Force Charging with a Solax Inverter and Battery
I’ve had someone ask how to set things up so that their Solax Battery will force charge from cheap rate electricity overnight. So, rather than just reply to their question I thought I’d post a quick instructional blog post here with step by step instructions.
The Solax App
So, we generally do this using the Solax app on our phones as this is easier than doing it on the inverter itself and it can be done remotely from anywhere with internet access too. Handy if we are away and realise that we need to change some settings (usually that’s if its sunny and we forgot to turn Force charging off!)
Step by Step instructions
1. Login to your app. Here you can see the current status of your system and where the energy is flowing In this case the panels are generating 1491W, the battery is at 18% charge but is receiving 1013W of power so is being charged up from the solar panels. The house is using 430W. The 6w coming from the grid can pretty much be ignored, it’s just that sometimes there is a small surplus or deficit in the system that has to come from or go somewhere.
2. Click on the Inverter button shown at the bottom of the screen This takes you to some info about the inverter itself.
3. Click on the little gear icon at the top of the screen. This takes you to the inverter settings page.
4. Click on the Basic Settings option. This take you to a screen where you can adjust some settings.
5. Click on the Work Mode option. This brings up a drop-down menu where you can select between the following work modes: Self Use, Force Time Use, Backup Mode, Feed-in Priority. I’ll briefly explain these.
- Self Use will charge the battery when there is excess solar and then you’ll use the energy stored in the battery to power the demands of the house when there isn’t enough solar power to do so. If there isn’t enough solar power and the battery has drained to 10% then you’ll use power from the grid. This is the mode we have set most of the time in the summer.
- Force Time Use allows you to set up some parameters that will charge the battery from the grid at certain times of the day. You can set the times of the day and the amount you want to charge. More on this in a minute. This is the mode we have on during the winter.
- Backup Mode means that the battery will be charged from excess solar and will charge according to a schedule from the grid but will never discharge while the grid is live. This is so that the battery can act as a backup supply should there be a power cut. It’s unlikely that you’ll be using this option in the UK.
- Feed-in Priority allows you to send excess solar power to the grid rather than the battery – worthwhile if you have an export tarrif that pays more than the import costs but otherwise it seems more economical to charge the battery first.
6. After Selecting Force Time Use you have to click the Save button. This will then bring up more options that allow you to set the times you want to force charge. You can select two different times if you wish. We just have a single Force Charge window that schedules a charge between 1:55am and 8:30am which currently corresponds to our Economy 7 off-peak rate window.
7. First ‘Enable’ the Charge from Grid option
8. Set the start and end times of the charge (as we only have a single period of charging we have set the same times in both charge period 1 and charge period 2).
9. Set the Max Capacity that you would like to charge the battery to. At the moment we have this set to 40% which means should we wish to force charge a little when we are expecting a dull summer day we can do so. In the winter we would have this set to 100% so as to make the most of shifting to cheap rate electricity.
It’s all fairly straight forward once you know how to do it and it is easy to turn on or off force charging or to adjust the settings whenever and wherever you want via the Solax App. You can do all of this via the inverter itself and the menus are pretty much the same, but it’s easier to navigate via the app.
135 Responses
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Very useful. Thank you.
Now to find out how to get my historic Solax data.
I don’t think you can access historic data via the API.
I access data from the API every few minutes and then insert that data into a MySQL database. This allows it to be stored for later use and therefore gives me historic data.
I don’t store every data point, just a single fow for each day that contains the following columns:
This row is updated every few minutes with the latests dat from the Solax API and a new row created at the beginning of each day. This keeps the database relatively small with just a single entry each day but keep the data refreshed and provides me with the historic data that I need / want.
Here’s some more info on the plugin I built to display this data: https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2021/11/building-a-solax-wordpress-plugin/
And some on how I display this on ipads at home: https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2022/04/home-info-panel/
Al.
Hi Alan. Thank you very much for the info on the histroic data. I have been taking a look and am close to replicating.
One more question. Is your inverter an X-1 hybrid? Mine is an X-1 hybrid and does not have a “Forced Time” setting, just “Self Use”, “Feed In”, “Backup”, “off-grid”and “Manual”.
Now I am back on the emails to Solax to undertstand how to charge my battery during Octopus Go 4 hour cheap slot.
Hi David,
Yes, I thought ours was an X-1 Hybrid inverter but I’d have to check to be 100% sure. Strange that yours doesn’t have the ‘Forced Time’ option. Hopefullly Solax can hekp you out.
Al,
Have you tried opening the app in local mode? I am looking at switching to Octopus Go, I’m not there yet but this looks like the way to do it.
Do you mean accessing the data in the wifi dongle locally rather than via the API? No, I haven’t as it would mean setting up a Raspberry Pi that I could have running 24/7.
You should be able to force charge on Octopus Go without doing that though.
Al.
Yeah sorry just meant in order to set the menu options. I just tried on mine and don’t have the option for forced time either. Going to try a firmware update if of the dongle and see if that helps.
Good luck, Can you see the Force Time option on the inverter itself, rather than via the app? You should be able to switch to Force Time use there without the app. It’s not as convenient but I doubt if it’s something you’re changing more than a few times a year so it might be an option if you can’t find the setting on the app.
Al.
Has anyone had a problem where the batteries are going below the SoC limit?
Also one battery seems to discharge whilst the other discharges?
I have a master and slave inverter. Any help would be appreciated.
Brad
Hi David S
I have the same problem as I only get on my X-1 inverter a “Forced Time”, “Self Use”, “Feed In”, “Backup”, “off-grid”and “Manual”. Did Solax provide you with a solution to allow charging on cheap economy rates?
Thanks Paul B
Hi David,
The Forced Time option is what allows you to charge the battery during cheap economy rates. Works perfectly.
Alan.
I’ve had a warranty claim against my defective X3 Hybrid 5KW (three phase) and they’ve sent what seems like a new model X3 Hybrid G4). This is a much sleeker unit and the install is much easier, however the earlier comment from David is correct, we don’t have a force time mode on this one, which is annoying as I’ve bought this purely for the Octopus Go.
Otherwise a great how to guide, unfortunately not too helpful for us!
The manual mode I thought I could use but it’s forced discharge send excess power straight to the grid and I don’t have a feed in tariff so I’m giving them money for nothing!
Thanks Paul, that’s interesting. Removing the Force Charging ability sounds like a backwards step to me, even of the unit is sleeker. Definitely something to look out for if/when we add to our battery storage capabilities as being unable to force charge would make it worthless to us. Thanks for the heads-up.
Al.
Hey,
had the same problem with my X3- found out the force charge schedule is hidden deeper in the advanced settings (the portion protected by the service password, in my case it was 2014, seems to be the same for each batch of inverters).
Cheers,
Jiri
Thank you! I’ve been searching weeks to get in and the password.
