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Deye Invertor Modes and Essential and Non Essential Loads Operation

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Hello, I need some clarity and understanding of the modes of the Deye inverter and how these affect the essential and non essential loads. 

1. Time of use Settings: In the evenings, if I setup the time of use to only use battery and not to charge from Grid and there is Eskom... 3 questions,  are the essential and non essential loads supposed to be active in this mode?  2nd Question, if the load consumed by the house is higher than what the battery can supply, does the inverter get the extra from Eskom or is that function blocked unless I tick, "charge from Grid" and the SOC drops lower than a number I setup?, 3rd question: In this "time of use settings", if Eskom drops for whatever reason, then we are in mode noted below, normal UPS mode?

2. Eskom as main feed:  If in the evenings, I decide to use Eskom only so no battery, I assume essentials and non essentials should all work. And in this mode, if Eskom stops, then only essentials will work... This is normal UPS setup If I understand correctly.

 

Hi there. Based on my Deye use,

1.1 essential load only

1.2 the battery will provide power until the percentage typed in for that time frame. If the load exceeds the battery capacity, it will supplement with grid power. Ticking the box means grid will be used to charge the battery if it is below the percentage indicated.

 

1.3 not sure. I understand it as simply using the settings as the preferred operation mode. If eskkm drops, solar does its thing. In the absence of the sun, battery kicks in

 

2. Yes. I understand it like that as well

  • Author

@GTP, Another question, when there is Eskom and your non essential loads are on, does it shows on the inverter "Grid" icon and "home" Icon that is it using power from these circuits? 

  • Author
43 minutes ago, GTP said:

No. I dont see non essential loads on my inverter. Only essential loads.

Example, if the geyser runs on its element, i do not see its draw on the inverter infographics

Oh, so the Solarman KWH monthly usages will only be essentials....eish... Disappointing as I will never know my true usage of my house per month....

 

You could get an idea by checking your daily useage per your utility bill, and subtracting your essential loads value to get a feel for what your non essential load is. There are also fancy meters you can install. I dont have an opinion on these. Never used them. In my household, my 150l geyser with 3kw element was contributing about 7units a day to my bill. Stove and oven would be the balance.

2 hours ago, Solarcrazy said:

Oh, so the Solarman KWH monthly usages will only be essentials....eish... Disappointing as I will never know my true usage of my house per month....

 

You should see non-essentials if the CT is installed correctly.

  • Author
47 minutes ago, Scubadude said:

^^^ What he said

LOL, where is this exactly, My setup is as follows:

 

Meter in the box ---- CT (in DB box).....Cable into my incoming 63A breaker for the house. Is this place incorrectly? 

1 hour ago, Solarcrazy said:

@P1000 On the inverter or the solarman app? If inverter, which indicator on the home screen?

image.png.d48d4ecfa02943aa5016746a349191a2.png

If the CT is correctly installed, the house icon should be the sum of the non-essentials and essentials. Sunsynk has a better display that breaks it down further. For deye you have to go to the "Grid" page (and do a little arithmetic).

image.png.b3118f732b865ec2b1a115e7259d8e4e.png

Edited by P1000

I remember when my system was installed, the guys said thay exdess power from PV could also power non essential. I always wondered how it does this if the inverter isnt seeing the total load. I wonder if my CT clamp isnt in the wrong place. I definitely dont see geyser or stove loads on my inverter so the CT must be on the essential loads cable and not total grid. 

 

I see there are two load cables running into the breaker box. Maybe the other cable is the grid.

 

Edited by GTP

35 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

It should quite easy to spot the CT. It should be on the main incoming power between grid connection and DB. The small arrow pointing to the DB main incomer.

Get the installer to confirm and get it corrected. This point is clearly indicated in the manual and videos.

Issue on mine is the installation is about 20m away from the DB. So in the trunking I can see the CT around 1 of 2 load wires. There are 3 with the one being isolated as the PV load. The other 2 load wires come from the DB. I guess one is essential load and the other is grid. 

Dropped my installer a message to ask about this. 

 

Question (and apologies for hijacking the thread)..

Assuming the CT is correct.. if the total load on the house icon was 500w.. and i entered the Grid page, is it normal to see the CT value showing a positive number and the LD value showing a negative value? 

Example. CT 300w and LD -200w?

8 minutes ago, GTP said:

Issue on mine is the installation is about 20m away from the DB. So in the trunking I can see the CT around 1 of 2 load wires. There are 3 with the one being isolated as the PV load. The other 2 load wires come from the DB. I guess one is essential load and the other is grid. 

Dropped my installer a message to ask about this. 

 

Question (and apologies for hijacking the thread)..

Assuming the CT is correct.. if the total load on the house icon was 500w.. and i entered the Grid page, is it normal to see the CT value showing a positive number and the LD value showing a negative value? 

Example. CT 300w and LD -200w?

