Comments on: Solar Battery Storage and Force Charging

By: Alan Cole

Alan Cole — Mon, 06 May 2024 11:18:19 +0000

In reply to Angelo Zervas. In our set up, the Zappi doesn’t take from the battery. It’s the other side of the consumer unit and therefore only sees surplus electricity from the panels/battery that is being sent back to the grid - it mips that up but when force charging doesn’t know the battery is there so only ever takes from the grid.

By: Angelo Zervas

Angelo Zervas — Sun, 05 May 2024 02:24:50 +0000

Hi Alan, great write up. I was wondering if you have found a way to charge your ev at night without draining the house battery. Some people have mentioned putting the battery to force charge to say 1%(even though battery is at say 90% capacity) doing this tricks the system to think its force charging the battery and therefore won’t discharge to ev, or home appliances during the force charge period. I don’t have my ev yet but very interested in how I can ensure I don’t drain my home battery into the car if I have to boost charge( I have a zappi v2.1 charger)

By: hypervolt ev charger

hypervolt ev charger — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 13:37:39 +0000

Solar integration with EV charging is a brilliant idea for sustainability. This blog post offers a personal perspective on combining solar energy and EV charging. The real-world experience shared here is valuable for those considering a similar setup. It’s an inspiring read for eco-conscious individuals.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 08:40:53 +0000

In reply to Alan Cole. Thanks Alan. I've found most of the functions in v4.2.8 of the Solax Cloud ipad app. I'll have a little pay around with the settings and see what I can set up.

By: Alan Cole

Alan Cole — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 19:03:02 +0000

In reply to Graeme Steers.

Hi Graeme, I’ve got some instructions here: https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2022/06/force-charging-with-a-solax-inverter-and-battery/

Does that help?

Alan.

By: Graeme Steers

Graeme Steers — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 17:01:46 +0000

Hi Alan, it sounds like you have a similar PV system to me and I was wondering how to set up the Solax battery and Inverter to do the same “force charge” in the middle of the night and utilise my Octopus Flux tariff? Was this just a user setting you put in yourself or did you have to call in a specialist? What’s the trick?

By: Alan Cole

Alan Cole — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 14:16:57 +0000

In reply to WILLIAM JOHNSON.

Hi William,
I don’t think that’s possible with a Solax Inverter at the momnent, (or many other inverters for that matter). There wouldn’tbe many occasions where doing so would make economic sense as it’s usually better to keep the energy stored in the battery and then use it when your needs are greater than the amount you are generating and electricity prices are high.

Al.

By: WILLIAM JOHNSON

WILLIAM JOHNSON — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 12:26:16 +0000

Hi there can you tell me how to discharge the ull battery into the grid at 3 to 7 pm im with solax and octopus go kind regards william

By: Alan Cole

Alan Cole — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 18:56:15 +0000

I think I’ve ironed out most of the issues in the plug-in I was building to display stats from our solar panels.

I’ll write more about it later in a blog post. But, I’ve addressed the issue caused by fact that the ‘yield’ is measured downstream of the inverter. This means that the ‘yield’ value includes any energy taken from the battery as well as that coming from the solar panels. I want to display just that from the panels. I decided that in the absence of a measurement of this value, I could calculate a close enough approximation.

This will only be an issue when force charging from the grid overnight because this means that some of the energy coming out of the battery will be from the grid, not the solar panels. So, the plug-in now checks to see if the battery is being force charged. If it is, the amount of energy put into the battery by force charging is calculated and it is assumed that as the battery drains it is this energy that is discharged first. So, any power discharged in this manner is deducted from the ‘yield’ so as to give just the yield from the panels.

It’s not perfect and I might tweak the algorithm somewhat over the next few days but it seems pretty accurate so far.

You can see the basics of the solar monitoring page here: https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/solar-generation/

Al.

By: Mum x

Mum x — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 07:20:01 +0000

Glad you’re having fun playing around with numbers lol
Most people would just hope for the best that it’s working as it should be! Before long you’ll have people asking you all about it and the best ways to set up etc just like your garmin .
Hopefully it will save you money in the long run as well as giving you something to ” play around with”