2 minutes ago, Tariq said:

it has nothing to do with available excess solar power, will try it today to see how it works

Ok great, thanks. So automations and home assistant seem the way to go to manage excess solar

7 minutes ago, Robbo said:

Thanks @phidz so in the above scenario the smart load would drain the battery to the set percentage, then turn off and battery would charge up again. Then smart load would turn on again and drain the battery down again. Not ideal

yes, that's what i have noticed but it only runs down the battery if the smart load is greater than pv power. 

5 minutes ago, phidz said:

it only runs down the battery if the smart load is greater than pv power

Ok so that would suggest then the solar "passes through" the battery for lack of a better word? and doesnt just drain it directly. That would be a better scenario

4 minutes ago, Robbo said:

Ok so that would suggest then the solar "passes through" the battery for lack of a better word? and doesnt just drain it directly. That would be a better scenario

The battery just supplements the solar until the SOC drops below the set range. I don't see how power would pass through a battery, from my understanding the battery is either charging or discharging, (the battery has no input and output). So when smart load is on, it will drain the battery until the set SOC (if PV power gets below the set value in the AUX Load menu) and then switches off Smart Load. 

This is how i have seen it working and that's my understanding of the Smart Load

1 hour ago, phidz said:

So when smart load is on, it will drain the battery until the set SOC (if PV power gets below the set value in the AUX Load menu) and then switches off Smart Load. 

Thanks for explaining your experience, it helps a lot. Its not really what is explained in the video from the 2min mark but its the end result that matters I guess.

 

To summarise, as long as excess solar is available it wont drain your batteries, after that it will use battery but only down to a set percentage. However there is no check that there is excess solar capacity so may just go straight to using battery and hence keeping those percentages high for on and off makes sense.

7 minutes ago, Robbo said:

Thanks for explaining your experience, it helps a lot. Its not really what is explained in the video from the 2min mark but its the end result that matters I guess.

So I watched the video again and you are right, he mentions that it uses battery not solar which is very confusing to me.

 

10 minutes ago, Robbo said:

To summarise, as long as excess solar is available it wont drain your batteries, after that it will use battery but only down to a set percentage. However there is no check that there is excess solar capacity so may just go straight to using battery and hence keeping those percentages high for on and off makes sense.

This is what I have seen in the month or so of using the Smart Load. 

I guess my biggest confusion is the battery pass through part which I think is not possible. 

I have checked the scenario where the Smart Load is less than PV power. From the picture the battery is being charged at the same time

35 minutes ago, phidz said:

I have checked the scenario where the Smart Load is less than PV power. From the picture the battery is being charged at the same time

Can you post a pic of the system flow screen while it's doing this. 

4 hours ago, Achmat said:

Can you post a pic of the system flow screen while it's doing this. 

Will do tomorrow when the sun is up

Hi 

I have a Sunsynk 8kw Inverter with 10,920w of solar panels

I set up a flow in Node Red to manage this exact requirement in my home. 

I installed Sonoff compatible/Ewelink Smart  Breakers which have power monitoring as well. 

Home Assistant manages all the devices and I used the Node Red flows created by @Bloubul7 to access the solar data from my inverter.

The Node Red flow checks the time, at 09:00 it checks how much solar power is being produced, if production is more than 3000W, it checks the battery SOC and if that is more than 40% I switch my first geyser on. 60 Seconds later check how much power it is drawing, if it is drawing more than 100w, I wait another minute and check again, it keeps on doing this till the thermostat on the geyser kicks out and the load drops to 0. It then turns the sonoff switch off and cycles to the next geyser. 

Node red cycles through all my loads 1 by one and then sends me a Whatsapp at the end to tell me it is completed. 

I then have a timer set on the Sonoffs in the afternoon as a failsafe to switch the geysers on in case there is a problem with Home assistant for some reason.

  

The had two issues with using the inverter to do the Smart loading - none-essential circuit.  I would have to cycle through the loads using the Sonoff's as I wasn't able to have them all connected at the same time, my total load is 13kw. I also have a seperate DB at my stables that has essential and non-essential items on it that I couldn't seperate unless I ran another cable down there.

2 hours ago, Sc00bs said:

checks how much solar power is being produced

Thanks @Sc00bs, I have been reading your own thread and the @Bloubul7one and now itching to get started on my own HA.

