I’ve recently installed solar and have noticed that every time the work mode changes, the battery has a rapid drain to move down to the relevant setting, e.g. from 21h00 to 00h00 battery is set to 70% and then from 00h00 to 06h00 battery is set to 40% and at 00h00 it has rapid drain from 70% to 40% and then stabilises. This pattern happens every time the battery setting is lower than what current SOC is when shifting to new work mode. Is this normal or is something set incorrectly?

By default, yeah it's normal if there's a load that can consume it that fast.

That said, I'm not sure what inverter you're referring to but if it's a Deye/Sunsynk, you can limit this by specifying a maximum 'Power' value for that lower-percentage timeslot.

I time my first drop to co-incide with the one geyser that we need first-thing in morning before sunrise (the other geyser stays off until sunlight) - so that there's a guaranteed load to dump the energy into; but I limit it to 0.5C (2500W in my case) to go easier on the battery. My understanding is that this also limits solar production to that value; so I wouldn't want to go that low during daylight hours!

Edited August 2, 20233 yr by JayMardern

49 minutes ago, JayMardern said:

By default, yeah it's normal if there's a load that can consume it that fast.

That said, I'm not sure what inverter you're referring to but if it's a Deye/Sunsynk, you can limit this by specifying a maximum 'Power' value for that lower-percentage timeslot.

I time my first drop to co-incide with the one geyser that we need first-thing in morning before sunrise (the other geyser stays off until sunlight) - so that there's a guaranteed load to dump the energy into; but I limit it to 0.5C (2500W in my case) to go easier on the battery. My understanding is that this also limits solar production to that value; so I wouldn't want to go that low during daylight hours!

That’s my concern, average consumption is approx. 500W before the change I’m work mode and then the spike when mode changes for a few minutes and then back to 500W. It’s a Deye 12KW inverter. Images of the spike during these changes of work mode attached 

Also, my consumption according to Solarman is not aligning with daily consumption according to my prepaid meter, which is much higher, but inverter is set to show CT consumption as well so should be aligning?

 

Your average usage for the day is quite high - how many batteries do you have (what is the size of the total bank)? From 9pm-midnight you have some huge spikes above 2kw - can you overlay the battery SOC onto this graph as well

3 minutes ago, iOddJobBob said:

That’s my concern, average consumption is approx. 500W before the change I’m work mode and then the spike when mode changes for a few minutes and then back to 500W. It’s a Deye 12KW inverter. Images of the spike during these changes of work mode attached 

Also, my consumption according to Solarman is not aligning with daily consumption according to my prepaid meter, which is much higher, but inverter is set to show CT consumption as well so should be aligning?

 

If you want to reduce those spikes, you can adjust the third column ('Power') to a value lower than 12kW. Just note that I beleive this reduces maximum solar production as well.

 

For reducing the 8PM one there's no problem with solar (because that's at night), but you might want to split your 6AM-to-11AM up into two rows (say, 6AM-7AM and 7AM-11AM) with the former a lower power value, and the latter left as-is, as not to affect your solar production.

 

This would stretch those spikes out and lower their peaks.

13 minutes ago, mzezman said:

Your average usage for the day is quite high - how many batteries do you have (what is the size of the total bank)? From 9pm-midnight you have some huge spikes above 2kw - can you overlay the battery SOC onto this graph as well

The joys of having a full house 🙈. I’m still trying to work out best geyser settings (2 geysers) for a family of 5 and load-shedding, etc.

I’m still new to all of this so am open to any suggestions to improve the setup and ensure I’m getting maximum use out of the system 

Does this graph help?

1 hour ago, iOddJobBob said:

The joys of having a full house 🙈. I’m still trying to work out best geyser settings (2 geysers) for a family of 5 and load-shedding, etc.

I’m still new to all of this so am open to any suggestions to improve the setup and ensure I’m getting maximum use out of the system 

Does this graph help?

With SOC overlay it looks like everything is working as intended. When Prod > Load battery is charged up and drawn down when Load > Production. 

