Solar PV Monitoring/Automation Thread

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118908730#Comment_118908730

I don't really want the schedule.

Looking for two lines of code I guess (if it works like that)

1. Start charging from the grid now
2. Stop charging from the grid now

I have the older FW with the basic and useless schedules not the daily ones.

Can we force charge/discharge on demand?

Could it be tricked by setting overdischarge SOC to 99% for example when wanting to charge from the grid and then set it back to 15% when you want to use the battery?

reklamos

Try to break it into 2 or 3 blocks. I was running into issues when trying to do large blocks.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118927036#Comment_118927036

You could try setting a 24 hour charge from grid period, and then toggle timed charging using 43110. Haven't tested it though.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118929081#Comment_118929081

What's the write command?

modbus.write_holding_register(
            register_addr=43110, value=1, bitmask=0x2, bitshift=1
        )

When I read I get 0 and then it needs to write 1?

Also do any of these 4xxxx registers allow us to toggle self use on/off? This is handy from charging car from grid without draining battery

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118929648#Comment_118929648

No, you need to read it and then XOR it and then write it. For the moment, read the value of 43110. If it is 33, set it to 35, and vice-versa. Look at 33 and 35 in hex and it will make sense to you then.

Although, I was thinking yesterday that it could be helpful to introduce a pseudo modbus function to do this in one step in pysolarmanv5. I'll see what I can do.

connesha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118929745#Comment_118929745

Yea, that would be great. A "change bit in holding register" utility function would be a really handy addition to the lib

• Read register
• If bit is not what is requested, then XOR bit, and write holding register

Thanks

SD_DRACULA

Well the read:

modbus.read_holding_register_formatted(
            register_addr=43110, quantity=1, bitmask=0x2, bitshift=1
        )

Returns 0, not 33 so not sure it works then? Maybe FW dependent?

Actually I am getting 0 from all the holding registers with the above code but works if I remove the bitmask and bitshift values.

I get 49 from reading register_addr=43110, quantity=1 now

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118929798#Comment_118929798

Thinking about it further, two distinct functions are probably required. One function to set a bits in a register high or low, using AND and OR as masks. The second then to toggle individual bits in a register using a XOR mask.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118929801#Comment_118929801

Clear the bitmask and bitshift and try again.

SD_DRACULA

I get 49 with:

print(
        modbus.read_holding_register_formatted(
            register_addr=43110, quantity=1
        )
    )

mp3guy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118926585#Comment_118926585

Nice, I trimmed some of the fat (got rid of leading/trailing registers not referenced) and now I'm getting stable 6 second polling;

requests:
  - start: 33029
    end:  33095
    mb_functioncode: 0x04
  - start: 33116
    end:  33179
    mb_functioncode: 0x04
  - start: 33206
    end:  33282
    mb_functioncode: 0x04

Read wise most values seem fine bar the odd crazy battery SOC spike:

reklamos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930708#Comment_118930708

Looks like response is not handled properly in the code. It should have some error checking to ignore these and reread the register. I was only getting crazy numbers when was reading modbus directly with 2 modbus masters present hence I had the relay switch to avoid this.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930708#Comment_118930708

Nice work. File a PR with the changes.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930746#Comment_118930746

That is why integrating pysolarmanv5 is on the to-do list. Current implementation is naive.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930066#Comment_118930066

49 XOR 2 = 51

51 XOR 2 = 49

SD_DRACULA

And that means? enabled? disabled?

reklamos

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118930956#Comment_118930956

I never had this problem with pysolarmanv5 it either provides proper value or spits out some garbage and the exception handles that part and I just retry read again. When doing testing I do get that often but I never got an actual value that would be accepted. I think the problem that @mp3guy got is with home_assistant_solarman rather than with pysolarmanv5.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931215#Comment_118931215

Yes, the problem lies in the Solarman HA integration. I am hoping to replace the current V5 processing code with pysolarmanv5 and make it more reliable.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931179#Comment_118931179

For your set up 49 = disabled, 51 = enabled. Look at the binary representation of both and you'll see they differ by one bit, BIT1, which represents grid charging.

bullit_dodger

As a dev myself, I keep an eye on this thread. And I have to applaud your willingness to start poking/peeking about with registers. The last time I did that was on my old VIC-20 circa 1983.

But it does raise with me why they make it so difficult to remote control. Sure, security is important, but if they were serious about supporting the market, they could do it via a server generated API key. Yes, it's "more work" but man .... the stuff you're doing is hard.

