Schneider XW Pro Enhanced Grid Support issues

n2aws · Sep 26, 2023

BentleyJ said:
Load Shave Amps is the value used to determine when the inverter starts to supplement loads using battery power. So If it is set to 0 then NO current will be drawn from the grid and the inverter will try and satisfy all loads from the batteries. This is exactly the opposite of what Hamish is wanting to do.

If load shave is 0 amps, and SOC is set to 100%, it will use PV generated power to support the loads only when the battery is full.. When the PV power goes away (dark, clouds, etc) then it stops supporting the loads and uses the grid to satisfy those. Enhanced grid support prioritizes the batteries.

Thats how mine is setup, and right now.. I have a good amount of cloud cover. See the screenshot below. you'll notice that 100% of the available PV power is going into the battery, and isn't being used to supply the 200w of load. When it gets to 100% SOC, it'll support loads and sell to grid.

BentleyJ · Sep 26, 2023

That makes sense when adding SoC into the mix. This is a variable I don't have available with the XW+. So if you needed to actually have Peak Load Shave kick in at say 4pm for TOU the SoC setting would have to be reduced to less than whatever the battery is presently at.

It sounds like the problem described in the post was due to Enhanced Mode not working correctly on his inverter.

n2aws · Sep 26, 2023

BentleyJ said:
That makes sense when adding SoC into the mix. This is a variable I don't have available with the XW+. So if you needed to actually have Peak Load Shave kick in at say 4pm for TOU the SoC setting would have to be reduced to less than whatever the battery is presently at.

It sounds like the problem described in the post was due to Enhanced Mode not working correctly on his inverter.

I would agree with this.

I don't currently have TOU setup, so I can only speculate there, but it sounds reasonable.

In my particular scenario, I don't have a net metering agreement. so, I have a wattnode and only "sell back" enough juice to the main panel, to satisfy house loads. but the settings are identical (the system doesn't know if I have an agreement or not, so it's "selling back" regardless as if I did, it's a couple other settings elsewhere, that enable the zero sell aspect.

Hamish · Oct 4, 2023

romangeek said:
I have installed a Schneider XW Pro Inverter with their MPPT 100 600 charger and Lithium Smart batteries. I have the latest firmware. The unit works great from a performance point of view, seems quite efficient based upon heat it dissipates and is incredible at handling surges! I have a 6 HP 240 V compressor and it starts it without the slightest hesitation. However, I am also selling to the grid. I wanted to do their Enhanced Grid Support. Meaning… keep batteries charged, use the power from the PV to run the house and sell any extra to the grid. I scoured the documents and the WEB and could not get information for it to work properly… meaning: It would only sell to the grid at the rate of the “max sell amps”! The impact of which was to discharge the battery at a high rate until the batter SOC (or voltage.. depending on mode) would be reached and then it would stop using energy from the PV, the house would be fed from the grid, the battery would then be recharged to above the SOC limit and then the cycle would start all over again! Constant large current cycling of the battery about every 55 seconds.

I called technical support multiple times and all they gave me was the manual information and said it should work… but it did not.

In searching the WEB, I found multiple people encountered this problem but no one including Schneider had a solution! Well, I stumbled upon the solution… They say that the Grid Support voltage should be set to 64 Volts in order to enable the Enhanced mode. That does not work. I have verified this on my system and the exact system of a friend of mine (we bought same equip. at the same time).

The answer is to run it in the SOC mode but have the Grid Support voltage at the float voltage of the charge controller! Then it works beautifully!!! Just a note: the charger settings on the MPPT must be the same values as on the Inverter.

I wasted about 25 hours with this issue and Schneider was no help at all. I believe that at this point I understand the system better than their technical support people.

If any of you struggled with the same issue… I hope this will help you!

Insight Home/Facility v1.18 is out. It is supposed to fix the enhanced grid support problem. v1.17 was also supposed to fix that problem. Neither of them fixed it as near as I can tell. Thank you Schneider solar.

n2aws · Oct 4, 2023

Hamish said:
Insight Home/Facility v1.18 is out. It is supposed to fix the enhanced grid support problem. v1.17 was also supposed to fix that problem. Neither of them fixed it as near as I can tell. Thank you Schneider solar.