I can now finally charge and discharge around Octopus Agile which is handy with a heat pump burning electric!
I am exploring force charging for the first time. I could only see Self Use as an option but found the same PW “2014” gave access to the Advanced section
Hi, just to add that I’ve been able to set mine up on the X1 G4 with self use mode, enabling the “charge from grid” option and then setting the charge and discharge times separately. I’ve linked Imgur to a screenshot of my settings below.
https://imgur.com/a/46ek9p3
Had an issue at first where the battery wouldn’t discharge, but that was because apparently the charge and discharge times can’t overlap (confirmed with Solax support on phone)
Hope this helps people that don’t have the forced charge option!
Andy
Hi Alan,
Enjoyed your article, it explains things a lot better than the X1-Hybrid User Manual! We’ve recently had installed a PV system with Solax Inverter, and battery storage. After some initial glitches everything was set up and working well. the charge periods were set set to 00:31 – 04:29, to take advantage of Octopus Go tariff. Discharge time was set to 04:35 – 00:29. Everything worked great for about 6 weeks, and then I noticed 2 days ago that the battery hadn’t charged overnight. Checking the error messages there was a Bat Voltage Fault, followed by a Grid Voltage Fault and then a Grid Lost Fault. I’m now getting regular emails telling me the “device is running off grid”. I’m in contact with our installer, unfortunately due to workload they’re not being very responsive yet.
I’ve tried turning everything off and back on, including the battery storage, but when the system comes back up, the inverter first displays an EPS Waiting Message, and then seems to stay in EPS mode. From your experience, (while I await the installer), is there anything you can suggest to try and get the system back on to the grid. Any help or advice would me much appreciated. Kind Regards
Derek Cowell
Hi Derek,
Thanks for your comments. I’m not sure I can help though as we haven’t experienced this. We have had power cuts which took the system offline for a while but it seemed to sort itself out once it came back on.
I take it you’ve checked to make sure the EPS mode is off as it almost sounds as though it stuck in that mode.
Hope you get it sorted soon. Let us know when you do as the solution might be useful to someone else one day.
Al.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the prompt response, I’ll keep you posted.
What a small world, one of your Facebook friends (Anne Collins) is a very good friend of my wife’s Deb, they used to play netball together!
Derek
A small world indeed… Although I don;t think I know Anne very well, I’ve only met her at races. 😉
Alan.
Hi Alan,
Problem has now been sorted, it was a problem with one of the AC switches. One of the connections through the switch had failed (when tested with an electricity meter), failed connection was bypassed and everything came back up again. So far no problems, fingers crossed, and Octopus have finally sorted my Export MPAN, no good at the moment, but hopefully some SEG payments come the Spring/Summer.
Kind Regards
Derek Cowell
Glad to hear it’s sorted. Still no SEG payments for us here as we can’t get a smart meter.
Al.
Will inverter still work as a backup in “Force time use” mode when power from grid is lost?
In theory yes, the Solax Inverter does have an EPS mode that allows it to act as an emergency power supply from the battery in a power cut. However, in the UK it’s not quite so straightforward as you need permission from the power companies to enable this mode. This is so as to make sure that there is no power flowing back out to the grid when maintenance personnel might be working on it. You can also only power 3.6kw of devices from the inverter so you really need a separate circuit which has just the (low power draw) items that you need in an emergency.
With such permissions, an isolator switch and a low power draw circuit set up then it should work and keep certain items powered in the event of a power cut. We don’t have this though as we already have an E7 and non-E7 circuit and probably wouldn’t have got the necessary permissions to have it work as an EPS. Shame, as it would be nice, especially seeing as we have quite a few power cuts here.
Al.
Hi Alan,
My wife just found your blog yesterday in connection with our attempts to get to grips with the Forced Time Use. We had our Solax inverter and batteries retro fitted in April this year, having had PVs fitted back in 2011 just before the first reduction in the feed-in tariff so got in on that just….
My main criticism of Solax, and our installers, who did a good job but whose customer service leaves a lot to be desired (small family firm and too busy to attend to enquiries), is that there’s not much in the way of user friendly instructions to explain what does what. We have struggled to understand most of the terminology provided either by instruction booklets or even their YouTube videos. In addition there appears to have been updates which do not reflect some system parameters as existing, born out by some of the other comments here on your blog.
We are now testing out how long it takes our batteries to charge overnight from the grid to try and ascertain whether it is worth opting for one of the Octopus tariffs. Currently, we are with E.on Next and have enquired about their Economy 7 rates. The downside to this however, is that it would involve having a meter change in order to read day and night-time rates to be billed separately, and at nearly £160 to do that……..no thanks! I understand Octopus do not require a different meter in order to do this?
I will keep checking back here as it is the first useful forum we’ve found in terms of explaining how the Solax systems operate.
Many thanks for your explanations.
Thanks for the comments Chris.
I don’t think I can help with the meter changes and whether or not they are necessary. We have a dual rate meter as we have Economy 7 and for some reason that seems to mean that we can’t have a Smart Meter and therefore can’t switch to one of the Octopus tariffs.
I can help a little with the Force Charging overnight though as that’s what we do during the winter months. Our battery is a 5.8Kwh battery. It is kept at a minimum charge of 10% (as that’s what is recommended for battery health) so there is actually only just over 5.2Kwh of usable capacity. In the winter we use all of this and then rely on the grid for the remainder of our needs. We then top the battery up (Force Charge it) overnight. It takes about 2 hours to fully charge and then it keeps it at 100% until the end of our E7 time so that we have a full battery to start the day.
Hope that helps,
Alan.
Hello, new to SolaX and have X1 G4 invertor and 5.8T batt. Been setting up force change periods but the battery is only pulling like 1.2kw, I had assumed if I’ve told it to charge it would pull 3.6kw ?
See the answers to the previous comment here – is your battery outside? Cold or hot temperatures will limit the speed at which the battery charges / discharges so as to protect it from damage. That could be why?
Al.
Al.
Many thanks Alan. We have two of your batteries I think, totalling 11.6kWh, sized to suit our house size and usage which is around 13kWh per day. Part of the need for this is that we have a mini-treatment plant (rural area), which runs 24/7 owing to a compressor to aerate the tank.
When we had the batteries installed we elected to have an EV charger also, for three reasons: 1. We have a self catering holiday let on site and it therefore offers overnight charging for any visitors with an EV. 2. We were told that having this could qualify for split tariffs going forward. 3. If we ever decide to acquire an EV ourselves then the charging point is already there.
That sounds like a good plan. If you wanted you could allow members of the public to use the EV charger as well (for a charge of course) so could recoup the cost of installation, there are various apps that allow this. I don’t think we’d do it though as we wound;t want people parked on our drive!!
