Inheriting a challenge

Chris_5339762

Eddi is boosting for an hour at night as it stands... it can be set to 1 1/2 hours and thats simple enough, but the request I've gotten is splitting the PV somehow between battery and water... preferably put PV excess into the water for the first half of the day, then PV excess into the battery for the second half of the day. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to do that.

At the moment there isn't enough sunlight to do battery AND heat the hot water.

championc

So the only way to drive energy to the Eddi before the battery is with boost.

You could reduce the Amps of the Eddi, so that it maybe only pulls 1kW or 2kW rather than the full potential.

So you could halve it and double the time at night

Chris_5339762

Yeah thats what I was thinking - but it seems daft on a system that is otherwise pretty flawless, that you can't drive energy to the Eddi before the battery (without a manual boost anyway).

Silly question - but is reducing the amps of the Eddi something that is done on the Eddi itself.. I did look earlier and couldn't find an obvious setting. That would be reasonably good. Or is it a hardware job.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091728#Comment_120091728

It's in advanced settings on the Eddi AFAIK.

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091728#Comment_120091728

Setting is in the Eddi

If you had an AC connected battery, then you could have done what you hoped. But with the battery within (so to speak) the inverter, the MyEnergi stuff cannot see anything there until it exits the inverter

Chris_5339762

Thanks. I've found it on the Eddi now, setting the maximum device to 10A will cap the immersion heater at 2.4kW.

Looks like I'm trying to do the impossible so.

I may try setting the AC charge cutoff SOC to 80%, then the End of charge SOC to 50% still though, to see what happens. In my mind that'll charge the battery to 80% on the night rate, then not use PV to charge the battery during the day unless its < 50%, capped at 50%. Result: Any excess PV goes to hot water. If it works, it might be an easier way to effectively boost the hot water during the day without having to touch Eddi (and I can change this from my phone during the day itself from work if I wanted to).

Weather looks pants tomorrow so no testing then. Thanks for all the advice anyways, I'm sure I'll have more questions soon... next up is one extra panel and then split to 4x panels on one string and 8x panels on the second string.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091728#Comment_120091728

Solis Hybrids have a Feed-In Priority mode which allows you to prioritise feeding power to the grid (or surplus for an Eddi to capture) ahead of your batteries being fully charged. There might be a similar mode on the Huawei?

Chris_5339762

Rats. End of charge SOC can't be set less than 90%. Looks like it'll be manual.

Huawei has two options, charging preference and grid preference. Sadly no option for "send to Eddi"!

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096377#Comment_120096377

Grid preference sounds like what you need. It won't actually go to the grid - the Eddi will see it as surplus and capture it.

slave1

Perhaps a crazy idea but is there an isolator between your inverter and battery, turning that off will stop PV going to battery, but that’s crazy as easier to Boost the EDDI. This predicament is part of the reason why I went for an AC coupled battery

mp3guy

Myenergi have their own battery (Libbi) coming out soon which solves all of this (of course, within their own proprietary ecosystem, which you pay for, but is also good). If you're skilled at Python you can also emulate/automate full control over everything with Home Assistant.

championc

I haven't looked into it, but I wonder as to how they will potentially separate the solar from battery, or read solar PV and report it into the app.

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096604#Comment_120096604

I'm going to try that when I'm next at home on a sunny day! (And when I can guarantee there isn't a tumble drier on)

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096891#Comment_120096891

That would be an option, but would involve crawling around in the loft versus walking up to Eddi, so easy call there!

It is a very silly predicament though - I can't believe the Huawei software doesn't have an option for this.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120100512#Comment_120100512

Perhaps the Libbi will RF talk to the Master unit on traffic

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120091962#Comment_120091962

There is an option on the huaweis called “fully fed to grid” - I can’t remember what impact this will have on the ability of the battery to charge. If you do a find in the documentation of the words above you might find something useful.

table 3-4 on this page:

https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/en/doc/EDOC1100167258/ff9f37a6/setting-the-grid-tied-ess-mode

you could also maybe reduce the max charge power of the battery so it won’t pull in all of the PV and export some and let the eddi kick in. But this would impact your charge rates at night. But maybe this can be set independently for each TOU slot you have configured.

HotSwap

Yeah. It’s on the TOU setup screen. Change the priority of excess PV to: “fed to grid”.

i think you had a 3KW inverter; so anything up to 3KW of PV will be sent to the loads in your house and then exported if not used (but the eddi will notice the export and eat it instead).

then when your generating over 3kw; still 3KW will be sent to the loads in your house and exported (or used by the eddi; if it wants to); but whatever your generating above this will be directly sent as DC to charge the battery. So you will only ever be charging the battery with the PV that a normal inverter would clip. The huaweis work well in this regard.

i Have a similar setup with 7.4kw of panels on a 6kw huawei with a 10kWh huawei battery. I’ve read the manual 100 times; hit me up if you have any questions about any of the settings.

championc

If you have a 3kW inverter, then how can you have any DC higher than this ?