When you guys say enhanced grid support doesn't work, What specifically are you thinking it does or should do, and what is it actually doing?

Because, for me.. enhanced grid support has worked for me (or at least the way I expected it to) for a while now, even before 1.17.

Maybe this is an issue of, just having different ideas/expectations about what it does?

Hamish · Oct 31, 2023

When on Grid Support, it will export battery energy even if more than enough solar power for the load. If I turn off GS, it will not export to grid. I suspect this is a feature. It has always seemed to me like there should be a grid support-conserve battery option. Maybe I missed that.

On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels.x24

n2aws · Oct 31, 2023

Hamish said:
When on Grid Support, it will export battery energy even if more than enough solar power for the load. If I turn off GS, it will not export to grid. I suspect this is a feature. It has always seemed to me like there should be a grid support-conserve battery option. Maybe I missed that.

On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels.x24

Apologies, I'm still not clear on what the issue is, or what you are trying to get it to do that it's not doing.

If you want it to export excess PV energy to the grid after the batteries are full, thats what enhanced grid support does.

The way it works is:
you set your grid support volts to 65.
You set your inverter to 2 stage charging (or disable it completely)
you set the Schnieder SCC (it must be schnieder, and connected via xanbus) to 3 stage. Set your bulk, absorg, and float voltages to whatever makes sense for your batteries.

When the sun is shining, the system will prioritize charging the batteries. Once your SCC switches to float mode AND the batteries "rest" down to float voltage, the XW Pro will begine exporting the energy being generated.

The last part is key. A lot of people think it's not working because they set float lower than bulk/absorb. So the SCC charges the batteries to (for example) 56v, but then the SCC switches to float at 54v. While the batteries are above 54v, the SCC doesn't want to "overcharge" the batteries, so it produces no power. When the batteries hit roughly float volage, the SCC will start producing energy from the available PV.

Depending on your battery chemistry, it can take a while to let batteries drop to that float voltage. So my recommendation would be to set bulk/absorb/float all to the same voltage. If thats not an option, enable the settings and watch it for a while. see if it starts exporting when the voltage drops after the SCC's have switched to float.

If that helps, cool. If not, please write a detailed description that includes 2 things. 1) What you expect the system to be doing. and 2) What it's actually doing. Please make sure to include config details/parameters.

Hamish · Oct 31, 2023

romangeek said:
According to the release notes for the latest firmware, there are issues with the Enhanced GS. However, the give a "workaround".. which does not work!
I am still using closed loop SOC control, however, they still use voltages to do the actual control of how much power they take from the DC bus and how much they export after supporting the house loads. So what one would think is a completely SOC-based control is not so... it is a hybrid mode. Once the magic trick is known, mainly having the Grid Support voltage be the same as the Float voltage then it works magically. All their instructions say to have it not at Float but at a magic number "64". When I did that it just kept oscillating with the high discharge/charge cycles.

But with Discover BMS, battery type=Discover 6650, the XW must be set to 2-stage charging, thus no float stage at night. At night, XW periodically draws power from batteries, then recharges. I could set Recharge % to 100, but BMS overrides and sets it to 98%.

On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels x24

Hamish · Oct 31, 2023

n2aws said:
Apologies, I'm still not clear on what the issue is, or what you are trying to get it to do that it's not doing.

If you want it to export excess PV energy to the grid after the batteries are full, thats what enhanced grid support does.

The way it works is:
you set your grid support volts to 65.
You set your inverter to 2 stage charging (or disable it completely)
you set the Schnieder SCC (it must be schnieder, and connected via xanbus) to 3 stage. Set your bulk, absorg, and float voltages to whatever makes sense for your batteries.

When the sun is shining, the system will prioritize charging the batteries. Once your SCC switches to float mode AND the batteries "rest" down to float voltage, the XW Pro will begine exporting the energy being generated.

The last part is key. A lot of people think it's not working because they set float lower than bulk/absorb. So the SCC charges the batteries to (for example) 56v, but then the SCC switches to float at 54v. While the batteries are above 54v, the SCC doesn't want to "overcharge" the batteries, so it produces no power. When the batteries hit roughly float volage, the SCC will start producing energy from the available PV.

Depending on your battery chemistry, it can take a while to let batteries drop to that float voltage. So my recommendation would be to set bulk/absorb/float all to the same voltage. If thats not an option, enable the settings and watch it for a while. see if it starts exporting when the voltage drops after the SCC's have switched to float.

