Hi there,

My setup is this - 6 panels (Risen) facing east, 6 facing north. Lithium battery pack. Goodwe ES inverter (4600w). Hybrid system. It's been in place for less than 2 weeks, so maybe it's understandable that there are some teething problems.

First, the Goodwe apps don't make much sense to me. Sometimes the simple flow diagram they give you, and the graph don't agree. On Friday this week the graph showed load 1125 W, with 544 being drawn from the panels. But the diagram (pictures) showed 2752 and 1233. Big difference! Which should I believe? (I can't use PV Master or EzManage during the day whilst I'm at work).

Secondly the electronics don't always seems to behave in a way that makes sense to me. Most of thursday afternoon you could see the draw from the PV shadowing the load with little going to the battery. Not coincidentally, I think, the battery gave up the ghost early (4:30) on Saturday morning when it could not meet demand. But the Goodwe just switched to municipal power and never tried to charge the battery until the system was restarted some hours later. 

I am overall happy with the system. It is saving money and significantly reducing our reliance on municipal power. However, I don't feel I can trust it, the information it provides back to me doesn't make sense, and already either it drained the battery or thought it had, and then made no effort to recharge.

Maybe I should have shelled out the extra for a Victron box. Sigh.

Anybody with any tips?

Thanks

Bob

Welcome Bobster.

I cannot comment on anything Goodwe but I have an opinion on Victron.

So maybe it takes a few more months to recoup the original cash outlay as a 3kva kit is not that much more expensive than a Goodwe. 

On 2019/06/16 at 9:22 AM, Bobster said:

Maybe I should have shelled out the extra for a Victron box. Sigh.

Months after my grid tied install I'm still on "plug and forget" level after the initial interesting discoveries of earthing and surge protection plugs causing havoc for my particular unit.

I seldom look at the data anymore as it does what it does when it must as even now in Cpt's winter, 6 in the house, we are still on <600 units per month. The main loads being after sunset / before sunrise.

On 2019/06/16 at 9:22 AM, Bobster said:

the Goodwe apps don't make much sense to me. Sometimes the simple flow diagram they give you, and the graph don't agree

The flow diagram values on the SEMS portal are not really real time values because the inverter upload frequency to the portal is quite slow (not sure how slow).

To get real time values (once a second) you have to use PV Master or EzManage.

On 2019/06/16 at 9:22 AM, Bobster said:

But the Goodwe just switched to municipal power and never tried to charge the battery until the system was restarted some hours later

It depends in which work mode you run the inverter. If it is in the "General" mode it will never charge the batteries using the grid. If you want to use the grid to charge the batteries you have to choose either the "Back up" or "Economical" mode. In the "Back up" mode the inverter keeps the batteries always 100% charged. In the "Economical" mode you can set the time the inverter charges the batteries using the grid if there is insufficient PV power.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. 

I did notice the economical mode. I am running the general mode, but with a setting that says that the battery must not discharge past 50% if there is municipal power. This implies that it can use city power to charge the battery. 

The installer tells me there is a problem with the latest firmware, that it does not properly detect state of charge. I'll discuss a mode change with them. 

 

 

OK... The firmware on the Goodwe has been upgraded (to version 121204) and it now seems to be tracking the battery more accurately. So when I wake up in the morning and look at the SOC line, it has slowly dropped over night, instead of sitting at 95% all night and then going UP to a 100 and something. 

Interestingly, for 2 days before the upgraded I essentially ran a grid tie system, and that bought good savings - about 42% of our power bill.

On 2019/06/17 at 8:01 PM, Bobster said:

I did notice the economical mode. I am running the general mode, but with a setting that says that the battery must not discharge past 50% if there is municipal power. This implies that it can use city power to charge the battery.

The installer says not so. He says when the battery gets to 50% all the solar will go to battery, and City Power will be used to run the house.