Your batteries are being hit by the usage which is large so perhaps there is some load management or moving of loads that needs to be done  

How many batteries do you have and what size are they

47 minutes ago, mzezman said:

With SOC overlay it looks like everything is working as intended. When Prod > Load battery is charged up and drawn down when Load > Production. 

Your batteries are being hit by the usage which is large so perhaps there is some load management or moving of loads that needs to be done  

How many batteries do you have and what size are they

The confusing bit for me is the massive drain that correlates with the change in work mode times and then the subsequent stabilisation at much lower consumption. Shouldn’t the discharge be more gradual?

The SOC overlay shows an immediate drop - within minutes - from 55 to 40 at 6am and similarly the drop to 70 at 8pm. If I were to change to time of use to any other time, the same pattern is observed. 
 

I’ve got 2 Hubble 5.5Kw batteries 

Aaaah Hubbles…. See you should have mentioned this earlier 😝. Some of the hubbles DO indeed have a bug where the SOC drops astronomically

1 minute ago, mzezman said:

Aaaah Hubbles…. See you should have mentioned this earlier 😝. Some of the hubbles DO indeed have a bug where the SOC drops astronomically

Damn. Is there a fix or need to be replaced?

58 minutes ago, iOddJobBob said:

Damn. Is there a fix or need to be replaced?

Is it the AM-2s that you have ? There is a firmware patch that can be applied but probably best to get hold of your installer who should be able to either do it for you for initiate the process with Hubble support. My understanding is that it IS fixable. Search for Hubble SOC on the forum and see what other users have been able to do. You could also mitigate it by top-balancing the batteries (letting them sit on 100% for a few hours each week) to realign the SOC

6 minutes ago, mzezman said:

Is it the AM-2s that you have ? There is a firmware patch that can be applied but probably best to get hold of your installer who should be able to either do it for you for initiate the process with Hubble support. My understanding is that it IS fixable. Search for Hubble SOC on the forum and see what other users have been able to do. You could also mitigate it by top-balancing the batteries (letting them sit on 100% for a few hours each week) to realign the SOC

If you look at the graph, the OP doesn’t have the issue with loosing charge. 

33 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

If you look at the graph, the OP doesn’t have the issue with loosing charge. 

Yes those high loads are the problem and nothing to do with AM-2's.

56 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

If you look at the graph, the OP doesn’t have the issue with loosing charge. 

The high loads throughout the day is one issue, but that's manageable (washing machines, geysers, etc.) and fiddling around with best times to run these. The high loads that are spiking as work mode times change is concerning. The SOC overlay shows that there's a dramatic drop to the battery setting for that work mode time, and then stabilisation at much lower consumption. I can only imagine then that the issue is possibly the Hubble bug?

3 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Yes those high loads are the problem and nothing to do with AM-2's.

I retract my AM2 statements then

19 hours ago, iOddJobBob said:

The confusing bit for me is the massive drain that correlates with the change in work mode times and then the subsequent stabilisation at much lower consumption. Shouldn’t the discharge be more gradual?

The SOC overlay shows an immediate drop - within minutes - from 55 to 40 at 6am and similarly the drop to 70 at 8pm. If I were to change to time of use to any other time, the same pattern is observed. 
 

 

It's doing what you've instructed on the Work Mode screen, so basically:

The change in percentage tells the inverter to allow the batteries to discharge to those new percentages at those times. The 'Power' tells it how much power to use - in your case, you're giving the inverter the instruction to allow the batteries to discharge to those lower percentages at the full 12,000W; so that's what it's doing. This is reflected in the graphs. When it gets to the target percentage, it stops and lets grid take over.

 

You could cut the power level down to a smaller figure (as per the suggestion in my previous post - use the third column entitled 'Power') and the change will be more gradual; this is what I do on mine for the same reason. So if you dropped that to 4000 instead of 12000, the spike will be much lower and wider.

 

What others have mentioned is that it's a bit odd that there's enough demand (either essentials-side or non-essentials-side) to sink the full 12kW into at those times; Geysers are indeed suspect number one, but it could be other high-power loads as well.