And what happens when the Eddi reaches temperature ?

Ideally, the perfect solution would be tbbe able to control the inverter through an API ?

I use Node-Red for all of my stuff. If my battery >= 98% then I turn on the Eddi. If 97% or lower, I turn it off. If water temperature > 75%, the Eddi is Off too.

So if you could read generation levels from the Huawei (or buy a Shelly EM), you could turn on Eddi Boost when generation > xx kW, and turn off when .......

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120106372#Comment_120106372

High voltage DC from the panels goes directly into the battery; on of the benefits of the huawei setup. You can also have 200% oversizing if you use the optimisers.

When the eddi reaches temp it won’t pull down any power and in “fed to grid” up to 3kwh will be used to power the home / exported. And anything over 3kwh will be used to charge the battery. If the eddi dosent want to heat the water and the battery is fully charged; then it will simply clip anything over 3kwh.

im just giving some options. It’s not how I would set it up myself; just trying to help.

Chris_5339762

Thanks folks, that excess PV "Feed to Grid" option has done the trick... that actually sends to Eddi which itself sends excess to hot water. I can now decide remotely whether to top up the battery or get the water hotter which is really good. Its a bit of a poorly worded option to be honest, but works for the setup provided to us by the installers anyways!

Node-Red does sound good but is way over my skill level from a quick google!

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120112262#Comment_120112262

Just keep in mind that the battery won’t charge unless there is >3kwh generation and the eddi is not heating the water in this configuration.

Chris_5339762

Thats good to know. It'll have to be managed at the moment and I'll keep an eye on it, so hopefully it won't get to that stage at this time of year.

Later in the year I'll prioritise the battery again once I know we can get that charged AND reliably do some hot water.

Chris_5339762

Update for those interested: The company had offered, very kindly, to put in an extra panel for us for free, as that can be coupled with the three on our side roof on one Inverter string, with our eight other panels on the second string. Its only a 3kW inverter and will have 4.5kW of panels attached to it, so I know we're bottlenecked there a bit.

Installed happily yesterday. But, the installers had problems, as both strings were generating a voltage but not a current. So they need an electrician. No electricians available until next Tuesday, even in an emergency. They can't put the system back to how it was either - with 8+3 all on the one string and the new panel just disconnected, without an electrician.

So entire system switched off until next week. A bit frustrating, but all the installers and electricians are just so busy at the moment.

championc

If they were making two strings, then the 8 string should have been fine.

Was it too dim to maybe start the inverter up ? It might be worth turning it on if the sun hits the 8 panel array

It's possible too that the current gradually builds. It doesn't just go boom and straight to generating 1kW or whatever

Chris_5339762

I dunno what they were up to... the funny thing is it is now trickle charging the battery, so something is on! But nothing coming into the house.

The sun was out and firing in 2kW+ on the day, so I'm not sure. Maybe they didn't wait long enough but unfortunately we'll have to wait until Tuesday at the earliest to find out.

Tree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120046344#Comment_120046344

Can you log into the inverter directly and see the output/status? That's usually up to date even when fusionsolar is down.

Me> Commision Device> (make sure you're on the SUN wifi)> Log in (user + the password you have for the inverter).

Chris_5339762

Oh whoops, I realised I never updated this thread.

Everything is going well with the solar, and it is performing FAR better than expected.

To recap:

• March 2022 8x panels and 3kW Huawei Sun2000 inverter installed. Various problems with voltage solved by chance (big explosion at a substation) and by a transformer replacement
• November 2022 3x more panels installed and a 5kW Luna battery installed. Problems accessing FusionHome app to set the battery to charge at night
• January 2022 FusionHome still doesn't work - can't log in, but company told us how to do all this stuff through FusionSolar, so battery charged most nights and monitored manually to prioritise hot water or to charge battery. With my weather forecasting knowledge I have been right about 80% of the time as to whether to charge the battery overnight or not, and what to prioritise. It's not quite as automatic as it could be.
• February 2022 As a "sorry" the company gave us 1x extra panel free, for a total of 12. These are split into two strings, the old 8 and the new 4.

The system is working brilliantly. I believed, and was told, that our 3kW inverter would only ever generate 3kW of electricity. I had seen it clip when we only had 8 panels at about 3.3kW which seemed reasonable, but after putting them onto two strings of 8 and 4, the highest I've seen it go so far is just over 5kW - and given that that number is rising as the seasons go on I think it'll go higher. We haven't had a perfectly sunny day since November to test it properly, but it does seem to clip back to 3.3kW later in the day. 5kW of power gives 2.5kW to the battery and 2.5kW to the hot water, its brilliant.

