Export in preference to charging battery?

#1 Timbrettward 2023-09-26

I've read a number of threads in which I think people say they've been able to set their system to export in preference to charging the battery, without actually discharging the battery.

But what I haven't seen, or worked out for myself, is how to do this? What settings to set?

I'm guessing it might be something to do with turning off ECO mode, but the documentation I've found for ECO mode is very vague, and I've found no documentation at all as to what the system does with ECO mode turned off.

I'm using the GivEnergy Local integration in Home Assistant, if that makes any difference.

#2 Vestas 2023-09-26

Set the GivTCP Target SoC to 100% (or whatever suits) on the overview page of HA. That will hold the battery charge at the level you choose & all excess PV energy will be exported.

You can automate that easily enough when you decide what works for you.

Edit - just remember that Target SoC isn't visible in the app or the main settings page on the portal so people get confused about why their battery isn't charging etc. IMHO you should reset Target SoC to 100% when you're outside the tariff time that you want to utilise simply as a sanity check 🙂

#3 Timbrettward 2023-09-26

Sorry, don't understand. What is "GivTCP Target SoC"? - I don't see any such parameter.

#4 Vestas 2023-09-26

Right hand side of the HA overview under the GivTCP <your serial number> Control section. Its a slider a few entries up from the bottom of that section.

#5 geoffreycoan 2023-09-26

Timbrettward Another way of stopping the battery discharging eg to hold the charge through the day to say the flux peak period, is to set the battery discharge rate to zero. You can do this in the GivEnergy app/portal as well as home assistant

#6 Timbrettward 2023-09-27

No, I don't want to stop the battery discharging, I want to stop it charging.

#7 Timbrettward 2023-09-27

And, as I said, I'm using GivEnergy Local, not GivTCP, so I don't have any parameters with "GivTCP" in their name.

#8 TX200 2023-09-27

Timbrettward what system you got ?

AC3 (AC connected)

Hybrid?

AIO (all in one)?

Setting the battery charge rate to 0kW in the portal would stop it charging.

Not sure how that would work with a hybrid though. It would work with an AC3 I believe, but I'm not sure what would happen to a hybrid that is receiving DC solar input - I guess it would invert it and output to AC - to the house and/or the grid, but I've not got a hybrid so can't test that theory.

#9 Phil_H 2023-09-27

TX200 Charge rate to 0 or the new pause charge funtion will cause a hybrid to ignore the battery and send everything to the house/grid up to it's limit

#10 hoggy 2023-09-27

I believe Gen 2 onwards have priority setting buried in the Remote control page (it's certainly in the API anyway)
So you can set Export to Grid as a priority.
{
"id": 265,
"name": "Export Power Priority",
"validation": "Value must be one of: 0, 1, 2 (Load First, Battery First, Grid First)",
"validation_rules": [
"in:0,1,2"
]

#11 Timbrettward 2023-09-27

Setting "Battery Charge Power Limit" does seem to do what I think I might want, thanks. Generated power is then all exported even though the battery is not fully charged.

(It works from the HA overview dashboard, anyway. I'm expecting it will also work from an automation.)

#12 Timbrettward 2023-09-27

... but bizarrely the highest value I can set from HA is 2558 whereas I can set 2661 from the GivEnergy web site ...

Ah well, not worth worrying about I suppose.