Hi all

How do I increase my battery on-grid charge rate. At this point I am not charging fast enough to handle stage 4 of load shedding. I tried changing modes on this pvmeter but make no difference. I am now on battery backup (UPS) mode.

 

Inverter is a Goodwe GW5048D-ES on 2 x Pylontech 3000C's

 

Jaco

IIRC it only charges to a max of 10A! I may be wrong cannot find any documentation on it.

The good news is that one can now change inverter mode and DoD on/Off grid on the app, remotely! A huge benefit with the load shedding schedules.

Are you referring to that PVmaster app? It is one of the most worse developed apps I have ever seen. 

Edited March 10, 20224 yr by Jaco Kotze

SEMS portal on my mobile....There's a new "Configure " button, allows me to change Mode etc. remotely.

I'm surprised they have not announced it. I emailed them months ago and asked them for it...Never heard from them again and now yesterday it popped up...Just in time for new loadshedding..

 

1 hour ago, FixAMess said:

SEMS portal on my mobile....There's a new "Configure " button, allows me to change Mode etc. remotely.

Please describe the path by which this button may be found. I have been looking at the portal in Chrome on PC and phone and can't find it anywhere. 

It will be a very nice feature to have.

@Jaco Kotze I don't think you can alter the charge rate. You have told the inverter what batteries you have, and it has set all the parameters accordingly. Besides changing the charge rate might void your warranty. (And I know from recent experience that the battery vendor can determine EXACTLY what rate you charged at at what time on what day).

What you can do is use the eco mode to charge the batteries. I use this if there is load shedding and I know the next shed is going to hit us when I have low batteries, or when the weather is bad.

Using PV Master change the mode from General to ECO. Now you can enter a time based rule that will force charge the battery from grid at the time you specify. If you have PV available it will use a combination of PV and grid for choose.

Some caveats:

1. There is a mode for each rule. By default this is set to discharge. Set it to charge.
2. You will have to enter a % of the charge rate. Don't push it too hard at first. Try 70% and give it 3 or 4 hours to charge.
3. You will quickly figure out how long you need to charge for and can adjust accordingly.
4. Depending on the load shedding schedule you may need to be adjusting the rules constantly.
5. Outside of the times specified by the rules the system will run in general mode.
6. Sometimes when you switch back to ECO mode, all your rules get forgotten. This seems to vary with firmware version or version of the app, I don't know which. Just watch out for it at first. Don't assume the rule you set on Thursday will still be there on Sunday if you switched out of Eco mode in between.

That's why Hubble are more useful in such cases. They can charge faster at 1C rate.

14 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

That's why Hubble are more useful in such cases. They can charge faster at 1C rate.

The Goodwe can only charge to a max of 100A, DC BUS,so it does not matter about the "C" rate, and 10A AC- DC...

I think he is trying to charge from AC to DC...Not sure if the Backup mode allows more than 10A from the grid.

11 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

That's why Hubble are more useful in such cases. They can charge faster at 1C rate.

He already has Pylontecs, are you saying he should get Hubble? 😂

@Jaco Kotze Check your AC charge current and change it from the current setting and increase it. Note: do not increase it to 63A as it will trip your power to the house. Mine is set to 50A and my pylons charge slightly quicker from the grid than when the current was on 30A. BTW, even with Hubble's 1C you will not be able to charge the battery at 100A from the grid. Your 63A break will trip   

11 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

That's why Hubble are more useful in such cases. They can charge faster at 1C rate.

He already has Pylontecs, are you saying he should get Hubble? 😂

@Jaco Kotze Check your AC charge current and change it from the current setting and increase it. Note: do not increase it to 63A as it will trip your power to the house. Mine is set to 50A and my pylons charge slightly quicker from the grid than when the current was on 30A. BTW, even with Hubble's 1C you will not be able to charge the battery at 100A from the grid. Your 63A break will trip   

11 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

That's why Hubble are more useful in such cases. They can charge faster at 1C rate.

He already has Pylontecs, are you saying he should get Hubble? 😂

@Jaco Kotze Check your AC charge current and change it from the current setting and increase it. Note: do not increase it to 63A as it will trip your power to the house. Mine is set to 50A and my pylons charge slightly quicker from the grid than when the current was on 30A. BTW, even with Hubble's 1C you will not be able to charge the battery at 100A from the grid. Your 63A break will trip   

Just now, hoohloc said:

Your 63A break will trip   

The one on the AC input side? Do you think he will be charging the battery at 230V? So then 230*100A = 23kW 🤣.