Just a question for clarity, is there an output value that you get directly over MQTT that states "excess solar"? So the inverter knows what the potential production is and that it isn't being utilised by battery charging and current loads? Or is it more nuanced than that?

On 2021/06/24 at 12:44 PM, Achmat said:

Can you post a pic of the system flow screen while it's doing this. 

There you go.

@phidz, the problem I seem to have is that if smart load switches off due to battery soc falling below the cutoff or pv drops below the load specified on the AUX screen, Smart Load will NOT switch on AGAIN during the same day, even if both conditions are restored, it will only switch on the next day

Edited June 25, 20215 yr by Tariq

2 minutes ago, Tariq said:

@phidz, the problem I seem to have is that if smart load switches off due to battery soc falling below the cutoff or pv drops below the load specified on the AUX screen, Smart Load will NOT switch on AGAIN during the same day, even if both conditions are restored, it will only switch on the next day

I used to have that issue, i would just turn on the kettle for a minute and the smart load would kick in again. 

is the kettle on Smart Load, essential or non-essential ?

4 minutes ago, Tariq said:

is the kettle on Smart Load, essential or non-essential ?

It's on essential

On 2021/06/25 at 12:30 PM, Robbo said:

Thanks @Sc00bs, I have been reading your own thread and the @Bloubul7one and now itching to get started on my own HA.

Just a question for clarity, is there an output value that you get directly over MQTT that states "excess solar"? So the inverter knows what the potential production is and that it isn't being utilised by battery charging and current loads? Or is it more nuanced than that?

My understanding is that as long as you battery isn't fully charged, you should be pulling maximum possible power from the panels as the inverter will direct any excess power it has into charging the batteries. It is only when the batteries are fully charged and it can't feed back into the grid that it will start throttling the panels production

I have Deye 5K and decided to put my 3K geyser on GEN/AUX port

What is interesting is that I do not have a battery (yet), i unticked the "On grid always on" button.

Yesterday it automatically switched on the geyser after 60 seconds - the "W", "HZ", "ON" and "OFF" buttons are greyed out (presumably cause I don't have a battery).  Trying to figure out why it wouldn't turn on today - cause the usage in the home was only about 0.3W and it had about 1500W from PV for more than an hour and it wouldn't turn on.

 

Any ideas?

On 2021/06/25 at 9:42 AM, Sc00bs said:

The had two issues with using the inverter to do the Smart loading - none-essential circuit.  I would have to cycle through the loads using the Sonoff's as I wasn't able to have them all connected at the same time, my total load is 13kw. I also have a seperate DB at my stables that has essential and non-essential items on it that I couldn't seperate unless I ran another cable down there.

Hi Sc00bs

 

Thanks for your information, maybe i missed this. But how do you have your loads connected?

What is connected to non-essential/grid and what is connected to essential loads?

I understand you turn things on and off on a schedule, just want to know how you have wired all your loads.

Thanks

Hi Jonathan

All my loads go through the essential load side of the inverter.

I am unable to split a number of my essential and non-essential loads as quite a few of them run on a separate sub-db and unless I was going to run a second power cable to the sub-db there was no way I was going to get it to work, I elected to use smart switches to manage the load. 

Also, my wife does not consider hot water non-essential so it has to switch the geyser on no matter what the weather is 🙂 

Basically all my large loads go through smart switches, you can either use the breaker switch type 

https://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/556718321/1P_63A_eWelink_Single_Phase_Din_Rail_WIFI_Smart_Switch_Energy_Meter_Leakage_Protection_Remote_Read_K.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwkYGVBhArEiwA4sZLuD2sTK5StP9VL2GIEfCrJgoRWAUX4hv3qgmO14neYPwyEZ8Q-O9etxoCfBYQAvD_BwE 

or the regular switch isolator switch replacement type

https://www.builders.co.za/Electrical/Plugs%2C-Sockets-%26-Switches/Smart-Electrical/CBI-ASTUTE-SMART-ISOLATOR/p/000000000000751913 

 

The first ones run on the Ewelink platform and the second on the Tuya platform, both of them have seperate plug in's for Home Assistant which allow you to control them from there or you can just use the app on your phone.  

