I have recently installed an 8kW Deye hybrid inverter with ~6kW of panels and 2 3000C Pylontech batteries. It is grid-tied to Eskom - no generator.

Now it's installed, when the sun goes down, I would expect that the Eskom supply would take over the house load supply. Instead, it is using battery power through the inverter at night, which is not ideal if loadshedding starts after one has used ovens/dishwasher etc in the evening, which will drop the battery levels.

I cannot find a set of options in the inverter setup to allow a sequence of solar, grid, battery i.e. so the battery would only kick in last like during load shedding.

I've read the Deye instructions, Googled sites and watched YouTube vidoes but I can't find a way to set it up for this solar, grid, battery sequence.

So my questions to this forum are:

1) Is it normal/standard that the batteries will always be used (at least initially) for power to the house when solar is not available, at least until the batteries fall below a certain level?

2) If it is not standard, then how does one set the Deye inverter so it has a power sequence policy of solar, grid, battery?

Many thanks

Not sure how it is set upon Debye, on Sunsynk, you just un-tick ‘ use timer’ and it will act like a ups

The oven should never get battery power - if it does you may wan to rethink your essential /non-essential split.

If you dont want to use the battery at all untick "Time Of Use" box. But that would be a terrible waste of good batteries (and robs you of 4-5kWh of solar production per day). I have Time of Use on (and Grid Charge off), with Batt% that ramps up to 80% during the day and ramps down to 20% during the night.  This is the minimum level to which the system will charge the batteries to in that time slot, and at night the minimum it will allow the batteries to drop to (while Eskom is on). If there is a threat of load shedding I bump the night time % to around 40%.  Keeping it there permanently is being paranoid. 

The above partially answers your question about priority.  The 1st priority power of the system is always the PV power, then 2nd and 3rd priority power will be the battery or grid according to the settngs. The last power backup will be the Generator if it is available. That 2nd and 3rd priority is set here:

 

 

Edited December 15, 20213 yr by Scubadude

On 2021/12/15 at 9:50 PM, Scubadude said:

The oven should never get battery power - if it does you may wan to rethink your essential /non-essential split.

If you dont want to use the battery at all untick "Time Of Use" box. But that would be a terrible waste of good batteries (and robs you of 4-5kWh of solar production per day). I have Time of Use on (and Grid Charge off), with Batt% that ramps up to 80% during the day and ramps down to 20% during the night.  This is the minimum level to which the system will charge the batteries to in that time slot, and at night the minimum it will allow the batteries to drop to (while Eskom is on). If there is a threat of load shedding I bump the night time % to around 40%.  Keeping it there permanently is being paranoid. 

The above partially answers your question about priority.  The 1st priority power of the system is always the PV power, then 2nd and 3rd priority power will be the battery or grid according to the settngs. The last power backup will be the Generator if it is available. That 2nd and 3rd priority is set here:

 

 

"The oven should never get battery power" ~ not all are equal, ie. not everyone has the same goals, some users are completely off-grid.

I took the plunge and shoved the middle finger up Es(d)om's nether-regions (around a year ago) ... I have since not spent 1c on electricity generation (regardless of cloudy, non-cloudy, etc.).

There are quite a few people on the forum who also runs their entire house from inverters, solar and batteries.

I sometimes peak around 6kW in the evenings, if your bank is large enough then the 2kW you draw for the oven is a breeze (as the load is shared amongst your bank).

With loadshedding now at stage 6 and possibly 7 plus with all the rain in Johannesburg. Charging the battery via solar first is become an issue.  Any suggestion on how best to solve for charging the batteries ?

 

I was wondering if there is a way of temporary charging the batteries via the grid while I’m not generating any solar with the rain and while not loadshedding 

On 2021/12/15 at 6:21 PM, cliffco said:

Instead, it is using battery power through the inverter at night, which is not ideal if loadshedding starts after one has used ovens/dishwasher etc in the evening, which will drop the battery levels.

Move as much of that activity as possible to the daylight hours when the battery has a chance of recovering. 

Also, bite the bullet & RTFM. See if your dishwasher (for EG) has an economy mode that will use less power. EG mine has a mode that takes 3 hours, but uses (claimed) 0.9 kwh. We have an even lighter load for dishes that go off the table and straight into the washer. 

And run it during the day. Run the pool pump during the day. Try to do the water heating during the day. 

It is default behaviour for most hybrid systems to use the batteries once PV has faded. You can mitigate this with settings. EG on my system (not a Deye) I have a setting such that when there is grid, the battery will not discharge past 40% remaining SOC. So I always have that margin at a minimum when the grid goes down. 

You can also mitigate by changing your behaviour. 

There is much talk on this forum about the "solar life", which really means changing your routines to make the best use of your system, and also understanding it's limits and how to not stretch those. 

57 minutes ago, MAS said:

I was wondering if there is a way of temporary charging the batteries via the grid while I’m not generating any solar with the rain and while not loadshedding 

I do that. I can only give you instructions if you have a Goodwe ES like mine, but I'd be surprised if other modern hybrid inverters don't have a way to do this. 

So, to get things rolling, what inverter and batteries do you have?

I Have a Deye inverter . 8k. Running on 2 x A48100 Dyness batteries

1 hour ago, MAS said:

I was wondering if there is a way of temporary charging the batteries via the grid while I’m not generating any solar with the rain and while not loadshedding 

11 minutes ago, MAS said:

I Have a Deye inverter . 8k. Running on 2 x A48100 Dyness batteries

Normally you could use the time-of-use settings on the System Work Mode Page.

Tick Time of Use, choose some time slot in the day where you are expecting the solar power to have been active. And set a minimum desired battery percentage. Say for argument's sake if solar has not charged your battery to say 60-70% at mid-day, you can let it charge to  from grid instead as a backup. Any additional solar will will come on top after that.

And maybe set a time slot to charge to 100% between 3-5pm or thereabouts to prepare for the evening.

It makes sense to choose your time slots across two uneven hours, eg from 11:00 to 13:00, because loadshedding schedules normally start and end on even-numbered hours.

Hope this helps. No idea how this affects your cycle count though.

 

Ok thanks . Yep do have time of use settings . Might want to adjust your you suggest . With the rain + loadshedding schedule almost impossible to predict a schedule that will hold 🤦🏽. 
 

here is my settings for now .  Just enabled grid charge for today due to the rain and loadshedding etc. @ 05:00 - 09;00 & 0900 : 13:00

 

let me know any suggestions 

7 minutes ago, MAS said:

With the rain + loadshedding schedule almost impossible to predict a schedule that will hold 🤦🏽. 

That is why in my view something like SolarAssistant is an absolutely great investment - so that you can make changes to your settings from anywhere anytime

So been trying to fiddle with the settings. To get to a decent trade-off in terms of charging the battery with grid vs solar . 
 

challenge is weather is still not optimal to generate enough during the day to charge battery to 100 % SOC. 

Any recommendation for what sort of SOC should I try an maintain . I.e during the evening when I want to use battery and not grid. 
 

so question

1. Is there a recommended SOX that you should maintain as a minimum I.e 20 or 40 etc.  I have 2 x 4.8 dyness a48100 batteries

 

2. currently lowest I go is 40 but what should I maintain for during the day peak and off peak load times etc