No need to justify your 13kWh per day, I wish we could get our usage down that low. At this time of year we’re using around 40-50kWh per day, more if we charge the car. We would like a second battery as well, but the cost and space to put it have been something of a stumbling block there. At least the majority of our usage at this time of year is overnight whilst on cheap rate, but another battery would allow us to extend that cheap rate further into the day as well.
This is what our usage so far this week looks like.
Great post, thanks. I’ve followed the steps and my Solax X1 hybrid inverter draws from the grid and charges the battery at my set times. So I’ve got the force charge working BUT it’s only drawing 350W over a 4 hour period, getting my battery up to just 28%. Any ideas?
That doesn’t sound right. I’m not an expert but what is the maximum charge current set to in your inverter?
If you go to the app, click on device at the bottom and then the settings gear icon, then ‘basic’. There’s an option called ‘charger’. In there, our ‘charge Max Current’ is set to 20
It might be worth speaking to your installer though. Our battery force charges from 10% to 100% in less than 3 hours.
It will depend on what battery you have so check the specifications before changing such settings. The recommend for our 5.8kWH Solax Triple is actually 25Amps I think. Now you’ve got me wondering if ours could charge faster as well!!
Al.
Alan,
That’s an interesting point Luke just made. Ours has the same issue. Our 11.6kWh batteries were on force charge last night between 12.01am and 7.00am in order to see what percentage charge level they would reach…….only 43% over 7 hours.
Our app doesn’t have the “Basic” settings option that you refer to when you click on the device setting and then gear icon. This is another thing they appear to have changed in the app. When we click on the gear icon we get three options: System ON/OFF; Work Mode; Setting……..that’s it. Unsure where to go from there.
If your app doesn’t have these settings, can you set such things via the menus on the inverter itself? You might have more options there.
Al.
Also, what version of the app have you got? I’m using Solax Cloud v. 4.2.4. Seems odd that it would be different, unless of course it’s an app on a different platform – the images in the post are from iOS. Maybe these options are under the ‘Settings’ option in your app?
Thanks both. My ‘charger’ setting menu actually appears under the advanced settings of the inverter but I can confirm it’s already set to 30A for both charge and discharge. I’ve had a full week now of the overnight period only charging at a flat rate of either 450W or 350W, never getting the battery above 30%. I’ll try to get hold of Solax technical support and will let you know once I solve it!
Alan,
The app seems to be all over the place. Tonight, for example, opening up the app again after being out today, somehow two of the settings you refer to – Basic and Advanced appeared. I have no idea how this occurred. Tapping on basic got me into the same settings I had before and tapping on Advanced got me into a whole load of settings I’ve never come across before and to be honest I’ve no idea what any of them mean. Having come out of those options and logged onto Site, to see what state of charge the batteries were in, I cannot now get back to the two headings referred to above and I’ve absolutely no idea how to get to that screen again. Nothing I’ve tried works. I decided to erase the app and re-download it tonight to see if that made any difference. I now also have version 4.2.4. That has now brought up new options on the account page which were not there before – Delete Account and a User Guide. Never seen these before so some something else to read.
From there click on ‘Setting’ and try the password ‘2014’. Once in you will then have the basic and advanced settings being discussed here.
Luke,
Where did 2014 come from please?
Hi I’ve just realised I’ve got the same problem 100% charge in 4 hours in October then 56% in December upped it to 7 hours and got to 80%. I’ve assumed that the inverter has altered the charge rate as the battery temp was 23 deg in October but only 14 deg now and the inverter is protecting the batteries because they are cold.
Gary
Great call Gary. I’ve now spoken with Solax and this is exactly my issue also. Battery is in the unheated garage and the charge rate is directly influenced by temperature. I’m going to build an insulated box around mine (20cm of clear air around it) to see if I can’t improve the performance through winter
You choose setting then you need to enter a code to get the menus. 0000 should give you the basic menu that you need. Posted elsewhere are codes for accessing more advanced menus.
Hi
I’ve just had Solax system installed I’ve been trying to figure out how to force charge my battery at night. All the post I’ve seen kept saying go to BASIC settings then forced charging then set up the times etc…. on my app I never had the BASIC setting page. I’m using Solax cloud 4.2.4. on my app the you click on the blue setting cog this takes you to
SYSTEN ON/OFF
WORK MODE
SETTING. Click on this then is will ask you for passcode
0000 will take you to the next page
From here you can go to Charge and Discharge period this is where you can set your forced times up
Hope this helps.
Hi Kevin,
Yes this is exactly what we get also.
Quick update for information. I’ve managed today to chat with our installer and as you may have already guessed, the low charge rate overnight is down to the present cold snap. Fundamentally if the temperature drops to around 9 degrees Celsius the inverter says enough and will not charge the batteries, to prevent damage to them. If you are fortunate enough to have your installation inside your property or garage etc., then you may be luckier to get a higher percentage charge rate. Otherwise try and insulate your inverter and batteries if inside an enclosure.
I gather there is to be a YouTube video released early in the new year involving Solax which is designed to explain everything in great detail and simplify matters, including updates made to the app.
Our installer informs me that his company are in the process of installing a new monitoring system which will enable them to keep a check on every kit they’ve installed and provided the customer provides their log in details they will monitor everyone’s installation for faults, plus firmware upgrades etc.
Thanks Chris,
I had just this thought last night after seeing several posts on Social Media from people saying their battery hadn’t charged in the cold.
As you say, it seems as though the inverters have a safety mechanism that prevents charging if the battery temperature falls below a certain threshold. I guess the cold temperatures affect the chemical reactions that take place in the batteries so it’s better not to charge them so as to prevent damage.
Our battery and inverter are in the house. We were told not to install them outside or in the loft due to the fact that wild temperature fluctuations aren’t good for them. So, although it take up a fair bit of room and doesn’t look too pretty I guess I’m glad that’s what we did.
Out of interest, you can see the internal battery temperature in the Solax app, how low does your go? Ours is at a nice toasty 25ºC so hasn’t had any issues charging.
Interestingly, I’ve noticed that my iPhone won’t charge on the wireless charger if it’s really cold as well. I guess that has similar ‘protection measures’ in place.
Al.
Hi.
Just found this blog, Thank you it’s great.
I’ve experiencing the same problems with my x1 hybrib. Suddenly on Monday the battery stopped charging, numerous phone calls to solax, various software upgrades etc later to no avail.
The panels are covered in 12″ of snow(live on a hill in the highlands) and inverter is in the barn.
Which is baltic!
I explained the weather conditions to solax, but it obviously wasan issue to them.
So will build a insulated box around system tomorrow and maybe put a light bulb inside to heat inside up.
Out of interest where dud everyone buy their systems from, mine came from the Energy saving Store in Dingwall and the installer was dreadful. Several cables were wired wrongly and I took me a month to get everything sorted out and working
Alasdair
Built a small tent of bubble wrap around inverter and battery and put a halogen flood lamp inside it.