Respect.

mp3guy

Has anyone tried modulating the charging current of the battery? I want to use it to prioritize the Eddi first thing.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118940510#Comment_118940510

What are the advantages over just setting a boost on the Eddi from battery, and then the the inverter top up the battery as the morning goes on?

mp3guy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118940823#Comment_118940823

That only works if your battery has energy in the morning when you want to start the boost. If it's empty come 8am, I can only pull grid energy and can't control the current the Eddi uses during a boost. If you modulate the battery charge current, you can ensure the inverter only diverters power to the battery when the Eddi is maxed out at ~3kW.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118941096#Comment_118941096

Okay, I understand the use case a bit better now. I haven't tinkered with the charge current, but I was investigating the possibility of temporarily disabling the battery (effectively turning the hybrid inverter into a string inverter). My Zappi is connected from the meter box and not the consumer unit, so it only runs on true surplus as inverter CT can't see any Zappi loads. It would be helpful on the odd occasion that I might want to charge car before house battery is full.

You could probably achieve same with your Eddi up until generation exceeds 3kW, then re-enable battery and set a boost.

mp3guy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118941192#Comment_118941192

Interesting, any reason your Zappi ended up like that? That introduces a problem where you can't run your Zappi in Eco mode and leverage the battery as a buffer on days where clouds are on/off. I find that quite useful to avoid thrashing on mixed sunny cloudy days.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118941462#Comment_118941462

Zappi is located right next to meter box, so it made wiring considerably easier. I suppose I could extend the inverter CT out to meter box, but it doesn't really cause me a problem. On intermittently cloudy days, I tend to run down battery and let inverter/battery handle any bursty generation.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118941513#Comment_118941513

What about getting a harvi and doing away with the zappi CT altogether?

As for slowing the charge,

You could tell it to charge from grid at 0amps.

I wonder can you change the discharge amps of the inverter, but that could be overidden by the bms.. as you can already set nearly every setting.

Midlakelands

Hi,

I've been using the solarman HA integration for a day or two now and I had an issue with some parameters not showing up with the energy card. Kept on getting a 'last_reset' needed for 3 of the parameters. After reading this thread I changed the three in configuration.yaml as follows

homeassistant:

 customize:

  sensor.solarman_daily_generation:

   state_class: total_increasing

  sensor.solarman_today_battery_discharge:

   state_class: total_increasing

  sensor.solarman_today_battery_charge:

   state_class: total_increasing

Now I can see the energy data (takes an hour or so to show up). BTW did this in HA rather than the original solis_hybrid.yaml just to experiment but I guess the original sensors class could also be updated there instead.

connesha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118941192#Comment_118941192

Would be interested in this too. Have you tried it @mp3guy ?

Was thinking of something similar to prioritise Immersion in the morning. Roughly:

If Battery has some buffer (e.g. > 40% SOC)

Then reduce battery charge current (e.g. to 0A / 20A)

Until immersion has heated a bit (e.g. consumed 2kWh), or EDDI Active Heater is no longer heater1

mp3guy

I already do it with my SolaX inverter, here's the automation:

alias: Hot Water Battery Controller
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: time_pattern
    seconds: /30
condition: []
action:
  - choose:
      - conditions:
          - condition: state
            entity_id: sensor.myenergi_eddi_status
            state: Max temp reached
        sequence:
          - service: automation.turn_off
            data:
              stop_actions: false
            target:
              entity_id: automation.hot_water_battery_controller
          - service: input_number.set_value
            data:
              value: 20
            target:
              entity_id: input_number.solax_battery_charge
      - conditions:
          - condition: not
            conditions:
              - condition: state
                entity_id: sensor.myenergi_eddi_status
                state: Max temp reached
        sequence:
          - service: input_number.set_value
            data_template:
              value: >-
                {{ max(0, ((states("sensor.total_pv_power") | int(0) -
                (states("sensor.myenergi_home_consumption") | int(0) +
                3000)) / (states("sensor.solax_inverter_voltage") | int(0))) |
                int(0)) }}
            target:
              entity_id: input_number.solax_battery_charge
    default: []
mode: single

reklamos

Changing charging current if battery profile is selected is not going to work as BMS overides the setting unless manual battery is used but then BMS does not communicate with inverter. I would no go with disabling battery route. There are couple ways to prioritize other devices instead of battery:

1. Change usage profile from 'self use' to 'feed in priority'. I have not tried it but it should work.
2. Use charging schedule. I tried this for water heating and it works well, also I can control how much I want to feed to water.

I just let nodered to send register changes to mqtt and my code does the rest:

charge_amp": [43141]
start_charge_hour": [43143]
start_charge_minute": [43144]
stop_charge_hour": [43145]
stop_charge_minute": [43146]

First get current time. Change start_charge_hour to current hour and start_charge_minute to current minute. Set stop_charge_hour/minute for how long you want to divert but you can constantly monitor and adjust as required. I poll every 30s and modify based on generation if the sun drops I do not want to start importing. If you want to divert everything from PV to the car/water than set charge_amp to 0. I adjust based on generation or else I would start exporting as water heating element is 3kW. So if generation is 5kW I set charge_amp to 2 and that means 2kW goes to battery and 3kW to house and water.

Maybe someone will find a better solution :)

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118943618#Comment_118943618

I was thinking along the lines of 43114 (battery_charge_and_discharge_enable_setting). Waiting for a sunny day to test.