Adding Schneider XW Pro
- Thread starter 400bird
- Start date
I recall with the 4548 ... it would always pull a set current from the genset AC2. If house loads were less than the rest went into battery charge. If house loads were greater than battery energy would supplement the loads.
Has never worked right with 6848 Pro.
Now on the other hand. with the 6848 normal off grid works fine. Batteries will feed or drain based on house loads and pv coupled energy on the XW output lines (with the loads). It is fluid in real time.
btw -- i have invested in 280ah LiFEP04 Eve cells. 17 in a bank. Two banks for a total of 28kw storage. Got rid of lead acid for good.
Has never worked right with 6848 Pro.
Now on the other hand. with the 6848 normal off grid works fine. Batteries will feed or drain based on house loads and pv coupled energy on the XW output lines (with the loads). It is fluid in real time.
btw -- i have invested in 280ah LiFEP04 Eve cells. 17 in a bank. Two banks for a total of 28kw storage. Got rid of lead acid for good.
Don't blame you genset. I still have qualify issues galore on AC2. Even when I had grid on AC2 !!
400bird
Solar Wizard
So, do you know what feature software version they fixed the generator qualifying issue?
More importantly, can you have them make AC coupling work properly! Or have a timed charge cycle start?!
It seems so simple, a programming ape like myself, can program a Raspberry Pi to fix the AC coupled charging fail. Schneider should be able to knock it out in an afternoon. Then again an afternoon a few months later to fix the bug they didn't find the first time through ?
400bird
Solar Wizard
The current firmware 1.11.01 bn49 broke thing for multiple users here. Myself included, it mutilated the EPC power control over modbus that I was using.
I had to roll back to 1.11.00
"I ran the generator last week. The XW Pro saw it and used it when I
removed AC1 from the grid. This is the 1.09.00bn9 firmware
I have settings at ...
AC Breaker at 18 amps
Generator Support at 14 amps" from 10/29/2020
---
"After XW6848-21 0 upgrade to 1.11.01bn49, sell to grid has stopped." from email 10/13/2021
later that day ...
"fyi
Its selling now ...
with 1.11.00bn28 on 6848
and v1.14 bn 488 on gateway
will leave alone"
I hope this helps.
removed AC1 from the grid. This is the 1.09.00bn9 firmware
I have settings at ...
AC Breaker at 18 amps
Generator Support at 14 amps" from 10/29/2020
---
"After XW6848-21 0 upgrade to 1.11.01bn49, sell to grid has stopped." from email 10/13/2021
later that day ...
"fyi
Its selling now ...
with 1.11.00bn28 on 6848
and v1.14 bn 488 on gateway
will leave alone"
I hope this helps.
"More importantly, can you have them make AC coupling work properly! Or have a timed charge cycle start?!"
What AC coupling issues have you ?
I have a few Fronius IG5100 that do fine on the output side of the XW 6848 Pro. I have to watch power levels of course. The XW takes in energy when loads are lower than pv, and vice versa. Seems to accomodate 5 to 6 kw swings fine for me. Difficulty comes when my loads are up at 7 kw and higher. Sudden cloud cover can put me over limits.
What AC coupling issues have you ?
I have a few Fronius IG5100 that do fine on the output side of the XW 6848 Pro. I have to watch power levels of course. The XW takes in energy when loads are lower than pv, and vice versa. Seems to accomodate 5 to 6 kw swings fine for me. Difficulty comes when my loads are up at 7 kw and higher. Sudden cloud cover can put me over limits.
"So, do you know what feature software version they fixed the generator qualifying issue?"
At 1.11.00bn28 I don't consider AC2 qualify to be fixed, just better than 1.09
I don't run genset enough to bother with a real fix. Newer firmware always plagues me and I don't have the time to do S/E debugging anymore.
At 1.11.00bn28 I don't consider AC2 qualify to be fixed, just better than 1.09
I don't run genset enough to bother with a real fix. Newer firmware always plagues me and I don't have the time to do S/E debugging anymore.
I just looked now -- the latest firmware release was 10/5/2021
XW-Pro-6848-120-240V-Firmware-v1.11_BN0049
Thats the one that broke my sell last year.
This above is at the current page below ...
solar.se.com
XW-Pro-6848-120-240V-Firmware-v1.11_BN0049
Thats the one that broke my sell last year.
This above is at the current page below ...
XW Pro 120/240V
The Schneider Electric XW Pro 6848 solar inverter provides flexible design with optional generator integration for home and small businesses.
solar.se.com
GXMnow
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
- Messages
- 2,696
I am way behind on firmware 1.03 on the XW-Pro, but it is stable and working great with my Modbus control. The Gateway is on 1.08 and has only crashed twice in 2 years, so not too bad. And when the gateway crashed, the XW keeps working, but I lose the Modbus control.