That raised battery temperature from 3°c to 11°c in a hour.
Now battery is slowly charging from the grid.
Success
This method still working? Any probs?
In Advanced mode you can set the battery heating to Enable and then set one or two defined heating periods. This should enable faster charging and charging down to -30 degrees.
Hi Steve, new to this and wonder what the setting is called? Is it actually “Battery Heating”? Couldn;t see it at a glance.
Found this answer on a solax page https://kb.solaxpower.com/solution/detail/2c9fa4148adb360e018b2285a506031a under “battery Heationg” lol!
It says that if “The cell temperature is between-30 ~ 0?, it will be heated until 10?. Then, heating will stop, once the cell temperature is below 0? again, the battery system will be heated again”
Our battery hasn’t been charging fully when 5 celsius or below, so I wonder why the setting doesnlt allow for a frost temp setting. Anyway, this might help later in winter.
Alos noticed on the page it says “only if cell temperature is higher than 0?, the battery will be able to be charged.”
Anyway, we’ll give it a go.
Hi Alan,
Looks like our batteries are at a balmy 7 degrees at present.
What I don’t quite follow is that although the temperature is low just now we have still been obtaining some charge from the PVs when the sun has been out and with very still conditions. We didn’t have any options to install ours indoors as the existing electrical switchgear and meters are external. It was therefore easier to fit the batteries and inverter outside the back door. I think we will experiment with some insulation.
I quizzed our installer about the charge rates and was informed that the charge rates are fixed at something like 3.6 for single units and 5.6 for each of ours. I suppose that if you were able to vary these to suit conditions there would be a danger of overcharging when weather conditions change and if it’s then forgotten to change them back.
I just to say how useful this conversation is for owners of Solax. I had many of the issues referred to above and have had to work them out through trial and error. I still have one issue: whilst using self use if the charge in the batteries drops below 10% it makes the mode change from normal to idle. I then have to manually waken the inverter for it to start operating again (using one of the settings). This is an issue as it won’t charge from the solar in the idle state. I’m trying a hack of having the min charge set to 90% rather than 10% but this is still an ongoing trial to see if it means it uses solar to charge.
the X1 hybrid g4 will need firmware updates to charge a battery correctly overnight.
my cheap rate overnight charge period is 2-6am, if battery charged at all it started at 4.50am so would not give a full charge. contacted solax and there were firmware updates for both my inverters, both wifi modules and the battery. solax installed remotely and now charging correctly at 2am :).
Do you have any links to access firmware updates? Solax are not great for responding to enquiries we’ve found.
We have issues ,where we set the force times. The battery doesn’t charge overnight and the times reset, tried these for a few days, same issue. Can’t set the percentages says setting failed.
Try to change on the inverter however everything we tried to go into work mode we get an error – DSP-COM failure. Raised issue with installers who in turn have raised issue with Solax.
Any ideas what the issue may be?
Sorry if this sounds basic, and you’ve probably already tried but did you save the individual time settings when setting your forced times? Also set the second set of times to the same time periods for charging/discharging as the first set. Quite often you have to try a few times before each time set period will save. Suggest you try setting all the time periods in sequence and then going back to save each one again in sequence…..see if that works. It’s a problem we’ve had. If the times reset they are not saving. The app is cr*p.
Regarding your DSP-COM failure, have you tried resetting the whole system, ie switch off and on again. This link is to an Aussie web site but may assist with your error messages:
https://gold-coast-solar-power-solutions.com.au/solar-inverters/solar-inverter-fault-error-messages/solax-solar-inverter-fault-messages
I have 2 solax inverters one set as master and one set as slave. 9.3KW battery storage on each inverter.
They charge up overnight ok. But for some reason during the day it randomly starts charging one battery off the grid when it isn’t set to that whilst the other battery is discharging.
Also the for moments during the day the CT reading seems to double compared to what smart meter is saying.
Any help would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Brad
Hi I’m a bit late to the party but have just found this page BRILLIANT BTW, I had my system fitted in April and I too have this occuring , did you manage to get an answer Brad ?
Many Thanks Lou
Hi, Just came across this guide as part of my research before my Solar and battery system get installed tomorrow. Thanks for pulling it together, very useful. This might be a stupid question, but I can’t seem to find an answer anywhere. If you set a force charge time, does the unit automatically revert to self use outside of these times? Or will I have to switch it back manually so that it can also charge from the solar during the day?
Thanks
Pete
Hi Pete,
Yes, if you have a Force Charge time set overnight during cheap rate hours then the unit will revert to Self use the rest of the time. Useful in Spring and Autumn when you want to start the day with a full charge but might then have plenty of solar in the afternoon that you’ll want to store in the battery as well.
Hope your install goes well. 🙂
Al.
That’s good news then. Thank you for getting back to me ?
After finally setting up with a new supplier for grid power and getting a day and night rate, I’m finally set up charging my batteries at night to 90% due to the British weather not being reliable at this time of the year. This is working for me when the day breaks my solar kicks in recharging my batteries to keep them topped up while I will run the house off my solar panels during the day. Also exporting back to the grid My electric bill has come down to ape £30 a month, ( from £120 a month ) which as we move into longer brighter days will reduce even more my target it for my mains electric to drop down to about £5.00 a week if not less Solax has made such a difference to the way I view electric consumption and production. using forced times to charge my batteries makes all the differance I will reduce my charging % as we move towards the summer.
Thanks for your advice Alan it’s been very helpful in setting up my Solax X1 G4 with battery so that I can force charge my battery at night should I want to – something I couldn’t find out from the Solax data sheets, thank you
What a great source of information… love it… well don Alan
Question if I may.
I had a solax X1 hybrid invert and 17 panels fitted with 2 batteries holding 11.5Kwh.
Initially the system was all over the place once my batteries were commissioned (after a week without them due to a delayed CT clip delivery).
My batteries charaged up and then once PV generation ended for the day they dumped all the power to the grid at 5.5KWh.
That’s seemed to fix itself over a few days and the installer spoke to Solax who said it was normal and the system was finding itself.
Its been about 3 weeks now and i find i can be generating at say 3kwh from the PV, drawing 1kwh from the house and charging the batteries at around 1kwh whilst exporting the remaining 1kwh to the grid.
At times i see all the power to the batteries and others it exports for seemingly no reason.
I’m running on Self Use as i don’t have eco7 and have all the times set to try to charge batteries to 100%, keep a minimum of 10%
At times when no PV generation, i see batteries at maybe 60% charge, discharging at say 500w and grid importing at say 1kw to supply the demand of 1.5 kwh.
Ideally i never want to export unless batteries are at 100% and never import unless batteries are at 10% and PV < demand.