Energia have sorted our deemed FIT at long last - sadly based on a 3kW deemed maximum, but oh well. We use every scrap of power at the moment - into the battery, hot water, and the second Eddi output is going to be used to power two "dumb" heaters in parallel in two different rooms.

I'm aware we're probably pushing the inverter a bit too hard, but if it goes bang, they offered us the extra panel so they can fix it, is my thinking.

Does anyone know how high the Sun2000 will ACTUALLY go? What will cause it to clip to 3.3kW, is it overheating, at which point it restricts things somehow, or is there more going on there? (And of course will this cause problems or shorten the life of anything?)

idc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120105154#Comment_120105154

The libbi has two parts - the rebadged Kstar inverter+battery and a seperate MyEnergie controller unit. My guess is all the smarts is in the controller unit and inside the libbi is probably just a small unit connected via Modbus which communicates with the controller. Its just a pity they didn't make this a more general setup where they could team up with other inverters and do something similar

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120397954#Comment_120397954

You can push up to 5kWh directly into the battery from the panels even from the 5kW inverter; it’s possible to do this because it’s a high voltage battery so it just takes the power from the panels direct to the battery; it’s not actually “inverting” this power.

on top of this you could “invert” and output up to 3kwh AC power.

you would be exceeding the 4.5kwp that huawei recommend to connect to this inverter. But as long as neither of your strings exceed 600v it’s ok .

so the times you’ve seen PV yield above 3kwh it’s because you were charging the battery and powering your home / exporting to the grid

Chris_5339762

That explains things nicely. Turns out the FusionSolar display clips at 3.3kW at the exact time the battery finishes charging.

Learnt a lot about batteries today, thanks!

Chris_5339762

All going well in the land of our solar, however given that we're on a day/night meter (which I'm jealously guarding), the question has come up recently of what to do with any excess power.

System puts 5kW into our battery, thats fine.

Then it goes to Eddi.

Eddi Heater 1 is set to the immersion, thats fine.

Eddi Heater 2 is current going to a 700W storage heater in the bathroom. My dad is doing some of his trickery and is paralleling a second, dumb, oil fired heater onto this. He was an electrical engineer so although his work won't satisfy modern code, it's perfectly safe.

My question is this - what other devices can be used with Eddi? Its got to be dumb, but what appliances are actually dumb? So far, an immersion, our 1950s oil fired heater and storage heaters are the only things we've thought of. A small water heater next to the kitchen sink is being considered, but what else is there?

slave1

They don't need to be dumb, they need to have a resistive element, not sure there's much after the elements that heat both water and blocks (storage heater).

Bigger hot water cylinder?

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120487204#Comment_120487204

If the auld fella is an ex-electrical engineer, DIY battery has to be surely on the cards then? I mean it's the ultimate storage place for excess. Eddi's and what not are great and all, but they really only heat water (mostly), but with say 12-15Kwhr of storage you could do whatever with it.

Chris_5339762

Possibly yes, but theres a cost to that, and he'd go for the cheapest Chinese ones he could find!

Stuff like dehumidifiers etc were being considered but just about everything apart from the storage heaters (including hot water boilers etc) have a surprising amount of electronics with displays and timers and all that. Not terribly friendly to the variable current from an Eddi.

HotSwap

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120486768#Comment_120486768

You can get a relay board for the eddi that allows you to interface with anything you can dream up. It also allows you to connect 2 temp probes into the eddi. Worth looking into.

or you could use home assistant and trigger things like dehumidifiers via smart Wi-Fi plugs when your system detects export.

mine some bitcoin :) another option.

are you getting paid for export via the deemed export program?

Chris_5339762

Yeah we're finally getting Deemed Export - after a long battle with Energia. So that means we now need to use every single electron that we get moving down the cables.

£45 for that relay board though, I think he's going to build his own. The latest thing he's done is buy some small circuits from China that he hooks onto various batteries to measure the voltage, and when it dips below a certain amount a little light comes on so he knows what needs charging.

Chris_5339762

This has all been going extremely well lately and no updates all all, but things haven't gone so well this weekend.

One of my routers kicked off over the weekend, and I got the abnormal communication error on the FusionSolar app. A message was sent home and there was the obvious instruction to reset the router, which was duly done, but didn't make a difference as it turns out the inverter had connected to my wifi extender, which wasn't reset and had gotten stuck in a loop.

The engineer who was phoned told my dad to go up into the loft and reset the inverter and the batter which he did, but things haven't worked since. The engineer was supposed to visit today, but of course cancelled and now no solar until Monday.

Inverter (Huawei SUN2000-3KTL-L1) has two green lights on the front with the right hand wifi one flashing occasionally. It looks fine. But nothing is working, no voltage seen on either string and we're importing everything from the grid and the battery is not discharging. Everything is showing as connected and running but it looks like the inverter just isn't doing anything.

FusionSolar looks like the attached. Anything quick and easy I can try tomorrow or Sunday before the engineer comes?

upload.jpg