If you draw from the grid then you should see that value as positive. If it shows negative the CT is reversed. I doubt that the CT is correct if on any wire between the DB and inverter unless the whole house is on essential. The LD at - 200W I take is the value that should be positive if you have 200W load switched on.

The easy way to check is if the grid=CT shows 300W and you switch on the stove or any large load like the geyser by running hot water the grid value should increase accordingly. The line from inverter to battery will show negative while being charged from grid.

I bit difficult to give exact guidance not knowing how the loads are split etc.

  • Author
29 minutes ago, GTP said:

Issue on mine is the installation is about 20m away from the DB. So in the trunking I can see the CT around 1 of 2 load wires. There are 3 with the one being isolated as the PV load. The other 2 load wires come from the DB. I guess one is essential load and the other is grid. 

Dropped my installer a message to ask about this. 

 

Question (and apologies for hijacking the thread)..

Assuming the CT is correct.. if the total load on the house icon was 500w.. and i entered the Grid page, is it normal to see the CT value showing a positive number and the LD value showing a negative value? 

Example. CT 300w and LD -200w?

@GTPappreciate it.. Also would be good to also know what is the correct method to tap of from the grid to the non essentials.. Maybe that could also be my issue 

  • Author
15 hours ago, GTP said:

I remember when my system was installed, the guys said thay exdess power from PV could also power non essential. I always wondered how it does this if the inverter isnt seeing the total load. I wonder if my CT clamp isnt in the wrong place. I definitely dont see geyser or stove loads on my inverter so the CT must be on the essential loads cable and not total grid. 

 

I see there are two load cables running into the breaker box. Maybe the other cable is the grid.

 

OK so I did a test to see what is actually happening. The geyser is on and you can see the CT is seeing the geyser, however the Load(LD) not showing anything. If I   look at the home screen, the grid icon is showing nothing and so to the hone icon. 

 

IMG_20220615_053712.jpg

4 hours ago, Solarcrazy said:

OK so I did a test to see what is actually happening. The geyser is on and you can see the CT is seeing the geyser, however the Load(LD) not showing anything. If I   look at the home screen, the grid icon is showing nothing and so to the hone icon. 

 

IMG_20220615_053712.jpg

To understand the readings one would need to know what time of day these readings were taken. Was there any PV contribution.

Also why is the CT reading 3219W and grid buy only 275W.

  • Author
2 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

To understand the readings one would need to know what time of day these readings were taken. Was there any PV contribution.

Also why is the CT reading 3219W and grid buy only 275W.

This was early morning, no PV.. This is where my CT is.. On the main incoming breaker from the outside box before it enters my house DB

IMG_20220614_154626.jpg

Mystery solved in my case. My installer confirmed the ct was setup on the essential loads only. Not sure why.. but anyways, they will be coming out to correct it. Thanks for the discussion everyone, i would not have had this sorted if it werent for this thread

2 hours ago, GTP said:

Mystery solved in my case. My installer confirmed the ct was setup on the essential loads only. Not sure why.. but anyways, they will be coming out to correct it. Thanks for the discussion everyone, i would not have had this sorted if it werent for this thread

Good you got to the bottom of it. It always amazes me that the people in the know guess instead of following the installation manual produced by the manufacturer. No wonder we see so many installs not working as things should.

2 hours ago, GTP said:

Mystery solved in my case. My installer confirmed the ct was setup on the essential loads only. Not sure why.. but anyways, they will be coming out to correct it. Thanks for the discussion everyone, i would not have had this sorted if it werent for this thread

Quite a common installation error - it took three or four tries for my guy to get it right.  First he had non-essentials on aux. Then everything was essential. Then essential and non-essential was corect but CT coil in the wrong place.

9 hours ago, Solarcrazy said:

OK so I did a test to see what is actually happening. The geyser is on and you can see the CT is seeing the geyser, however the Load(LD) not showing anything. If I   look at the home screen, the grid icon is showing nothing and so to the hone icon. 

 

IMG_20220615_053712.jpg

My understanding is that LD is Load connected to the inverter. Aka Essential Load.

CT is showing the draw from the grid. This is useful if you have surplus solar power as you can then feed the non-essential load without feeding into the grid. 

5 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

It remains a mystery why the buy Watts from the grid does not match the CT reading????? No PV early in the morning.

No mystery as you are comparing different units.

BUY Today  = 3.2 KWH i.e. Kilo-Watt Hours

CT is measuring power at 3.2 KilloWatt.

One (KWH) encompasses the time dimension, i.e., drawing a 1000 (kilo) Watts for one hour (or 500W for 2 hours, 2000W for 30 minutes, and so on, while the other (KW) is an instantaneous measurement, e.g., 1000 Watts for a second, minute, or however long the power is being drawn by whatever appliance.

And yes you can derive KWH from KW if you measure constantly and then add up all those little peaks and troughs in usage and divide or multiple to convert the measurement time into hours. Area under the graph and all that.

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