cylinder would help considerably.

jasgrif11

Lots of food for thought there. I do have a mixed install base. Today its Deye 8kwHyd + Sofar 6kwHyd + Sofar 4kwGrid + Sofar 4kwGrid. Within the next month, I will be removing the Sofar6kwHyd and replacing it with another Deye 8kwHyd in parallel.

I have ordered an Eastron Meter (I had one all along, but it had the wrong rated clamp, so I'm just waiting on the clamp itself). I'll report back if the Eastron Meter makes a difference. I'll also report back after the Deye is installed.

I could turn off the Heatpump for a day to see if that is the main culprit.

I'll start some research on power-factor matching.

I know the shower should go, but this will require some tiling and plumbing...

jasgrif11

Does the order of the CT on the live tail matter?

Right now, the CT order is as follows (the Deye is connected to my battery)

Smart Meter ->Zappi CT-->DeyeHyd CT-->SofarHyd CT-->SofarGrid1 CT--> SofarGrid 2 CT

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121824548#Comment_121824548

No. Just as long as they are fully clipped on and the surfaces of the CT core are clean. I found a faulty one here - I tapped it off the ground and the core broke. Didn't notice till it was fitted and it ware reading around 80% lower than it should.

allinthehead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121824508#Comment_121824508

Depending on your water flow pressure, you could try turning the shower down to the single element. We use ours at half power all year round, circa 5kw.

JayBee66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121825056#Comment_121825056

Same here. After a session in the shower, we might get 100W or so of grid draw even in dull weather. Tell your son, "a navy shower is for real men!"

con747

+1 on the above 2 comments, I use my electric shower on the single element and the batteries can handle the draw. I'm afraid the O/H though needs molten lava so I need to keep an eye on the settings!

championc

Get a Shelly EM to monitor the Nibe. Are the Grid CT's on the Sofar String inverters to just limit exporting ?

crisco10

Put a smart bulb in bathroom, shelly on the shower feed. Then set up automation to turn off light if more than single element is used. Problem solved. (Assuming your bathroom is a bit dark to begin with)

jasgrif11

I do have a Shelly EM on the Nibe already.

The Sofar string inverters are setup as self-consumption and the CTs are for export limiting.

I turned the shower down to one element, and it worked great from a battery perspective. My son now thinks the shower is broken....I'll let him think that for another while. @crisco10 The same fella would shower in the dark!

I now need to figure out the grid import spikes during the day (beyond the early morning shower)

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121827326#Comment_121827326

The latest version of Home Assistant has the option of downloading the data-set from the database.

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2024/02/07/release-20242/#export-data-from-the-history-dashboard

If you have a really granular data feed off the CT's/Shelly's you might be able to import the data into Excel and work out what's causing the load differences.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121824508#Comment_121824508

Don't get the eastron meter with a clamp get the SDM230 that you can just feed it the L/N cables, I'd say it's more accurate than any CT.

Also if I found that induction hobs are quick to reduce/increase power and the inverter might not be quick enough to react so might be a bit of grid trickle then.