Are any of these scenarios familiar to you or others who read this? I'm at the end of my tether with this as it seems the inverter has a mind of its own, and Solax and my installer are not helping much.
Any advice very much appreciated (even though of course its not your issue or fault)
PS, how did you get the solar generation on here? I own a few domains and would like to do something similar
Hi Andy,
Lots to unpick there but it sounds as those most things are working OK now. The things I’m not sure about are:
1. “I find I can be generating at say 3kwh from the PV, drawing 1kwh from the house and charging the batteries at around 1kwh whilst exporting the remaining 1kwh to the grid.”
That doesn’t sound right as the whole 2kw excess should go into the battery. The only thing that might change this would be the state of the battery, If it is nearly discharged, nearly full or very hot / cold then the amount of charge it will take will be regulated and down-graded so as to protect it from damage. Where is the battery located? Does it experience large temperature fluctuations?
2. “At times when no PV generation, i see batteries at maybe 60% charge, discharging at say 500w and grid importing at say 1kw to supply the demand of 1.5 kwh.”
Again, really in this scenario you should be taking all 1.5kw of demand from the battery. The same issues regarding temperature may affect this as I assume the rate of discharge would be regulated at extremes of temperature too. The other thing to note is that the Solax app only updates every 5 mins and shows a snapshot of what was happening when the update took place. Sometimes when you first increase the demand then it will take from the grid rather than the battery for a few seconds. As I understand it this is to protect the battery / inverter against ‘turning on and off’ constantly, instead it waits a few seconds to see if the demand really has increased before increasing the supply from the battery. If this happens at the time the app updates then it might not be a true representation of what is happening. It’s therefore best to look at the overall pattern rather than the snapshots in time. The same is true with surplus PV energy as well – it can sometimes take a few seconds for it to go to the battery rather than being exported.
As far as the ‘P.S. (PS, how did you get the solar generation on here? I own a few domains and would like to do something similar) is concerned, then I built a little WordPress plugin that queries the Solax API and then creates the web pages here. More info on the plugin (which I haven’t yet got around to making suitable for public use) here: https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2021/11/building-a-solax-wordpress-plugin/
I’ve also re-commissioned some old iPad Minis into little Home Consoles as well which work really well to display the Solar PV data and some weather data from a weather station that I run. More about these here: https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2022/04/home-info-panel/
Let’s see if anyone else has a solution to your issues if my observations don’t help.
Al.
Thanks for the in-depth reply.
I’ve been reading though all the comments and its an interesting read for sure.
So i was just reading the temperature issue where people have been mentioning <9 degrees isn't good for charging and you have hit the same point.
I wish I had followed your lead and installed the system in the house but chose to site it all in some external stables which has no heating.
This could be the whole issue. Shame the installer didn't think to mention this (if they know) as could have sited elsewhere. Also shame its not in the manual that i have seen – that could use a rewrite.
Regarding the web site bit thanks for the info… if you feel like having a test pilot for the plug in I'll be happy to be that for you. I tried the API URL with my sn and token and i get a Query Success message, result 'no auth' so i will read your plug in guide to see if i'm missing something
Finally, how do you find time for everything… so many posts, doing so many activities, running a weather station…its a wonder you have time to sleep
Thanks
update: my batteries are currently at 18 degrees C, 51% charged and im drawing 292w from grid, getting 510w from PV (its cloudy here at 16:30) for my 755W demand.
Very weird. When Solax sort this I’ll post what they say or change
That sounds about right doesn’t it?
Demand is 755W and your PV is producing 510W, so you need 245W from the grid to meet that demand – It’s taking 292W from the grid which is close enough considering the inverter itself needs some and there’s always a margin of error with CT clamp readings.
Al.
Haha, you may have hit on something there, I’m not too good at sleeping, it’s a failing of mine! 🙂
Al.
Mine too.
And sorry i got it mixed up
Right now:
308w PV / 47w from battery / 176w from grid / 512 demand
Why 176 from grid when battery charge is 51%
Today briefly my smart meter in the house showed i was exporting, the app agreed but was slowly charging the batteries which were at about 20% – could have been a temp thing.
I’ll stop posting now until I find a solution….
Thanks Al
I’m slightly suspicious that your CT clamp might not be on the right cable. My installers made that mistake and I got all kinds of weird things happening. Ideally it needs to be on the live wire that comes out of your meter.
Hi there,
I’ve just started on the battery plus panels generation game and although it’s obviously a bit soon to have optimised my system use, I have discovered that with my inverter, a Solax hybrid X1 G4 7.5D, I can limit the export power to whatever level I want. As I’m presently not exporting for cash and bearing in mind the 3.68Kw limit (in the absence of permission to export more than this), I’ve simply taken the 3 off the front end to make 680 watts export max. Might you be able to do this too?
Hi, I have had a two and now three battery setup, and I find that over time only one battery ends up charging after a while. My envrionment is a cellar that is never colder than 15 degrees, so can ignore temperature. I think I have nailed it down to the batteries not being correctly balanced in voltage. I have ended up doing this manually using a voltmeter, but it does go wrong over time – especially with 3.
Currently my batteries are reading 118.6, 116.4 and 117.5. This causes it to only charge the master. This guy seems be practically living the problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCl18ku62Yo
I have rebalanced them, but you need to watch over night and do a simple sum cos the app won’t tell you you have a problem. If multiple batteries only takes 1.5 hrs from the grid, its not charging the second or third batteries. I have not found an answer. I wonder if a new battery firmware would help, however they aren’t downloadable. Hope this helps people!
Hi Alex,
Please excuse my ignorance but is your battery set-up not a series one – in which case it’s very puzzling, as I would expect any charging current leaving the inverter to pass through all three batteries, thereby charging them all up, at least to some extent…
Hmm, as I say I’ve only just started on the game, as of 3 days’ ago, but it’s clearly not as simple as some installation companies would have you believe!
That sounds awesome – the three-battery set up, not the fact that only one charges at a time! I hope you get to the bottom of that, it’ll be interesting the hear your findings.
We’ve been wanting to add an extra battery for a while but we’re not sure if we have the space. I think one extra battery would get us through most days on cheap rate throughout the winter and obviously mean that we export less in the summer.
Al.
Hi Alex
Is your system a Solax inverter and batteries, if so the triple batteries are connected in series.
So all batteries will be charging at the same time.
I have a Solax Hybrid G4 inverter and 2 batteries giving 11.6KWH.
Started with just one battery and added the second after 2 months, the manual does say to only charge first battery to approx 50 % when adding a second battery.
When adding batteries the battery voltage goes from 120V to 240V and if a third is added to 360V.
I must just say Thanks to Alan this web page has been very helpful.
Thanks Alex, Good to know that my ramblings on my weblog come in useful from time to time! 🙂
Good afternoon
I have just read your blog on Force Charging with a Solax Inverter and Battery. The very clear instructions you have given are fine and dandy on the phone app, do you have the same thing for the PC ?
