Solis Hybrid - charge battery using Night rate

jkforde · 08-10-2021 8:33pm #1

I've a Solis hybrid 5G in a DC-coupled system (PylonTech 2.4kW).. and I've just signed up to a D\N meter, so been wondering how (if possible) to configure the inverter so that it charges the battery at specific periods during the night. I know how to get into the Adv settings and the Storage Energy Set > Self Use menu.. latest firmware has multiple time periods available.

jkforde · 10-10-2021 10:57am

since I can't delete my own post 😂, just to say that by reading another recent thread (Solis settings) I see this possible in that Self Use screen,so Happy Daze. getting in the D\N meter on Wednesday so will try it go then.

yankinlk · 12-10-2021 11:15am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118000139#Comment_118000139

Im following your post in the other thread - I might try this. But I am not on Day/Night rate yet. I have the old fashioned spinning wheel meter. Is it worth it for me to chnage over to say/night now or If i do that do i lose out on the (potential) ability to send back to the grid with a Smart Meter?

Also - who did u get to change the meter to day/night?

jkforde · 12-10-2021 9:08pm

I would get them to replace it with D\N meter, the current smart tarrifs are downright cynical and will be until a genuinely innovative player enters our so called 'market'.

ESB Networks replace the meters but the work is scheduled via your electricity provider.

jkforde · 13-10-2021 4:17pm

So I've set the following Self Use settings, will this achieve battery charging from grid between 0400 and 0600 once SOC reaches 15% (Force Charge SOC is set to 15%).

20211013_152158.jpg

20211013_152132.jpg

reklamos · 13-10-2021 4:58pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118014978#Comment_118014978

This will charge battery at 50Amps for 2 hours no matter if SoC is 15% or not.

Force charge SoC is to protect battery from getting low. If battery drops below 15% it will force charge it independent from the schedule be it from grid or from solar.

jkforde · 13-10-2021 6:07pm

ah right, that's what I essentially want anyhow as the battery (2.4kW) will always be at 15% SOC at that time anyhow. thanks!

reklamos · 13-10-2021 7:17pm

If you have a single us2000 battery then I would recommend set charge current to 25Amps as this is 0.5C and it recommended charge/discharge rate by manufacture for us2000. It can handle 50Amps but it is max rate and you should not push it at max. It should be able to charge it to full in 2 hours at 25Amps

jkforde · 13-10-2021 7:35pm

👍👍 spot on, I see that now in its specifications, will lower to 25Amps. this is why boards is such an invaluable resource.

yankinlk · 13-10-2021 7:49pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015786#Comment_118015786

any advice for a Dyness battery? IN the app it says Battery current 40A . Its a 5Kwh (4.8) battery...

reklamos · 13-10-2021 8:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015952#Comment_118015952

4.8kWh would be 100Ah. Taking recommended 0.5C(which from what I've most manufactures recommended). It would mean recommended charge/discharge is 50Amps. I found this manual which confirms it but I do not know if this is the exact battery that you have.

reklamos · 13-10-2021 8:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015870#Comment_118015870

Another recommendation to increase longevity of the battery is not to charge it to 100%. I would say charge it to 80%. To achieve this you can either cut down the Amps or reduce time interval. Monitor the first night and then adjust accordingly. This will also will leave you some room in case we are lucky and have sunny day.

jkforde · 13-10-2021 8:40pm

appreciate it.. yes, I forget it's just like any other Li battery! so I think I'll charge it at 15A for 2hrs and see how I get on. pity we can't vary this via the Solis app (gear is up in the attic). thanks again!

reklamos · 13-10-2021 8:59pm

My all gear is also up in the attic and I have it done. I can control inverter/battery settings from my phone/tablet/PC from anywhere where there's internet connectivity. You can also automate so it makes decision based on specific criteria or the way you want just not with the tools that Solis provides. But all this requires extra hardware, time and will to tinker with things which is not for everyone.

jkforde · 13-10-2021 10:14pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118016305#Comment_118016305

sounds class, do you do consultancy!? 😂🤣

I'd love to be able to set it all up like that, I like a basic bit of automation, (tasker, ifttt etc) but I'm afraid this level of setup is beyond me brains!😁

would be great to get cloud cover forecasting (okta) and feed it into some decision flow, as in whether to charge from night grid or not on previous night..

reklamos · 14-10-2021 5:42pm

I thought I was doing consultancy already in all the threads :) I am happy to help if I can as I do hope that others will do the same. This is what the community is for to share knowledge. I have not tried to pull Okta but I did others and I do not expect this to be any different.

yankinlk · 28-10-2021 4:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118016205#Comment_118016205

How did you get on? I am following your path this evening - just got d/n meter today. I have set charge time to 2 hour window at 50amps atm. (Dyness 5KW battery)

jkforde · 28-10-2021 6:22pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118086294#Comment_118086294

it's working great, charge at 15A from 0600-0800 so when winter time kicks in this weekend, the main morning load will be night rate and then battery before any morning solar topup. am considering adding another 2.4 module to existing 2.4kW but not convinced yet of the payback, but considering where energy costs are going and growing demand for residential batteries...... but one thing for certain, the future CEG tariff would have to be extraordinary for me to give up the D\N meter

SD_DRACULA · 28-10-2021 8:08pm

Mad as hell for going for the ridonculous smart meter instead of d/n 🤬

Bobeagleburger · 28-10-2021 8:32pm

Can you set batteries to charge at night rate, discharge during the day when needed, but also top up charge with solar during the day?

jkforde · 28-10-2021 9:38pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087240#Comment_118087240

yep, how to configure in the inverter will depend on the make of inverter, it's pretty straightforward on a Solis anyhow.

