dual HY3.6 installation questions

I'm in the process of having a dual HY3.6 Gen2 installations done. Each invertor has its own set of 6xPV panels, one 9.5Kw battery its own CT with EM115, the two sets connect at the main consumer unit in the house. I know that GE don't offer a dual HY3.6 solution and they have made my installer nervous. However I've seen multiple posts from users who have/are successfully running just such a rig. The key point seems to be making it look like two seperate installations. So I'm proposing to overrule the installers worries and tell them to go ahead and I'll take responsibility.

However that installation raised a few questions which I'm hoping you knowledgeable folk out there can answer:-

Firstly does this installation get registered on the portal as two separate systems with individual reporting of stats etc. and I would need to aggregate the data from the pair to get a true picture. Or does it get registered as a single system with two inverters and if so does the GE portal do the aggregation and present me with a composite view including both systems?

Secondly my solar system is on the garage roof with the inverters and batteries over there too. The input/outputs are combined and fed over a buried SWA cable from the house consumer unit about 50m away. I don't want to dig up my drive so am opting to use LoRa radios. As there are two CT/EM115 feeds involved I will need two LoRa units. My installer has heard of problems deploying 2 LoRa links in close proximity. I don't see why there should be a problem as the ETSI 428-438Mhz band has three specific channels authorised for use. Ch1=433.175Mhz, Ch2 =433.375Mhz and Ch2 = 433.575Mhz and the LoRa units specified for GE installations use those standard channels and its possible to configure them pretty easily. I assume ETSI has assigned those channels to ensure that there will
be minimal cross channel interference so if I use Ch1 and 2 for my installation (and my neighbour who only has one inverter uses Ch3) it should all work. Have any of you folk done a dual or triple LoRa installation using the latest version of the kit (https://owen-brothers.co.uk/remote-monitoring/obm-lora-223-long-range-wireless-transceiver.html ) and if so any problems?

Thirdly I'm aiming for the Intelligent Octopus supply which fits nicely with what I'm doing. However they might do the charge in the 23.30-05.30 window or might opt for a different time slot (but charge the cheap rate still). If they charge in the usual cheap rate slot then all is well as my batteries will be configured in charge mode and shouldn't discharge to fill the EV so the EV will take charge from the grid. However if they opt for charge outside of the cheap slot I can see my batteries being in discharge mode saying wow ok let avoid grid power and dump our load into the car. How do you suggest I prevent this?

Sorry for such a long post but hope I get some answers from you cognoscenti.

Barry

BarryForde Firstly does this installation get registered on the portal as two separate systems with individual reporting of stats etc. and I would need to aggregate the data from the pair to get a true picture. Or does it get registered as a single system with two inverters and if so does the GE portal do the aggregation and present me with a composite view including both systems?

Givenergy Portal shows one plant with two inverters and you can see the data associated with each inverter separately. The portal mostly works well except that mine only ever shows house load being fed from one inverter. (eg with the PV at full chuff, the EV can be charged at 7.3kW but the portal only ever shows a house load of say 4kW). It feels like the "here and now" data on the portal isn't being added correctly although the app does seem to do better somehow. However, the historical data for yesterday going back is all good for each inverter - it's just the portal display that's off.

BarryForde LoRa installation

Can't help; other than to say that there are people who have had success but also a number who didn't and eventually bit the bullet and installed Cat5/6 cables. Obviously, I don't know the configuration of your property and it sounds like the SWA was already there but if at all feasible, you could run cat5/6 up to several hundred metres round the houses. If you do do that, I'd highly recommend installing at least two cables (one for Modbus for each inverter and another for ethernet to your home LAN for future network connections).

BarryForde How do you suggest I prevent this?

Just set the inverters to ECO mode, then set both for a timed charge (with a Charge to % to suit your needs) to coincide with the EV charge slot. As long as house and EV batteries are all set to charge during the same window, the house batteries should not discharge below the charge to % which you set.

Hi Tim, The problem is that Octopus can set the charge time to fit their wholesale prices so it could shift to any time period and I'd get no warning. So its impossible for me to set the charge time of the batteries and EV to coincide. I guess in general they will go with the 23.30 to 05.30 window in which case no problem. But if they decided tomorrow that they wanted to go with 11.00 onwards I'd have no control. Their model is that they control the EV charge and the car to optimise their costs.
I'm still waiting on the car to arrive (Hyundai Kona 64K on order since feb, expected probably jan 23 now) perhaps once I get my hands on it I can fiddle something. Anyway thanks for answering

BarryForde Their model is that they control the EV charge and the car to optimise their costs

I know that some customers of Octopus set their plant to be controlled by them, so the charge window should shift for both EV and inverters if both are configured. If you wanted control yourself, you would have to implement some form of home automation, which is easy if you're minded but a pain if you're not. Maybe check with Octopus to see whether they can set your Givenergy inverter charge slots as well as the EV. BTW I believe that your inverter charge to % is ignored by the Octopus API which charges to 100% (unless you can change a setting in their portal).

Intelligent provides its own set of challenges that even the Octopus Scheduler can't deal with.
There are 2 routes to success with this:

Home Assistant & the Octopus Intelligent add on - this mimics the app and hence can read when your cheap slots are going to be. It then returns a "true/false" entity for "am i in a cheap power slot right now" which you can then use in further automation with GivTCP to either pause you battery when in a cheap slot or start a charge of the battery.

The inferred way - this is what I use (mainly because I don't use HA) but basically it can be inferred from the EV charger itself. Am I charging right now? Is it after 5PM? Must be an Intelligent cheap slot so pause the battery (&/charge battery)
I do this through the Givenergy API.
Depends what make your charger is as to whether you can get anything useful like that from it.

hoggy Hi Hoggy, thanks for that, very interesting. My car is coming through Motability and they have passed the install contract for an EV to Ohme. I believe that GE are happy with that as its in the compatibility list. At a guess they have things well integrated hence in the list. There is also the other half of the equation which is how do they know what the car state is. You can set a charge to % in the config and its able to read the current state from the car via an API that is able to talk to the cars electronics. Not many cars are controllable yet, they are busy adding more, but the Kona EV is in the list. It will be interesting to see how it all hangs together. Of course I could cough up and replace it with Zappi or GE charger but I rather like the idea of a free charger.

hoggy Sorry Hoggy, some confusing bits in my answer. Firstly the supply of the charger is with Ohme, not the car. And I should have said Octopus is happy with the Ohme not GE!

BarryForde not sure what you mean by the compatibilty list from GE, they werent openly pursuing any EV charger integrations on the last update i had beyond their own (spoiler, its mostly all my own work on these so the list is in fact my list of chargers ive reverse engineered!)
Anyway, i have an Ohme so that makes life easy for you anyway for this kind of thing.

Tim I'd rather not dig in new cables and if the LoRa units work as I'd expect them to I shouldnt need to. What I'm looking for is someone who has actually installed more than one LoRa link who can give me chapter and verse on the actuality!