Regards Alan
The procedure is exactly the same on the PC using the web app. The web app is just a copy of the phone app.
So, once you are on the solaxcloud.com website and logged in.
1. Click on the Device Management option in the left-hand menu
2. Chose Remote Setting
3. Put your Inverter serial number in
This will then open a pop-up window which looks exactly the same as the phone app. You are therefore at step 3 in the blog post above and the instructions to set up force charging are the same.
Al.
Alan, your doing a brilliant job with your knowledge, all of the comments from everyone really are very helpful and interesting to read, just started my journey with solar on the 8th of this month with Solax X1 G4 3.7d, 2x3kw batteries,
In self use mode for time being, cut my usage down by half so quite happy for time being considering time of year.
What a joy to see my electricity meter not spinning around when you boil the kettle or any other installed load due to the the batteries taking over from the grid until such time my storage drops to 10%, did reach 80% storage some days ago so the summer should be very good.
Am sure I will have some questions to ask sooner or later about getting the most out of the system I have.
Many thanks to all.
Has anyone figured out how to calculate actual solar yield when also charging from the grid? Our yield calcs combine both figures so it’s not a true reflection.
Yep… I’ve done a pretty good approximation that I use in the WordPress Plugin / Home Info Panel App that I built.
The actual calculation I use is outlined in the ‘Yield Measurements’ and ‘Data Manipulation’ sections of this page https://www.alananna.co.uk/blog/2021/11/building-a-solax-wordpress-plugin/
Al.
Hello to all again.
Just as a matter of interest, have any of you installed or had surge protection devices on the DC side of your solar PV array systems, I’m beginning to think this is a good idea to stave off possible damage if an occurrence should happen especially through lightning spikes
I’m interested in any comments any one may have on this subject.
I have an SPD device on the AC incoming supply but not on the DC supply after the inverter which is where they would normally be installed.
Just wanted to add back a little information i have. It maybe known but i just discovered that the solax app it is possible to get into the full settings by using pin code 6868. Hope this helps people who wanted the old settings back after updates removed them.
Alan – I’m so glad that I happened across your site! Fantastic!
I’ve had 16 solar panels with Enphase microinverters installed for about 4 years and recently added a Solax X1-Fit with 9kW TripleEdge batteries to make the most of Octopus Go tariff.
I’ve encountered a few issues which I may blog about later, but currently my biggest issue is that when the batteries reach the MinSoC% [whatever I set it to] the system goes into IDLE mode and, when it that mode, it completely ignores any force charge from grid times. If the system is in NORMAL [i.e. above the MinSoC%], then the force charge works fine.
Have you experienced this. Any solution? Right now I have to keep fiddling around forcing charges during peak if there’s not been enough solar, aiming to keep the SoC% above 10% when 00:30 arrives, but it’s far from ideal!
Also today [it’s snowing and batteries are outside] but the SOC% suddenly plunged from 38% to 9% without any particularly large load being applied [approx 500W].
Hi Steve,
That’s not a problem we’ve encountered. Our battery does usually drop slightly below its MinSoC% of 10% so will often drop to 9% or 8%. I’m not sure if it enters an ‘Idle’ Mode then or just remains ‘awake’ but doing nothing – essentially it no longer discharges and just sits there waiting for some charge either from force charging or from solar.
I think there are two ‘idle’ states – one for the inverter which should only happen when it’s set to ‘Off-Grid’ use and the battery has reached its MinSoC%. There is also one for the battery which is indicated by a green flashing battery light on the inverter. I think this latter one is probably the one you refer to. I’ll check to see if ours goes into this mode once the battery reaches its MinSoC% – I think it does, but it does then also wake up as soon as there is power to charge it (either from force-charging or from solar).
Alan.
Thanks, Alan.
To add a bit more –
When in IDLE mode, the inverter front panel shows IDLE and the green light does flash.
Even when in IDLE mode, there’s never a problem with the inverter waking up and going back into NORMAL mode and charging when power starts to come in from the panels.
However, the charge from grid is the issue. The only way to ‘wake it up’ that I have found is to switch the inverter OFF through the app, wait a minute or two and then switch it back ON. Then it realises that it should be force charging and gets on with it! However, that’s not handy at 00:30!!
FYI, in my case, the power from the panels comes in from the load/generator [House icon] as they’re not DC connected panels.
Alan –
Any chance that you could tell me what your HotStandby setting is? Mine is set to Enable.
Also, your Pgrid Bias setting? Mine is set to Disable.
I’m not sure if these settings might be relevant to my issue – do you have any idea exactly what they do as the manual is very vague!
I don’t think we’ve ever seen those settings. Where do you get to them?
Al.
Alan – They are in the Advanced menu which you reach using pin code 2014
I’ve double-checked and we don’t have those settings under the Advanced menu – nor anywhere else that I can see.
Alan.
Alan –
Thanks for checking! What inverter do you have?
We’ve got the X1-Hybrid… I’m not sure if there are different versions of it though or what Firmware version we’re on as we haven’t updated it – It’s working just the way we want so it would be foolish to meddle with the firmware if it’s not necessary 🙂
Alan.
Stumbled across this brilliant blog and post, and the helpful comments as I’m in a similar situation with some weird occurrences with our X1-Hybrid Solax Inverter and battery system. Everything was working perfectly until a few days ago. The priorities in self-use were working as intended:
Solar PV -> Home Load -> Battery -> Grid as a general rule, overridden only when force charging on cheap rates; we are on Octopus Agile.
A couple of days ago I noticed the app showing a home load being filled by the grid when our battery had 90% charge. Played around with some settings: By inserting 2014 as a password in settings, got to the advanced settings where I changed Pgrid bias to disable, that seemed to push the inverter to use the battery to supply house load for some time.
Later I noticed the same issue. Battery had charged correctly overnight, supplied the house load, topped up by solar in the day but… Stopped discharging at 30% (That’s not the limit I set, it’s at 10%). I set up a forced charge and discharge time setting within the Self Use mode, and this seemed to fix the issue initially. I have seen some weird things still, like the app showing the house as producing 70W at some point and sending them to the grid??? Or the batter supplying the house as it should, but then also sending some back to the grid when there is no need.
Really at a loss, had a look at the CT clamp with the instruction manual and seems to be connected the right way. Will be contacting Project Solar on Monday, I have a feeling they will just point me to the Solax customer support info.
On another note, your wordpress plugin looks fantastic for someone with no web dev/programming experience, will patiently wait for a release if you consider it 🙂
Let us know how you get on. There does seem to be some weirdness going on there. I think a few people have been having issues with the Solax server being down lately as well which won’t help matters when it comes to looking at the status of things – it’s always worth checking to see what the inverter itself says it’s doing as the app can’t always be relied on.