Instead of a Pi, I am using a Triangle Research Nano-10 PLC.
Nano-10 PLC - Low Cost Programmable Logic Controller | TRi
High-end features included standard on a low cost, nano PLC. Modbus TCP Client/Server, RS485, ADC, Digital I/O, HSC/Interrupt/Stepper/PWM
triplc.com
Once I figured out my dumb programming mistake, it works great. It is relay ladder logic for the basic sequencing, but then a relay closure can then run a block of Basic code. And the code directly supports Modbus, both RS485 serial, which I am using to read power meters, and TCP which I am using to read data and send the commands to the XW-Pro, via the Gateway. I also added the battery backed up real time clock option which increases the memory as well, but I'm not sure it's really needed.
I am going to be doing a bit of code changes to use a bit more off peak time grid power to keep my battery charged a bit more on hot days when the A/C is running a lot. The plan is to have enough battery to run the A/C during the peak rate time without needing grid power. My current code leaves it exporting about 50 watts, even during off peak time with the rest of the unused power going to the battery bank. In winter to spring it worked perfectly. When the solar production exceeded the house draw by 300 watts, it starts the XW-Pro charging, and then adjusts the charge every 5 seconds to keep the grid export under 100 watts. But in this hot weather, when the A/C kicks on, the battery is not charging enough. It has been going over 100F out every day for over a week. The heat also drops my solar output about 10% compared to spring.
I just got back from a 3 day trip....
I just looked in on my system. Seems the PLC had a run time error some time on Tuesday night. So my battery did not charge at all on Wednesday. And it has not charge today until now, when I rebooted the PLC. It looks like it was a divide by zero error in my code. I was pretty sure I had traps for that, but I guess I missed one. Tonight I will look through my code some more. I am going to add a check, if it is between 10 am and 4 pm, I will ignore the current draw from the A/C and still let it charge from the solar power available.
What is your battery ? I use jkbms on my 17 cells. It is bluetooth connected thru a pi zero. I have no contactor to protect my cells. Just monitor the individual cells to safe levels and use modbus to stop XW charge. Discharge protection is lessen the loads coding. I suppose I can tell XW to off the inverter if extreme conditions dictate. Never get outside or 3.1 to 3.5 volt range.
Can I assume your microinverters are all on the XW output side ?
All my grid tie inverters have been hacked to off-grid, have a 5 second timeout for cycling. You know the freq shift disconnect logic. Have you been able to get the microinverters to fast cycle back on if tripped off ?
All my grid tie inverters have been hacked to off-grid, have a 5 second timeout for cycling. You know the freq shift disconnect logic. Have you been able to get the microinverters to fast cycle back on if tripped off ?
GXMnow
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2020
- Messages
- 2,696
Yes, that is me. Yes, the entire Enphase system, is now on a breaker in my backup loads panel from the XW-Pro.
My Enphase iQ7 inverters are running the normal Cal Rule 21 profile which supports frequency watt control. I have not done an extended off grid test since the last firmware update. On my last short grid outage, I was not home, but I looked at as much of my data as I could when I got back. That was before I had the PLC working properly, so there were some issues. The worst part was that I had the charge rate set very low, I think like 18% of 140 amps (just 25 amps). So when the grid went down, the XW saw the charge current going up to 60 amps. It started shifting the frequency to cause the microinverters to reduce their output, but evidently it didn't drop the output enough, or fast enough, before 5 of my 16 inverter went offline and stopped producing. That dropped the charge current enough that frequency moved back towards 60 Hz. In just one minute, those 5 inverters came back on, and the cycle repeated about 5 times in 10 minutes. The other 11 inverters never cut out. So it held the charge current just under the programmed 25 amps until something else started drawing power, or the sun went down. I can't tell which from the data, and just 20 minutes later, the grid came back on.
There seems to be a little disagreement in how to interpret frequency shift power curtailment. Schneider expects the shift to immediately reduce power by a percentage of what is being produced by the solar panels. And that seems like a sound assumption, but it is not what Enphase appears to be doing. From what I could see in the data, the frequency shift appears to reduce the current limit. My iQ7's are rated at 240 watts, 1 amp at 240 volts. But in the early evening, 5 pm, my panels are only making 120 watts each. So each inverter is now putting only about 1/2 an amp into my system. If the XW raises the frequency to 61 Hz, the current limit of the iQ7's will drop by 50% to 1/2 amp. That would cut the power at solar noon, but at 5 pm, it made no difference, because the output was already down to 50% of the limit. As the frequency shifted further, they did start to cut power again, but 5 of them saw it as "unstable grid" in the logs. I have no record of how far the frequency shifted. My guess is it got close to 62 Hz. The crystal reference in those 5 inverters must just be a little low, so it saw the grid out of range, while the rest of them were only curtailing and didn't shut off. And since the grid voltage never varied, they didn't requalify. When the frequency came back into range, they came back on without the 5 minute delay.