 

6 hours ago, iOddJobBob said:

The high loads throughout the day is one issue, but that's manageable (washing machines, geysers, etc.) and fiddling around with best times to run these. The high loads that are spiking as work mode times change is concerning. The SOC overlay shows that there's a dramatic drop to the battery setting for that work mode time, and then stabilisation at much lower consumption. I can only imagine then that the issue is possibly the Hubble bug?

To add to what @JayMardern mentioned is to manage the 11kW load that is switched on at 20h00. Perhaps use some kind of timer to stagger it over say 2 hrs. 

Thanks for all the replies, and excuse me if I'm missing the point, but to clarify, there's absolutely nothing that should be pulling that load at those times. The geyser is on a timer and doesn't run at 8pm. Are you saying because the "power" is set to 12,000w, it's going to immediately drain to get to the new percentage?

 

1 minute ago, iOddJobBob said:

Thanks for all the replies, and excuse me if I'm missing the point, but to clarify, there's absolutely nothing that should be pulling that load at those times. The geyser is on a timer and doesn't run at 8pm. Are you saying because the "power" is set to 12,000w, it's going to immediately drain to get to the new percentage?

 

It's going to use up to a maximum of 12,000W to service available loads; the graphs seem to indicate there's a load of that size at those times. If there's lower demand it'll service the lower amount; up to a maximum of 12,000W.

1 minute ago, JayMardern said:

It's going to use up to a maximum of 12,000W to service available loads; the graphs seem to indicate there's a load of that size at those times. If there's lower demand it'll service the lower amount; up to a maximum of 12,000W.

But that's the confusing bit, there is absolutely nothing that should be pulling that load. If I were to change the work mode setting from 20h00 to 21h00, the same pattern would then be observed at 21h00, or any other time for that matter. The minute that a new work mode kicks in to a lower percentage, irrespective of time of day, there's a spike and that's why I'm concerned there's something wrong with the batteries, or my settings.

28 minutes ago, iOddJobBob said:

But that's the confusing bit, there is absolutely nothing that should be pulling that load. If I were to change the work mode setting from 20h00 to 21h00, the same pattern would then be observed at 21h00, or any other time for that matter. The minute that a new work mode kicks in to a lower percentage, irrespective of time of day, there's a spike and that's why I'm concerned there's something wrong with the batteries, or my settings.

Do you think it could be exporting to Grid perhaps? That's a potential unlimited 'load' that would always be available,

 

Can you share a screenshot of the export/zero-export system settings?

 

If it's not that, then this is the part when you contact the installer!

10 minutes ago, JayMardern said:

Do you think it could be exporting to Grid perhaps? That's a potential unlimited 'load' that would always be available,

 

Can you share a screenshot of the export/zero-export system settings?

 

If it's not that, then this is the part when you contact the installer!

Does this help? This was taken two weeks ago and I’ve subsequently changed energy pattern to battery first 

12 minutes ago, iOddJobBob said:

Does this help? This was taken two weeks ago and I’ve subsequently changed energy pattern to battery first 

Yeah that’s the screen, 

To me that actually looks OK assuming the values are unchanged from two weeks ago,

The last possibility that comes to mind: is the CT Coil installed correctly? If its mis-reporting or installed backwards, you might be selling to grid unintentionally,

Can you show us what your inverter home-screens (that indicates the various loads) looks like?

 

1 hour ago, iOddJobBob said:

Thanks for all the replies, and excuse me if I'm missing the point, but to clarify, there's absolutely nothing that should be pulling that load at those times. The geyser is on a timer and doesn't run at 8pm. Are you saying because the "power" is set to 12,000w, it's going to immediately drain to get to the new percentage?

 

No the power cannot be drained if there is no load switched on that can use it. The same thing at other times like 06h and 13h. Those are all high loads. 

Edited August 3, 20233 yr by Scorp007

35 minutes ago, JayMardern said:

Yeah that’s the screen, 

To me that actually looks OK assuming the values are unchanged from two weeks ago,

The last possibility that comes to mind: is the CT Coil installed correctly? If its mis-reporting or installed backwards, you might be selling to grid unintentionally,

Can you show us what your inverter home-screens (that indicates the various loads) looks like?

 

Which one is that? This is grid and load screens. Not sure if this is right?