WordPress Plugin – I am considering it, but I seem to have too much ‘real work’ to do at the moment to fit it in. I was supposed to be cutting back but took on a new job that is a little more full-oin than my previous one and also have two others that I’ve agreed to do which take me back to full-time, plus of course my web design business to run. I’ve got ‘a life’ too and also want to finish off running around Wales so there’s always too much to do…. It is gradually moving up my priority list though as I’d like to see if I can release it.
Thanks for the nice comments about the blog. ?
Al.
Hi, with Force Time Use we can charge the battery from the grid on economy 7. Outside of this time will it act like it is in Self Use?
If we have a full battery in the morning then use a lot and drain it, can the battery be topped up or will the excess go straight back to the grid?
Yep, that’s exactly how it should work and what we find the best way to maximise the solar energy and rate-shift within Economy 7.
Al.
Quick question… does anyone know if a 5kv solax inverter with 11kwh battery set need a G98 or G99 if the export control is set to 0 ?
I don’t intend to export anything as i don’t have SEG set up but worry i may need a G99 as technically it could send over the 3.68kwh if i changed the settings.
Also, if the export is set to 0 and its a nice day so I’m generating more than needed, if the batteries are at 100% does the system shut down or does the excess “have” to be exported ?
Thx Alan / everyone
Hi Andy, my understanding is that if your batteries are at 100% and the draw in your house is, say 450 watts and the panels can supply that (because the sun is shining!), then that’s all that happens. In other words the power produced by the panels matches what you need, so no, you don’t have to export anything. My export control is set to zero for the same reason you site whilst I wait for the completion of my G99; it just means available power isn’t always used, BUT, contrary to observations I have heard, it’s not sitting around in the system generating heat.
Unfortunately I do not get any of those options in basic level I only get the options of date and location
Found your site when trying to set my system up to charge of E7
Helped a lot
Set it up today
Fingers crossed
Vince
Hi, have come across this site and has been useful filling in some “gaps” in my knowledge. I have a Solax X1 Hybrid G4 5Kw invertor with 2 x 5.6Kw batteries installed in March 2023. I have moved to the Octopus FLUX tariff and trying to figure out how to force a discharge from the batteries to the grid between 4pm and 7pm each day (when the export rates are higher). I can do this using the manual mode, but I have not been able to find out how to set it as a schedule. Outside of the 4pm to 7pm time period, I want it to be Self Use mode. When it comes to the Winter, I am hoping to move to a tariff that will give me cheap power overnight to charge my batteries. Flux import is 19p overnight, but I see Octopus Intelligent is only 7.5p. What experience do other users have over the winter period.
Hi Alan, we recently had a PV system installed and had Octopus also put in a smart meter. We’ve just changed across to Eco 7 without problems, it takes a day or two.
I’ll be trying out your guide this evening…
James
Hi Alan, we recently had a PV system installed and had Octopus also put in a smart meter. We’ve just changed across to Eco 7 without problems, it takes a day or two.
I’ll be trying out your guide this evening…
James
Hi Al, just to confirm from my recent email to you – I have 16 panels on the roof, an Eddi, solax inverter and zappi in the garage waiting for the Jag to arrive next week.
Only problem is my Solax app is different to yours – probably a later version? but my app shows ‘Chrg&Dischg’ not two charge times like your app, and consequently I’ve set it up to charge at 2-5am in the morning and discharge between 4-7pm as suggested by Octopus (flux). Yet to see if this works.
I will post a follow up if this works for others with this later version of the app.
My question is, can I charge the car at discount time 2-5am and charge the solar batteries at the same time or is the amount of energy from Octopus capped?
Perhaps I may have to charge the car during the day.
Finally, your comment about the I-pace I’ve just bought – it is just out of warranty by 1 month, only done 12k miles in 3 years and cost £25k – about a third of the original price!
Now all we need is some sunshine
Let us know how you get on. We’re not on an octopus tariff so I’m not sure how it works with that, but I think setting the discharge to between 4-7pm means that you won’t be using any energy stored in battery outside of those hours, and I’m not sure if you can ‘force discharge’ in order to send what’s in the battery back to the grid. I’m not even sure if doing that would be the best use of energy stored in the battery, I guess that depends on your tariff and the exact charges for import/export. You’ll have to see if it works the way Octopus have told you to set it, but some experimentation may be required.
Good deal on the car BTW, it sounds as though you’ll have the perfect set up once you’ve ironed out the kinks. ????
This is a great blog, I’ve only just found it. I have a Solax/PV setup with 2 batteries. Don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but I have set up Home Assistant to manage all this.
Basically I get an accurate solar weather forecast for my exact setup for the next day in KWh and use this to set the correct overnight charge level with Octopus cheap EV rates every night at 11pm.
So if the forecast < 5Kw I charge 100%, dropping to zero in the summer. This maximises my solar so I never feed in. In the summer with 0 overnight charge, when the battery fills around noon, my Home Assistant code tells the Tesla to start charging which acts as overflow.
https://flic.kr/p/2pcaCcT
That’s awesome – I’ve always thought that manufacturers should start building such algorithms into their systems to make it easy for everyone to set up their systems like this. People shouldn’t need to learn how to use and set-up HomeAssistant for such functionality, it should be easier for people to maximise the potential of their PV/battery/charging systems and to make it responsive to changes in the weather.
How accurate do you find the weather forecast reflects what actually happens? We live in quite a unique micro-climate and cloud cover forecasts are rarely accurate.
Al.
I agree, I was appalled that I had to knit this myself. The forecast is ‘good enough’ to make it worthwhile. It’s a blunt instrument, I just say 100, 75, 60, 45% charge based on various kWh values for the next day. It’s way worth doing as it just ticks away in the background. I’ve got nearly a years worth of Octopus energy stats and 95% of our usage is 7.5 cheap rate and that’s running a Tesla off it too.
Check it yourself just to forecast.solar set yourself up and compare to actual. I’m in North Wales myself and it works for me.
I shall have to investigate, but at the moment my overnight charging level is pretty much automated for me anyway thanks to the AI known as ‘my wife’!! 🙂
Al.
Hi Alan – was starting to follow your instructions to force charge but don’t have that option: I have under “work mode” Self Use, Feed in Priority, Backup Mode, Manual and Peak Shaving. Do I need a firmware update? We have 21 panels through a Solex X1 Hybrid G4 7.5KW to 3 Solex Triple Batteries 17.4kwh total – installed in February this year and I thought all the updates were in place then
Hi Michael,
I think you are probably on the latest versions – I’ve got to the stage where everything has been working just the way we want it so haven’t seen the need to go looking for updates – “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. This probably means that we are no longer using the latest firmware versions.
