Peak Shaving Configuration

Say that I have a system with 8kWp of PV, a favourable export tariff, such as Octopus Flux and a G100 export constraint of 3.68kW. I want to export as much as I can and store any energy which would otherwise be lost through the inverter throttling back in times of high generation.

Eco mode charges the battery with any export, so the opportunity to export in the morning hours is lost and the battery will be fully charged by mid-morning, just when the inverter starts throttling. Alternatively, setting a fixed charge rate for peak generation times is clunky and only works if it's a sunny day.

What I'm looking for is "Using Eco mode, allow export of up to X kW before charging with any excess" and it requires per-cycle inverter control. I cannot see a register in the API to set the allowable export before charging the battery. Am I missing something and is this already on the list of enhancement requests?

I expect you can do this with some home automation but it is the reverse of how it works by default. But with a 8kw pv your system will priotise house first, then battery then export. You want house first, export then battery.

You could lower battery charge speed, but this will not be dynamic.

THALL Yes, something could be done with home automation, but that's a kludge... it's already an inverter function to track per-cycle export power, this would be an offset to the existing threshold.

stevelewis A problem I see here is that if all these odd requirements were implemented in standard software it ends up being more and more difficult to maintain. Furthermore, the settings pages on the portal and app would become even more of a nightmare for the ordinary citizen. There's plenty of posts here to show that many are bewildered by the options now and completely lost when told how to troubleshoot. For anyone who wants to extend function the API and modbus exposure is there for you. Play away and keep everyone else's life simple. Not doing so will eventually push GE support costs through the roof and that will no doubt lead to higher prices (or monthly support fees).

cluelesscris completely agree with your sentiments.

Some things can easily be done using the API (that's why I've written code to do just that and shared freely) and they should be.

However, this isn't one of them. It could be as simple as setting the modbus register 'grid_power_adjust' to a nonzero value, but that's not documented as far as I can tell. It's certainly not exposed on the API.

You can throttle the battery charge rate to potentially delay the point the batteries reach full charge. Automate setting the charge rate using a combination of the battery SOC, solar forecast, current generation.

Arg0t true, but it would be much easier to have an adjustable export threshold, it's a simple offset value in the system.