It is sunny so there is now enough PV to satisfy demand each day. My overnight charge is set to 45% but even if the battery still has much more in it, during the charge period household demand is drawn from the grid. This results in 100% charge being reached during the following day and excess PV given away to the grid. If I turn ECO off will the battery provide overnight demand until it gets down to 45%?
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Eco will:
- satisfy home demand from your battery
- charge your battery from excess solar (over home demand), and once the battery is full, export the remainder
this is to be expected. Your battery can either be holding charge, charging or discharging. If you set a timed charge then during the duration of that charge the battery will charge, not discharge, and any home demand will be met from grid import. The battery can’t discharge and charge at the same time
If you turn Eco off then the battery won’t discharge to meet home demand, unless you set a ‘timed discharge’. Any home demand will be met from solar generation or grid import.
Best practice is to leave Eco mode on. I assume you don’t have an export tariff, so now we are getting more solar, set the overnight charge-to to a lower %, or reduce the charge window.
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Thank you. There is clearly room to improve the algorithm so that if the charge level is at or above the set level charging is deferred for say an hour. In the meantime your suggestion of reducing the charge window will certainly work.
yes the charge and discharge schedules are quite simplistic
another one to watch out for is when discharging, if you set a target %, when the battery reaches that % level it will stop discharging and thereafter any house load will be met from the grid not the battery, until the end of the time period. Its quite logical but people have been caught out by this
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I agree , the timed discharge to grid function is confusing in that if the percentage is reached before the period of discharge then the grid I’d used for household usage not battery - why I ask?
Its down to the way the timed discharge has been designed.
If you think about it as:
- Put the inverter into discharge mode from ‘start’ to ‘end’ time
- Set a lower discharge limit of X % battery capacity
So if the battery reaches the lower limit before the end time period, there really isn’t anything more the inverter can do other than to stop discharging and let any further house load be satisfied from grid import. If the battery continued discharging it would breach the lower limit you’d set which wouldn’t be what was instructed.
This is just the way it works and you need to set the timed period (and discharge rate) so that you don’t incur grid import if that’s what you want to happen. Or do a discharge with no lower limit %.