Screenshot_20211024-164323~01.png

yankinlk · 28-10-2021 9:42pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087590#Comment_118087590

i thought we were supposed to not set discharge time... i set mine to the screenshot you put up on post #6 in this thread:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118015172/#Comment_118015172

jkforde · 28-10-2021 9:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087608#Comment_118087608

that screenshot is from the manual's appendix. stick with only setting Charge Time in order to charge from night rate, leave Discharge times blank so that the inverter's default Self Use logic applies for rest of the time.

Bobeagleburger · 28-10-2021 9:52pm

I didn't realise you could both time charge, and also solar charge, while discharging when needed. That's fantastic.

Only getting up to speed on batteries now, thanks mainly to this forum.

yankinlk · 29-10-2021 10:50am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118087608#Comment_118087608

Just an update on how I got on - pretty good i think! I was set to charge as above for 2 hours - but TBH i woke up and checked it after an hour and found it was already at 70% so i dropped the 2 hour window down to 80 minutes total. My battery got to roughly 85% full... and by the time I was awake and firing the first kettle I was back down to 52% - but all driven from my battery and the night rate juice.

Its 10:45am now and the battery is filling back up at 44% since its nice sunny day. Ideally it wont totally fill up - and I wont give any energy back to the grid today - but ill self-consume it all.

I think I will keep a close eye on this and the main adjustment will be moving the charging time to finish just before the night rate ends. That way i get the benefit of night rate to run the house load instead of having it drain battery. I might also lower the amps and shorten the time so that im under 80%.

idc · 29-10-2021 1:01pm

This is more for curiosity about the Solis inverter:

With these charge time periods can they only be set on the actual inverter? or can you set them via web interface and secondly you can only set the rate of charge and duration of charging ?

In comparison my AlphaESS system i set time period of charge (in Winter is set for night rate time period - basically as it makes more sense to use what little i generate from sun or import at night to only be used during day rate) and then i set a percentage SOC value. If the forecast is bad currently set it at 75% but if forecast is likely to be a good clear day then I drop it 50%. this is all configrable on device (menu driven) or on the web/mobile app. It does mean if the battery/sun gets me to say midnight with 30% battery left i don't use that during the night rate period. [ admittedly downside of this is spring/autumn is that if charging ends at 8/9am but PV is fulfilling house load before that time and has excess it gets exported (well to be eddie first) ]

Maybe theres some other settings but it looks like with Solis if you did have say 30% of battery available when night rate kicks in you'd use some of the 30% until you get to minimum setting and at 6/7 (or whatever time you start charging) you fill back up to whatever the rate of charge * time period gives you ? Does that make sense ?

yankinlk · 29-10-2021 1:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089665#Comment_118089665

AFAIK there is no app control of Solis for these settings. I jhave both the old and new Solis Cloud App - and its not remote control - its just Dashboards and historic data.

I only starting using this functionality - so I see it was being pretty simple - set it and forget it. From now on - even the sunniest of days - I will start the day with battery at say 80% from night rate. Then during the morning - before sun really kicks in - the battery will feed the house load. If it turns out its a sunny day - then target running heavier loads at peak - washer, drier, dishwasher, oven/hob. Sun and Battery togetehr will cover those loads (not ALL at once tho). Id like to see the battery at zero (20%) by 11PM... and then the whole thing starts again.

YMMV - everyone is different. Factors that play a part:

House load Required at peak
Size of your system - Inverter/Panels - max output etc
Size of your battery - max output (battery doesnt automagically cover ALL House load!)

In spring id say ill be turning off the charging at some point.

Jonathan · 29-10-2021 1:31pm

I've been hacking around with my Solis Hybrid and wifi stick and have made some progress on accessing the data in real-time using this project.

https://github.com/MichaluxPL/Sofar_LSW3

Port 8899 on the wifi stick is open and you can communicate with it via V5 of the iGEN protocol, which is basically a wrapper around Modbus. Still have a good bit of work to do, but there is a good possibility that you can write to the Modbus registers as well. This would allow automation of charge times etc.

@reklamos had done some automation with an actual RS-485 adapter and a smart relay, but it seems that this isn't required and you can use the stock wifi stick.

Will report back.

EDIT: Details of Solis Modbus registers is here: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/coghlan/Elios4you/RS485_MODBUS-Hybrid-BACoghlan-201811228-1854.pdf

graememk · 29-10-2021 1:36pm

@SD_DRACULA the above post might interest you too! ^^

SD_DRACULA · 29-10-2021 2:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089791#Comment_118089791

Yeah I was able to get modbus to work when connected directly to the inverter logger port (wifi stick not connected) but if you can access it while at the same it is sending data to Solis cloud let me know 😁

Jonathan · 29-10-2021 2:36pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118089943#Comment_118089943

Yeah. Wifi stick connected sending data to Solis Cloud. Can query registers in realtime.

Register: 0x8119 (33049), Value: 0x12c5 (4805) <-- PV String 1 Voltage (DC)
Register: 0x811A (33050), Value: 0x002c (44)   <-- PV String 1 Current (DC)
Register: 0x8122 (33058), Value: 0x0842 (2114) <-- Total Power (DC)
Register: 0x8131 (33073), Value: 0x0920 (2336) <-- Grid Voltage (AC)
Register: 0x8138 (33080), Value: 0x07e4 (2020) <-- Active Power (AC)
Register: 0x813C (33084), Value: 0x07ee (2030) <-- Apparent Power (AC)

Solis Hybrid - charge battery using Night rate

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