If that helps, cool. If not, please write a detailed description that includes 2 things. 1) What you expect the system to be doing. and 2) What it's actually doing. Please make sure to include config details/parameters.

I expect it to NEVER sell battery energy to the grid.
On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels x24

n2aws · Oct 31, 2023

Hamish said:
I expect it to NEVER sell battery energy to the grid.
On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels x24

#1) I can't imagine a BMS is overriding your grid support SOC settings.
#2) Enhanced grid support specifically prioritizes the batteries, so it shouldn't sell to the grid *from* batteries.

If it's exporting from batteries to the grid, there is a reason. there is something misconfigured somewhere.

If I set the settings I described in my previous post, my XW won't even send energy to support the critical loads, until the battery SOC is at 100% and the SCC's go to float. If it won't send power to even support the protected loads, it certainly wouldn't send it back to the grid.

That said, I've repeatedly asked for your settings. I'm not sure anyone can help without them.

n2aws · Oct 31, 2023

Hamish said:
the XW must be set to 2-stage charging, thus no float stage at night.

Correct. the inverter should be set to 2 stage. it's the SCC you'd need to set to 3 stage. the export happens when they switch to float. Then the SCC communicates with the inverter so the inverter knows how much power is available to export. This communication is why it must be a Schnieder SCC.

Hamish · Oct 31, 2023

n2aws said:
#1) I can't imagine a BMS is overriding your grid support SOC settings.
#2) Enhanced grid support specifically prioritizes the batteries, so it shouldn't sell to the grid *from* batteries.

If it's exporting from batteries to the grid, there is a reason. there is something misconfigured somewhere.

If I set the settings I described in my previous post, my XW won't even send energy to support the critical loads, until the battery SOC is at 100% and the SCC's go to float. If it won't send power to even support the protected loads, it certainly wouldn't send it back to the grid.

That said, I've repeatedly asked for your settings. I'm not sure anyone can help without them.

I apologize for not posting settings, but there are hundreds of them. In the XWPro:
GS%=30%; GSV=FloatV=53.6V; Charging=LiIon/ExternalBMS
Recharge SoC=98% Yes, BMS overrides this and some other setting. Battery is set to Discover 6650
Recharge V=53v (is this controlled by Voltage or SoC? I am closed loop.)
XW Pro Firmware v2.04/29. All firmware up to date as of 10/1/23
I could PDF the settings and attach them...?

On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels x24

n2aws · Oct 31, 2023

Hamish said:
I apologize for not posting settings, but there are hundreds of them. In the XWPro:
GS%=30%; GSV=FloatV=53.6V; Charging=LiIon/ExternalBMS
Recharge SoC=98% Yes, BMS overrides this and some other setting. Battery is set to Discover 6650
Recharge V=53v (is this controlled by Voltage or SoC? I am closed loop.)
XW Pro Firmware v2.04/29. All firmware up to date as of 10/1/23
I could PDF the settings and attach them...?

On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels x24

The PDF of the settings would be great.

From what you are saying, so far I'm not hearing anything that would be "off", other than the BMS changing your recharge SOC. Maybe that's something specific to discover batteries, but I've never seen a BMS control anything excpet bulk/absorb/float voltages, charge current, and if charging is allowed. All of the SOC related stuff would be "personal preference" based on how you wanted to use your batteries. I'd be a bit peeved if I wanted to do self consumption, but my BMS forced a recharge at 98% SOC.

Hamish · Oct 31, 2023

n2aws said:
Correct. the inverter should be set to 2 stage. it's the SCC you'd need to set to 3 stage. the export happens when they switch to float. Then the SCC communicates with the inverter so the inverter knows how much power is available to export. This communication is why it must be a Schnieder SCC.

n2aws said:
The PDF of the settings would be great.

From what you are saying, so far I'm not hearing anything that would be "off", other than the BMS changing your recharge SOC. Maybe that's something specific to discover batteries, but I've never seen a BMS control anything excpet bulk/absorb/float voltages, charge current, and if charging is allowed. All of the SOC related stuff would be "personal preference" based on how you wanted to use your batteries. I'd be a bit peeved if I wanted to do self consumption, but my BMS forced a recharge at 98% SOC.

