What is the Best way to reduce your grid consumption ?
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PreppenWolf
Solar Wizard
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?
I'm pretty sure the EG4 batteries are all 56.4V max charging to extend cycle life.
@BenFromSignatureSolar
timselectric
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When I had mine hooked up with communications.
It set the charging to 58v. It ran that way for a few months, until I removed communications. And started choosing my own settings. Not sure if it has been changed. Mine was purchased last February.
scoharri
New Member
What is the Best way to reduce your grid consumption ?
Go off-grid
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
When in SBU mode (and battery voltage is above the lower threshold setting to switch to utility), PV output first supplies household loads, and then any left over power goes to charge the battery. You cannot provide supplemental charging from the grid in this mode.
Charging the battery from the utility can only occur when the unit is also powering loads from the utility.
When in utility first mode, the unit will pass through grid power to loads, while any available solar PV will be used to charge the battery (up until the battery is fully charged).
In Utility First mode you may also set the unit to supplement the solar PV charging with extra charge power from the grid. You can set two charge current limits, a total charge current limit - this is to protect the batteries from being charges too fast- and a utility charge current limit - this is to limit how much of the battery's charge comes from the supplemental charge source. The utility charge limit can't override the total charge limit.
I operate my system slightly differently to many. Since I also have grid-tied solar PV, I use Utility First mode during the day. That way my grid-tied PV is powering my loads while the smaller off-grid PV array is dedicated to charging the battery. On some days (e.g. cloudy) the small off-grid array may not being able to fully charge the battery and so I want the system to supplement that charging with power from the grid-tied PV array, but I only do so if my grid-tied array has sufficient excess capacity (I do not want to import power from the grid to charge my battery as daytime power is more expensive than over night power).
Later in the day the system switches over to SBU mode and the battery (and any residual off-grid PV which may still be available) powers the home during the evening peak tariff period and then overnight. Obviously if the battery state of charge gets too low then the system switches back to Utility First mode. It is set to prioritise covering the evening peak tariff period.
The times of day/night when the change over between modes occurs and the switching on/off of any supplemental charging from the utility input is all automated with the aid of Home Assistant (via Solar Assistant).
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
As to reducing your grid consumption, there are a few aspects to that:
- reducing overall energy consumption
- changing when you consume energy
- increasing your home's own energy supply
When you consume energy can make a big difference. So, for instance, if you have solar PV going to waste then one strategy is the shifting of any discretionary loads to operate during the daytime instead of during the evening. We have done this with most major appliance use and in particular our hot water storage which used to be heated with overnight power from the grid but is now powered from our solar PV during the day.
As to reducing consumption, well there are a myriad of ways to do that. Improving the thermal performance of the home, use of heat pumps for space and water heating instead of resistive elements, replacing appliances at end of life with more energy efficient models, using less hot water by use of low flow shower heads, better energy consumption habits, automation to switch things off which are not required to be on (lights, idle accessories which are not needed to be on etc), stop using things which really aren't necessary (e.g. I decommissioned an energy hungry spa many years ago, we just never used it but is needed to run each day for maintaining water health).
You can of course increase supply, which in essence is more solar PV and/or storage. PV works in concert with load management, battery for all the loads which cannot be moved to daytime running.
- reducing overall energy consumption
- changing when you consume energy
- increasing your home's own energy supply
When you consume energy can make a big difference. So, for instance, if you have solar PV going to waste then one strategy is the shifting of any discretionary loads to operate during the daytime instead of during the evening. We have done this with most major appliance use and in particular our hot water storage which used to be heated with overnight power from the grid but is now powered from our solar PV during the day.
As to reducing consumption, well there are a myriad of ways to do that. Improving the thermal performance of the home, use of heat pumps for space and water heating instead of resistive elements, replacing appliances at end of life with more energy efficient models, using less hot water by use of low flow shower heads, better energy consumption habits, automation to switch things off which are not required to be on (lights, idle accessories which are not needed to be on etc), stop using things which really aren't necessary (e.g. I decommissioned an energy hungry spa many years ago, we just never used it but is needed to run each day for maintaining water health).
You can of course increase supply, which in essence is more solar PV and/or storage. PV works in concert with load management, battery for all the loads which cannot be moved to daytime running.
Last edited:
PreppenWolf
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It's true you can't supplement, but you can force grid bypass and thus battery charging by simply turning off your PV input when in SBU mode. Because AIOs cannot run grid and battery inversion dc to ac at the same time, it will force bypass and activate charging.
timselectric
If I can do it, you can do it.
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Switching off the PV would just leave it running on battery until it reached the transfer SOC.
Maybe you are thinking about SUB mode?
robby
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Do you have extra PV power in the day?
For example at what time in the day are your batteries fully charged?
How I cut back on a lot of my bill was by utilizing the extra PV after the batteries are charged. I would turn on the Hot Water heater at 1pm and then run the AC units at a very cool temp in the summer to use as much of the remaining PV during the day. This would cause the AC units to use less power at night and the Hotwater heater would use very little extra power if we all had normal showers.
Yes, extra PV during the day. LOL I've been running 1500w heaters from the excess PV during the day - reducing my heating bill (northern Ohio)
wattmatters
Solar Wizard
No. If you turn off the PV input then you are just running from the battery.
The utility will only take over once the battery reaches the low SOC or voltage threshold.
robby
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Add as many things for extra heat as you can get away with. I see that some people use heated floor systems.
Use all that extra PV in the day and your batteries will have less load at night.
So the time boxes in this setting will let this come on and top off just twice a day correct?. I'm slowly getting it I think. And set the time the same on each box if you only want to top off once a day I suppose.