Hi! We are VERY new to this - had 10 solar panels and a battery installed last week and we're not very techie. We've been watching the input/ output patterns on the app with interest. Can anyone tell me why it is that in the morning, when the panels are generating 324w and feeding both into the house which is using 173w and the battery, we are still drawing 34w from the grid? The battery is at 4%.
Sarabuzz just to clarify, the grid is feeding into the battery.
Sarabuzz I wouldn't worry about tiny little amounts like those, think of it like the grid/inverter/battery are chatting to each other. As you have very small flucuations in demand/generation this chit chat is normal. It should only add up to extremely small amounts of energy each day.
It is also only a snapshot in time that the portal/app has taken a picture of at that exact moment. It may well be if it took it 2 seconds later that you would be drawing absolutely nothing.
If it starts getting into the hundreds of Watts I would be more concerned. Probably best to look at your totals for the day and see what thats like.
Ra Thank you! As I say, very new to this game so that reassurance is helpful.
Nothing you see will be 100% correct. It's the nature of the devices, process and sensors and reporting in these systems that can skew data and even present completly misleading views if you are not aware of the limitations.
For most purposes you can ignore small values - the margin of error and the method of measurement means that you can see, for example, PV generation at night of a few watts whichis obviously incorrect.
At all times you only seeing a snap shot on the flows diargram. On the app, if you are connected locally, this might be a 10 second snapshot. But if you look at the portal it is only updated every 10 minutes. So in that case what you are seeing could be as much as 10 minutes old.
The inverter's reaction to changing load and generation is not instantaneous. The sun comes out PV jumps and the inverter sees it and ramps up channelling power to the battery. But this takes a few seconds. Equally, you put th kettle on and load jumps 4kw - the inverter sees it and ramps up discharge from the battery - a few sconds again. If the portal data is taken just as you put that kettle on but before the inverter dumps form the battery - the flows you see will suggest you are using 4kw from the grid and nothing from the battery. In fact your kettle will be bing powered from the battery.
You will need to rely more on historic totals to satisfy yourself everything is working properly. The only truely accurate measurement you should believe 100% is your smart meter and your monthly bills.
That's not to say it all rubbish. Just that you should be aware of the limitations and after a while you will be able to use your own 'fuzzy' logic and experience to understand what is actually happening with your system.
We've all been there! It's a little disconcerting at first but you get used to it.
Hi there.
The readings you're seeing on the app will be a snapshot at either a 10 second interval or a 5 minute interval depending on whether you are connected to 'Home' (local) or 'Away' (server).
Because the readings are taken at a point in time and are read via a CT clamp to work out how much and in which direction power is flowing there will be small discrepancies in how the numbers look. This is totally normal. The readings your energy provider take from your energy meter is king so you'll be billed accurately.
Because you've only just had your system installed at this time of year you'll be seeing very low amounts of solar generation compared to the longer and brighter days that will come in the spring and summer. In the summer expect regular 3240w rather than the 324w you're seeing now. Look forward to that!
The battery will bottom out at 4%. That is effectively zero. 100% (for when it gets there) is 100% usable.
Hope this helps get you started. No doubt others will reply in with more wisdom and advice.
Make sure that it is in Eco mode (In the My Inverter>Settings) Slide the slider to "Enable" and hit submit. make sure that you see the green pop-up that shows that the inverter has applied the setting. This will tell the system to power the house as much as possible with any available solar generation (not much at this time of year). Any solar excess will charge the battery. If there's no solar generation, then the battery will try and power the house.
Do you have a Time of Use energy tariff that offers cheaper electricity at a certain time of day? If so, then you can tell the system to charge the battery in those times. Go into My Inverter>Settings.Timed Charge and set the times for the chaep period. Set the slider to the battery State of Charge setting that you want to exit the cheap period with. The system will then charge at cheap rates and then try to power the house with the battery (and any solar generation) from then on. This allows you to "time-shift" and extend your cheap rate energy to power the house during peak rate.
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why do i keep seeing the same post from magician on different threads? do i need to clear my cache? and how does one do that?
positor1 He's spamming for octopus referrals.
judgepd oh thats a shame, i find this site very useful and interesting but that is becoming a little annoying.
thank you for the clarification.