The Discover BMS does set/reset some values, mostly ones I do no want to mess with like Low Battery Cutout. Recharge SoC does get set back from 100% to 98%.

n2aws · Oct 31, 2023

Hamish said:
The Discover BMS does set/reset some values, mostly ones I do no want to mess with like Low Battery Cutout. Recharge SoC does get set back from 100% to 98%.

Thanks.

So the first thing I notice is that you have grid support voltage set to 53.6. For enhanced grid support, it *needs* to be 65v or higher. You have this configured for grid support, not *enhanced* grid support.

At 53.6, You've told the XW system to "discharge from all sources possible until the battery is at 30% SOC". (grid support SOC 30%). Essentially, you've told it.. "keep 30% of the battery available for use, or 53.6v. if it drops below either of those, stop selling to the grid"

Change the Grid support voltage to 65v or higher and you'll see it will stop supporting loads, AND selling back until the battery is fully charged. This is what I described earlier.

This document may help:

https://solar.se.com/us/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/09/XW-Enhanced-Support-Mode-Application-Note_976-0321-01-01_ENG.pdf

Philip53 · Nov 1, 2023

Thanks @n2aws for your information & the Schneider enhanced GSV publication. I have an older XW and used the enhanced GSV on my original Concorde AGM's for eleven years. They were beginning to show their age, and I recently replaced them with two 230ah Trophy lithiums, when I added another PV array. As I rarely need backup power, and since my grid is pretty stable, I don't want to keep the lithiums at 100%. I have been using a lower sell GSV to keep the batteries between 80 - 90% SOC. If I see a hurricane approaching, or a bad weather event, I can easily raise the GSV voltage to up my storage capacity. Do you see any advantage to going the enhanced GSV route & changing the SCC's charging parameters to accomplish the same lower SOC? Obviously you have much more knowledge on the XW's than I do, are there any other questions I should be asking?

Again, thanks for your forum contributions.

n2aws · Nov 1, 2023

Philip53 said:
Thanks @n2aws for your information & the Schneider enhanced GSV publication. I have an older XW and used the enhanced GSV on my original Concorde AGM's for eleven years. They were beginning to show their age, and I recently replaced them with two 230ah Trophy lithiums, when I added another PV array. As I rarely need backup power, and since my grid is pretty stable, I don't want to keep the lithiums at 100%. I have been using a lower sell GSV to keep the batteries between 80 - 90% SOC. If I see a hurricane approaching, or a bad weather event, I can easily raise the GSV voltage to up my storage capacity. Do you see any advantage to going the enhanced GSV route & changing the SCC's charging parameters to accomplish the same lower SOC? Obviously you have much more knowledge on the XW's than I do, are there any other questions I should be asking?

Again, thanks for your forum contributions.

It sounds like you have yours configured the same way I do. I have my SOC set to 50% usually, and my grid sell voltage at 52 or 53v. I don't like to keep lithium batteries at 100% SOC. Most manufacturers will tell you that if you are going to store them, to have them at 80% or lower, so I can only assume that keeping them at 100% isn't ideal. Lithium batteries will die of calendar age if they are never cycled, so they aren't really being "saved" in that regard. My theory is, if they are going to die anyway, may as well make use of them and cycle them. 50% allows my critical loads a bit over a day and a half if the weather isn't good.

During the day, I store the excess PV in the batteries, and in the evening they discharge down to 60% SOC. Once a month or so, I set them to top off at 100% (I do this using node-red, so it's automated now) for a day. Like you, I also set them to 100% in the days before a hurricane is likely to make landfall.

I personally think "Enhanced grid support" is great for AGM/FLA/SLA type batteries where they can live forever if kept in float. (I've seen 12v used in datacenters that were 30-50 years old, but only cycled a handful of times, but kept in float most of the time). But I don't personally think it's a great idea for lithium chemistries. However, I also don't profess to know everyones use-case, or claim to be any kind of lithium expert

The trophy batteries don't do closed loop with the Schnieder, do they? I can't recall.

n2aws · Nov 1, 2023

Hamish said:
I could set Recharge % to 100, but BMS overrides and sets it to 98%.

