Clipping and " Top Slicing PV", and what the battery modes actually do.

All of this is based on my setup of 7.2kWp PV, HY5.0 Gen2 and 9.5 battery. Inverter firmware is D0.906-A0.906

I found an interesting, and niche useful thing for maximising PV on oversized arrays, that I haven't seen mentioned before. When the battery mode is set to Timed Export, in the "off time" when the battery normally neither charges or discharges, then it will top slice the PV. So if PV exceeds AC limits, it will dump PV to the battery before throttling.

Also worth mentioning that when you have Timed export or Timed discharge, that during the timed period, it will max out the AC output, but it will take PV first. So if you set the Timed Export/Discharge on period during a sunny day, if the PV is high, the battery discharge is small or 0. In fact in the extreme, the battery will charge from excess PV, during the timed Export/Discharge on period.
Timed export / Timed discharge max out the AC output, not the battery discharge. Maxing out the battery is a secondary effect.

Might be useful to others trying to maximise export and PV production. Downside is that the battery will not provide to the house, or necessarily fully fill during the day. However worth thinking about as part of an automation.

Background:
Several posts talk about how to deal with clipping ( where your PV exceeds your inverters max AC output).
As the Hybrids can DC charge the battery then the actual max is the AC limit + the DC Battery charge before the PV is throttled back.
In my case, on a typical sunny day, Eco prioritises filling the battery over export, the battery is full by lunchtime. Then the system clips until 3-4 pm when the sun is lower. Also the inverter on current firmware doesn't seem to handle clipping well, so it is all over the shop in terms of PV even on a cloudless day with the battery full.
I was experimenting with using Home assistant to vary the charge rate on the battery to attempt to top slice, so effectively prioritise grid export over battery fill, and as a consequence of testing it I was trying all the different modes on a day with high and low PV production through the day.

What the battery modes actually do.
There are a lot of posts on here about the different modes and whether they are broken or what they do. As a newbie I found them often contradictory, so I wanted to test for myself. My opinion is that they do exactly what it says on the tin, its just that the label is badly written :-).

Timed export and discharge have two modes once set. The ON period, between start/stop times, and the OFF period for the rest of the day. So once set, they change the behaviour of the Inverter 24/7, as long as they are set. They don't revert to Eco ( arguably Timed Discharge does).

Both Timed Export and Timed Discharge in the ON period will try to max out the AC limit of the inverter using PV then Battery. The AC power is then used by the house, or sent to the grid. So during the ON period I don't see a difference between Timed export/discharge.
During the OFF period, Timed Discharge acts like Eco. Timed Export neither charges or discharges, apart from in the scenario above of over PV production, or if the battery is below minimum SOC.

justpassing Well that's a bit of "outside the box thinking" in terms of testing how the mode behaves given your scenarios. Interesting and well done. 😃

A very niche thing, but putting the battery in idle worked perfrctly today for top slicing. Here its the first "cloudless sky all day" day since I had my system installed.

So I thought I would set up "top slicing" to see if I could maximise the PV production.

Turning off ECO, the battery just sits there outside of any Timed windows, neither charging or discharging as long as all PV can be converted to AC.

Once the AC limit is hit ( for me 5kW ) then the excess PV goes to the battery. So most of the afternoon I was generating a nice smooth curve up from 5kW to 5.8kW, until the battery was full late in the afternoon.

If you want to max out your export, works well.

Of course if clouds come over, and you turn on the kettle, it all comes from the grid, blowing your savings ... hey ho :-)

I've been experimenting with this also, as we get clipping.
When you say battery modes, what do you mean? The modes in the app?
I have found it easier (and I seem to have more granular control) when I use the 'remote control' settings screen, on a browser.

I've been using all possible ways :-). My preferred tool is the givenergy-local integration. It has recently added a few extra controls, that are already in givTCP. Ultimately they are all the same controls accessible through Official Givenergy dashboard/remote control / and Givenergy App.

Once you cut through all the different descriptions and naming conventions, there are actually only two registers that get changed in the inverter, so 4 permutations. (There are also the start/stop times for the timed window)

Battery Power Mode, which is 1 or 0.
[1 is ECO/dynamic discharge, charge with PV in excess of house load, discharge to meet house load],
[ 0 is do nothing, only charge with excess PV above AC limit ]
Enable Discharge which is 1 or 0.
[1 Discharge battery during timed window ]
[ 0 Ignore window ]

So you have 4 options:
Battery Power Mode, Enable Discharge
1,0 ECO
1,1 Timed Discharge
0,1 Timed Export
0,0 Idle ( no specific mode in the Apps )

The behaviour I was describing happens when in Battery Power Mode 0, So Timed Export outside the window and "idle"

Anyone playing with HA, there is some clear discussions of the modes and combinations towards the end of
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/givenergy-solar-inverter

I seem to have different settings available.
I don't use home assistant, just the remote control on the inverter.
There is "Eco mode", "Enable DC discharge", "AC Charge enable", "AC Charge upper limit"
Also "Battery charge power" and "Battery discharger power".
There are also the time windows and a few other settings.

So not sure where "Battery Power Mode" is from - is that a home assistant thing?
Or one of the other libraries?

Cheers,

Zebs

OIC maybe that is in the library in the thread you linked to - I am not using that, but may do in future I guess

Zebsmattz sorry for the information overload.
Turn off eco mode, and don't set anything else.
Or set timed EXPORT, ( outside the start stop times)
Then the battery stops charging from PV, and does not feed the house load.
The inverter will however divert any excess PV to the battery when the inverter hits its AC limit.

As I said, it's not really very useful, as you need to turn eco on again if you want to use he battery, but it does let you export at max, and charge battery with the rest.
A clunkier, but possibly more useful approach is to set Eco and set the max battery charge rate either statically, or by automation to just take the Extra PV.