The charge current will always be based at the battery side - that means he will not be drawing nearly 100A from the grid.

5 minutes ago, P1000 said:

The one on the AC input side? Do you think he will be charging the battery at 230V? So then 230*100A = 23kW 🤣.

The charge current will always be based at the battery side - that means he will not be drawing nearly 100A from the grid.

Yes, the one on the AC, he is charging from the grid and not PV. Read his post, and how on earth will you be able to get 100A from the grid without burning your house wiring? that isif the 63A breaker fail

Edited March 10, 20224 yr by hoohloc

2 minutes ago, hoohloc said:

Yes, the one on the AC, he is charging from the grid and not PV. Read his post, and how on earth will you be able to get 100A from the grid without burning your house wiring? that isif the 63A breaker fail

Charging his 48V battery at 100A will not draw 100A at the grid. What are you smoking?

9 minutes ago, hoohloc said:

He already has Pylontecs, are you saying he should get Hubble? 😂

 

Yes! Anytime! Hubbles are superior! 😁

Just now, PowerUser said:

Yes! Anytime! Hubbles are superior! 😁

I disagree. By which metric do you think they are superior?

2 minutes ago, P1000 said:

Charging his 48V battery at 100A will not draw 100A at the grid. What are you smoking?

Again, read the original post and answer what has been asked. Forget about what I'm smoking because I aint going to share. The op asked how he can quickly charge his batteries, increasing the AC charge current will definitely increase the rate of charging as your input power to the inverter will be higher at higher current. School physics will tell you that the input power equals the out put power plus losses. Now if you have 10A x 230v, your input is 2300w, increasing the AC charge current to 30A will give you 30 x 230 =6900W and that is a what will be available for the inverter to use to convert to DC and charge your battery. The OP has Pylons, he needs a solution to his problem, not Hubble or 1C 🤣

2 minutes ago, hoohloc said:

Forget about what I'm smoking because I aint going to share.

That's not nice!

Anyway. Charge current is always at battery voltage - regardless if from PV or grid. If you look at the OP, you will see that the charge current he refers to is at battery voltage of 50,4V.

15 minutes ago, hoohloc said:

Again, read the original post and answer what has been asked. Forget about what I'm smoking because I aint going to share. The op asked how he can quickly charge his batteries, increasing the AC charge current will definitely increase the rate of charging as your input power to the inverter will be higher at higher current. School physics will tell you that the input power equals the out put power plus losses. Now if you have 10A x 230v, your input is 2300w, increasing the AC charge current to 30A will give you 30 x 230 =6900W and that is a what will be available for the inverter to use to convert to DC and charge your battery. The OP has Pylons, he needs a solution to his problem, not Hubble or 1C 🤣

Then as a solution, he will need a SunSynk in addition to the Hubbles. A 5kW SunSynk can charge a 5.5kW Hubble in about 1 hour. Sufficient, even for stage 20 loadshedding 😉

4 hours ago, hoohloc said:

charge current to 30A will

Where is this setting found? I've only ever used General mode....Also what size trip switch do you have on grid input side to the inverter?

10 minutes ago, FixAMess said:

Where is this setting found? I've only ever used General mode....Also what size trip switch do you have on grid input side to the inverter?

Thanks, but where on the settings,  which mode?

5 hours ago, P1000 said:

That's not nice!

Anyway. Charge current is always at battery voltage - regardless if from PV or grid. If you look at the OP, you will see that the charge current he refers to is at battery voltage of 50,4V.

This is the important value as we need to know what goes into the battery. No need to do funny calcs what it is from the grid side.

All inverters show the battery charge.....................

Edited March 10, 20224 yr by Scorp007

11 hours ago, hoohloc said:

That looks like a Growatt manual? OP has a Goodwe... (Perhaps you should read the OP 😛)

1 hour ago, P1000 said:

That looks like a Growatt manual? OP has a Goodwe... (Perhaps you should read the OP 😛)

So! Goodwe doesn't have Utility Charge current setting? I didn't know that, I honestly thought this applies to all inverters. It shows we learn every day and please note that I give advice or comments based on my real life experience working with Growatt. I have no experience with other inverters, so all my references will be based on growatt 😝