@Hamish something you said didn't make sense to me, was that the BMS was setting your recharge SOC to "98%" when you wanted it at 100%. It kept bugging me, so this morning I went through and re-read your post. In re-reading it, I see i missed a fundamental part. You wanted your recharge SOC at 100%.

I suspect it's not the BMS resetting your recharge SOC to 98%, but the XW firmware itself. If you set recharge SOC to 100%, this would mean to *always* have your batteries recharging. which is likely not good for your batteries. Thus, I suspect it's an undocumented "self preservation, so you don't shoot yourself in the foot" feature in the firmware itself. I did look through the XW documentation to see if there was any mention of it, but I didn't see any. But fundamentally "recharge SOC 100%" just doesn't make any sense in any use-case I can think of. In fact, taking this a step further.. "recharge soc 100%" would be functionally equivalent to a float charge. in which case, you'd enable 3stage charging, not 2 stage. (I'd advise against it since you want to sell to the grid). but honestly, I think this boils down to you wanting to do something with your inverter, that you probably *shouldn't* do.

Philip53 · Nov 1, 2023

No, my XW will not support closed loop with the Trophy batteries. The older, original XW's were not designed to be controlled externally (except from the SCP), as far as I know.

I've got to say that the XW has been bulletproof so far. Once I commissioned the system in 2011, it was not turned off until I did the expansion of the system earlier this year. Now I have 10.4kw of solar, with one array facing SE, one SW, and the newest facing directly south. My PV production curve during the day is fairly flat, with the XW showing a bit better than 6kw selling back to grid for a good part of the day, with almost 8kw total solar production at times. I have gotten 50+ kwh's/day during several days this summer. Yesterday, I got 36kwh's (I have too many trees blocking the low winter sun angle).

I did add a couple of fans to my system to help alleviate the heat buildup. Everything is mounted inside my house in a separate mechanical room, which also houses my solar water heaters and geothermal unit. It can get up to about 85 degrees in there even with the air conditioner on. I put a double computer type fan on top of the inverter, pulling air up through the unit, and a 9" diameter circular fan blowing across the SCC's. This made a BIG difference on the operating temps of the units. I don't see any temperature derating at all.

n2aws · Nov 1, 2023

Philip53 said:
No, my XW will not support closed loop with the Trophy batteries. The older, original XW's were not designed to be controlled externally (except from the SCP), as far as I know.

I've got to say that the XW has been bulletproof so far. Once I commissioned the system in 2011, it was not turned off until I did the expansion of the system earlier this year. Now I have 10.4kw of solar, with one array facing SE, one SW, and the newest facing directly south. My PV production curve during the day is fairly flat, with the XW showing a bit better than 6kw selling back to grid for a good part of the day, with almost 8kw total solar production at times. I have gotten 50+ kwh's/day during several days this summer. Yesterday, I got 36kwh's (I have too many trees blocking the low winter sun angle).

I did add a couple of fans to my system to help alleviate the heat buildup. Everything is mounted inside my house in a separate mechanical room, which also houses my solar water heaters and geothermal unit. It can get up to about 85 degrees in there even with the air conditioner on. I put a double computer type fan on top of the inverter, pulling air up through the unit, and a 9" diameter circular fan blowing across the SCC's. This made a BIG difference on the operating temps of the units. I don't see any temperature derating at all.

Like you, I think the hardware is bulletproof. I do think the firmware could use some improvement. multiple time of use windows, clarity on what some of the features do, etc etc. But, for the things *I* want to do, I've been able to control the system externally via nodered (which was suggested to me by another forum member)

I now have nodered configured to change the settings for grid sell based on time of use rates.. I'm in Florida and FPL has an "opt in" time of use plan, that looks like it could save me a good bit of money. But their time windows change. 6 months there is a single large window. 6 months there are 2 smaller windows. The Schneider firmware can't support 2 windows, now the annual change. But, nodered can!

I'm going to run it like that for a while, and review the numbers. See if going to FPL's TOU rates makes sense for me.

(And then also the monthly "charge batteries to 100%" thing so they can top balance. I have it set to do that on the 1st of each month, and end on the evening of the 2nd after sunset.)

Overall, I have no complaints with the system. Thats not to say that some of the new hybrid inverters don't interest me. they have a ton of new features that are pretty cool.

Schneider XW Pro Enhanced Grid Support issues

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