As good as the Modbus control is, I would not trust that alone to save the batteries. The full charge voltage, and low battery cut off voltage should be the first line to keep the batteries safe, as long as they are balanced. The big problem is when LFP cells get even a little out of balance. Once cell can go running when it reaches the top knee, even if all the other cells are at 3.4 volts. My battery bank is actually split into 3 sections now. I have a 200 amp JK smart BMS with 2 strings in parallel. The the other 2 strings each have their own 100 amp dumb Daly BMS. They are all Mosfet switch type, but running well under their ratings. My maximum charge and discharge power is just 140 amps total. Even with bad current sharing, I doubt any string will see 40 amps. Each string has a 100 amps fuse, and then all 4 strings go to a 225 amp fuse to the XW. The max surge rating of 12,000 watts would be 240 amps at 50 volts.
My Enphase iQ7 inverters are running the normal Cal Rule 21 profile which supports frequency watt control. I have not done an extended off grid test since the last firmware update. On my last short grid outage, I was not home, but I looked at as much of my data as I could when I got back. That was before I had the PLC working properly, so there were some issues. The worst part was that I had the charge rate set very low, I think like 18% of 140 amps (just 25 amps). So when the grid went down, the XW saw the charge current going up to 60 amps. It started shifting the frequency to cause the microinverters to reduce their output, but evidently it didn't drop the output enough, or fast enough, before 5 of my 16 inverter went offline and stopped producing. That dropped the charge current enough that frequency moved back towards 60 Hz. In just one minute, those 5 inverters came back on, and the cycle repeated about 5 times in 10 minutes. The other 11 inverters never cut out. So it held the charge current just under the programmed 25 amps until something else started drawing power, or the sun went down. I can't tell which from the data, and just 20 minutes later, the grid came back on.
There seems to be a little disagreement in how to interpret frequency shift power curtailment. Schneider expects the shift to immediately reduce power by a percentage of what is being produced by the solar panels. And that seems like a sound assumption, but it is not what Enphase appears to be doing. From what I could see in the data, the frequency shift appears to reduce the current limit. My iQ7's are rated at 240 watts, 1 amp at 240 volts. But in the early evening, 5 pm, my panels are only making 120 watts each. So each inverter is now putting only about 1/2 an amp into my system. If the XW raises the frequency to 61 Hz, the current limit of the iQ7's will drop by 50% to 1/2 amp. That would cut the power at solar noon, but at 5 pm, it made no difference, because the output was already down to 50% of the limit. As the frequency shifted further, they did start to cut power again, but 5 of them saw it as "unstable grid" in the logs. I have no record of how far the frequency shifted. My guess is it got close to 62 Hz. The crystal reference in those 5 inverters must just be a little low, so it saw the grid out of range, while the rest of them were only curtailing and didn't shut off. And since the grid voltage never varied, they didn't requalify. When the frequency came back into range, they came back on without the 5 minute delay.
As good as the Modbus control is, I would not trust that alone to save the batteries. The full charge voltage, and low battery cut off voltage should be the first line to keep the batteries safe, as long as they are balanced. The big problem is when LFP cells get even a little out of balance. Once cell can go running when it reaches the top knee, even if all the other cells are at 3.4 volts. My battery bank is actually split into 3 sections now. I have a 200 amp JK smart BMS with 2 strings in parallel. The the other 2 strings each have their own 100 amp dumb Daly BMS. They are all Mosfet switch type, but running well under their ratings. My maximum charge and discharge power is just 140 amps total. Even with bad current sharing, I doubt any string will see 40 amps. Each string has a 100 amps fuse, and then all 4 strings go to a 225 amp fuse to the XW. The max surge rating of 12,000 watts would be 240 amps at 50 volts.
400bird
Solar Wizard
The coupling is fine. But, when AC coupled it won't initiate a charge cycle and it won't follow available solar power to only charge from the sun.
Lol, I got in line and waited 3 months to get a regular PI 4
No spares, sorry. But, if I did, I'm sure there worth at least $200 ?
For a lot of this little stuff an ESP32 is an easier solution... and available at a lower MSRP.