 

20 hours ago, Sc00bs said:

Hi Jonathan

All my loads go through the essential load side of the inverter.

I am unable to split a number of my essential and non-essential loads as quite a few of them run on a separate sub-db and unless I was going to run a second power cable to the sub-db there was no way I was going to get it to work, I elected to use smart switches to manage the load. 

Also, my wife does not consider hot water non-essential so it has to switch the geyser on no matter what the weather is 🙂 

Basically all my large loads go through smart switches, you can either use the breaker switch type 

https://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/556718321/1P_63A_eWelink_Single_Phase_Din_Rail_WIFI_Smart_Switch_Energy_Meter_Leakage_Protection_Remote_Read_K.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwkYGVBhArEiwA4sZLuD2sTK5StP9VL2GIEfCrJgoRWAUX4hv3qgmO14neYPwyEZ8Q-O9etxoCfBYQAvD_BwE 

or the regular switch isolator switch replacement type

https://www.builders.co.za/Electrical/Plugs%2C-Sockets-%26-Switches/Smart-Electrical/CBI-ASTUTE-SMART-ISOLATOR/p/000000000000751913 

 

The first ones run on the Ewelink platform and the second on the Tuya platform, both of them have seperate plug in's for Home Assistant which allow you to control them from there or you can just use the app on your phone.  

 

Thank you so much for this.

 

So, I'm building a new house and i am able to have two separate DB's for non and essential loads.

My concern is if i have only essential DB, if my geyser is heating up and then my wife runs the dishwasher and maybe the washing machine, it might peak the 5kw.

So my thoughts are to put everything on essential except the pool, dishwasher and washing machine. And these should hopefully receive excess power from PV if available?

And then use smart switches on the essential side of things to schedule.

Another question, do you have SPD's on both sides of your inverter, grid and load. If so, what units do you use? They are pricey!!!

I think it might be cheaper to make up my own DB with this stuff in it.

Thanks for all the info, you guys have been a great help.

 

Regards

 

On 2021/06/25 at 9:35 AM, Sc00bs said:

Hi 

I have a Sunsynk 8kw Inverter with 10,920w of solar panels

I set up a flow in Node Red to manage this exact requirement in my home. 

I installed Sonoff compatible/Ewelink Smart  Breakers which have power monitoring as well. 

Home Assistant manages all the devices and I used the Node Red flows created by @Bloubul7 to access the solar data from my inverter.

The Node Red flow checks the time, at 09:00 it checks how much solar power is being produced, if production is more than 3000W, it checks the battery SOC and if that is more than 40% I switch my first geyser on. 60 Seconds later check how much power it is drawing, if it is drawing more than 100w, I wait another minute and check again, it keeps on doing this till the thermostat on the geyser kicks out and the load drops to 0. It then turns the sonoff switch off and cycles to the next geyser. 

Node red cycles through all my loads 1 by one and then sends me a Whatsapp at the end to tell me it is completed. 

I then have a timer set on the Sonoffs in the afternoon as a failsafe to switch the geysers on in case there is a problem with Home assistant for some reason.

  

Hi @Sc00bs

Are you able to export this flow and share it with me please?

Thanks Brett 

Hi @McAllstar

I decided for simplicity to stop using the geyser automation flow and just to use the smart switch timers to switch the geysers on/off as there seemed no reason to optimise the whole thing as I usually have more than enough power to run everything and isn't an option for the geysers to not switch on. 

The only thing that I am still using is the automation for the swimming pool pump to only switch it on when there is sufficient production forecast.  

I have attached the flows for you to have a look at. 

Good luck 🙂 

flows (12).json

3 minutes ago, Sc00bs said:

Hi @McAllstar

I decided for simplicity to stop using the geyser automation flow and just to use the smart switch timers to switch the geysers on/off as there seemed no reason to optimise the whole thing as I usually have more than enough power to run everything and isn't an option for the geysers to not switch on. 

The only thing that I am still using is the automation for the swimming pool pump to only switch it on when there is sufficient production forecast.  

I have attached the flows for you to have a look at. 

Good luck 🙂 

flows (12).json 16.05 kB · 0 downloads

thanks a mil, appreciate it. I'll take a look and modify what i want to use etc.