However, I think you can set yours to ‘Self Use’ and then can set the charge and discharge times for the battery as well. That should force charge it during the ‘charge’ times and allow you to use the what’s stored in the battery during the times you set as ‘discharge’ times. I think it also allows you to set the percentage that you’ll charge to as well.
I imagine the menus have changed somewhat to include ‘peak shaving’ etc so as to acommodate the agile/intelligent tarrifs from the likes of Octopus.
Does that help?
Al.
It’s just ‘self use’,’charge battery to x%’ then just set the times in charge/discharge force period start and end.
Much obliged both – I’ll try again this evening. Great blog thank you
Hi folks – I have a newbie question. I have a Solax inverter that I’ve set to force charge from 0000 to 0500 (our cheap rate). I run an air source heat pump during these hours in the winter that heats the house. Does anyone know if it’s possible to set the solax /batteries to NOT provide power during these hours? When the charge hits 100%, I don’t simply want the heating to start discharging the battery when it should be using the cheap grid electricity. Thanks.
You can also set the battery disharge times within the Solax app / on the inverter. Just set it to discharge only between 05:00 and 23:59. That should mean it’ll hold it’s charge until 5:00am every morning so that the heat pump takes from the grid and not the battery.
Al.
Hi Everyone. First time writing her. I’ve been trying to set my battery to Force DISCHARGE my battery to take advantage of the £4/kWh from the Demand Response Session today (1st Dec) but I haven’t found a way. Any ideas on how to do it? Thanks!
Good morning dear folk, even trying to get my inverter to force charge overnight but the app won’t save the force mode thingy, I save everything but it keeps defaulting to self use and the charge times set to default mode………any advice gratefully accepted
Help needed, can’t get the force charge mode to save, it keeps resetting to self use and won’t save any of the settings………..can you help?
Hi Alan, I haven’t had the time to look through all the posts here, but with reference to the different versions of the app, I have had a reply from Solax:
Dear customer,
Thank you for contacting SolaX Power.
Kindly note the app interface is not related to the app version, it is related to the inverter model(different inverter has different settings pages). And all the apps you can download are the latest version and they cannot be degraded yet.
Please be assured that the settings page in the picture is normal, “Basic” is for our end user to change the settings, and others are for installers or manufacturers to change the settings for the system. You can change the “force charge” settings in “Basic”.
If you need further assistance, please kindly provide the inverter serial number for further help.
So it appears that different models of inverters are the reason behind the different pages of the apps.
Hope this helps but if someone else has discovered this previously and posted it here, sorry for the duplication.
A few things I have learnt from following this thread and successfully setting up my force charge mode:
1. If you are part of a Virtual Power Plant arrangement such as the Grid Services Agreement with Social Energy, then you can’t operate this and force charge at the same time. You have to exit the VPP arrangement.
2. Whilst in the force charge period all electricity use is imported, even if your battery is at or above the desired state of charge. I found this when adding a second pre-peak booster charge, even when SoC was above target – the programme then holds that charge for the duration, importing everything else.
3. Charging efficiency is affected by battery temperature below 15 degrees. I had to add an insulation jacket to keep the battery snug in cold weather even though it sits in my loft.
Hi all,
We have been on Octopus Go now for just over a week. Mind getting frustrated with the Solax X1-Hybrid-G4-5.0 with two solax batteries, as well as an eddi.
Not every night do the batteries charge during off-peak, adjusted the setting, via the app, without success. Now spotted elsewhere that Charge/Discahrge1 and 2 have to set the same, so will now try this tonight.
The eddi also does not retain the schedules each night to charge the immersion heater, even though I have set them for every day.
Pulling hair out time. Help required please.
As far as the Eddi goes, when you set the schedule for the Eddi within the app (if that’s the way you are setting them), then make sure you wait for the app to actually update – it takes quite a bit of time to save the settings and if you don’t wait then they won’t be set. Otherwise, we haven’t had any issues with setting schedules, and the Eddi (and Zappi) behave themselves and divert power to the immersion/car when scheduled to do so.
Al.
Thanks, Alan.
I did start setting the times on the PC as opposed the Android App, but I was confused in that you could set the time to start and finish, but it also had a how many minutes slider, max 360. So I resorted to the phone app, even though I wait until the app reloads the settings disappear the next day.
Maybe I am loosing it)-:
Thanks, Alan.
I did start setting the times on the PC as opposed the Android App, but I was confused in that you could set the time to start and finish, but it also had a how many minutes slider, max 360. So I resorted to the phone app, even though I wait until the app reloads the settings disappear the next day.
Maybe I am loosing it)-:
Good news is that everything is now working, having settings competed on both the app and PC seemed to be the problem with the eddi. The batteries not charging during off-peak issue, as I needed to set the battery discharge time outside the off-peak time.
Thanks again.
HI, a very helpful thread on a confusing subject so well done Alan.
I have encountered an issue over the last few days, where my Solax Inverter prefers to send the majority of the excess solar generation to the Grid rather than to the batteries.
I havent changed our settings, but it could be that they are wrong in the 1st place and would like to double check if possible.
Based on the current provision (18/01/24) of 4.56KW being generated by the panels, 3.52KW is being sent to the grid, 438W is being used by the house and only 357W is going to the battery.
The battery temp is 8.00C, so could this be the issue ?
Remote Settings are
Self Use – Min SOC% 10 – Charge from Grid Enable – Charge battery to 100%
Feed in Priority – Min SOC% 20 – Charge Battery to 100%
Charge Discharge periods are set for night time charging using Octopus Energy – which works well charging the EV, so i dont think this setting is affecting anything
Would really appreciate any advice you can suggest
Thanks
Hi,
I have a solax PV panel and battery system. Irritatingly the app doesn’t seem to be working at the moment – is anyone else having this problem?
I have just switched over to Octopus Flux – My import tariff has moved over but it will take a few weeks for my export tariff to complete, whilst they obtain an MPAN number.
I think I have managed to follow your instructions to set up the force charging overnight during the cheaper period of 2am-5am, though I will check first thing tomorrow morning how full my battery is looking.
What I don’t fully understand, is how do I tell the battery to export to the grid, to “sell” at the peak rate between 4pm and 7pm? I know I can’t do this until the export tariff is set up, but I’m unsure how I tell my battery to export?
Thank you!
Much obliged
My menu settings were different so had to play about but hopefully got the programming correct
Perhaps a silly question but is there any way to export from the batteries? That would be useful during Octopus Saving Sessions as some people with different inverters are exporting battery power to get a greater payback from Octopus. Also, my inverter (X1-Hybrid-G4) has a work mode called Manual. I can’t find any information about it.
I don’t think you can, but I’m not sure as it’s not something I’ve tried. We can’t get paid for anything we export so it’s not something we are ever likely to want to do!!
Al.
Have you tried setting the mode to “Manual Mode” and choosing “Forced Discharge” remember to press save after each setting.