Avoiding efficiency losses on the 6000xp
- Thread starter AZ Solar Junkie
- Start date
AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
Actually, no. You have AC charging configured to start charging the batteries from the grid at 16%. It will never allow itself to get down to the on-grid EOD SOC% threshold of 15% that you have configured. You need to either disable AC charging entirely (with the AC Charge Based On drop-down), or ensure the AC Charge Start Battery SOC% threshold is set LOWER than the On Grid EOD SOC% value.
The other setting that's important that's not included in your screenshot is that the Battery ECO mode be enabled.
AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
That's the theory, yeah
Theoretically with the system in Bypass your batteries could still slowly discharge through internal BMS consumption, etc. Honestly I've never had them ever lose even 1% overnight, but if for whatever reason they were to drift down to your 13% threshold, then AC charging would kick in and keep them from going lower.BTW - there seems to be a general consensus that discharging the batteries to a very low level is not good for the battery health. I've seen a number of recommendations to not discharge them below like 20%. To that end you might want to raise them a bit - like 20% for the On-Grid EOD SOC and 18% for the AC Charge Start Battery SOC.
My batteries were regularly getting down to my bypass threshold for a few months in the winter. Now they never get much below 35% before solar comes back, so they're mostly just waiting for next winter or the rare series of bad weather days in Arizona before I'll see it in bypass mode again
@AZ Solar Junkie well it worked ! - I had to go out and leave the house but watched it on the web and it worked. Nothing happened at 15% and I started to think it wouldn’t work but once it clicked to 14% a few seconds later it updated and switched to grid. From what I can tell there was no loss of power at the house as I have alerts setup in my home assistant. It’s a cool feature ! Who needs a transfer switch
ChrisSwolls
New Member
Awesome post and info. My XP will be here in a week or two, this will be my first setup that won’t be completely off grid. I’m sure I’ll have tons of questions trying to get this thing setup, I love the bypass idea and let the PV charge the batteries back up.
I just need better batteries now lol
Oh, and I’m up in Coconino. Nice to see other Arizonians lol
I just need better batteries now lol
Oh, and I’m up in Coconino. Nice to see other Arizonians lol
@AZ Solar Junkie, we have our XP running in passthrough at our cabin (AC First always on). Not there at the moment so just running fridge, freezer and a few lights on timers. PV will be connected soon. Based on the numbers on pulling from grid, maintaining battery and powering loads I’m an about 70% efficiency (screenshot below). If I set mine up similar to use using ECO will efficiency be considerably higher?
AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
Awesome@AZ Solar Junkie well it worked ! - I had to go out and leave the house but watched it on the web and it worked. Nothing happened at 15% and I started to think it wouldn’t work but once it clicked to 14% a few seconds later it updated and switched to grid. From what I can tell there was no loss of power at the house as I have alerts setup in my home assistant. It’s a cool feature ! Who needs a transfer switch
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Yeah mine works the same way - always lets the batteries get to 1% lower than your threshold. Glad it’s working for you as well!AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
It’s like waiting for Christmas
. Hello to a fellow Arizonan . It is certainly the best place in the country to do solar, eh? Couldn’t ask for more sun. I used to look forward to the winter - but solar is making me look forward to summers too 
AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
Yeah once you have solar coming in you’ll be able to disable AC charging so it will only charge with solar and only use the grid for bypass when the batteries are low, then you’ll essentially have 100% efficiency as far as it will only pull exactly the power demanded by the loads.
I see the same thing when in AC first even if AC charging is disabled. It continuously bumps between a low wattage charge and discharge and uses about 60w on top of it. When not using AC first and only doing EOD it switches to a "different" bypass that has the 100% efficiency and import is the same as the consumption power. I wish AC first mode used this "different" bypass and not the weird battery thing.
I’m surprised how 4 watts in to maintain battery decreases efficiency that much.
I think because in AC first it has the charger/inverter on also which has ~60w overhead. Seems the EOD bypass is straight through and doesn't do this which is why there is essentially no loss from grid to consumption. I couldn't find a way to get to this straight through bypass other than EOD.
And this require Battery ECO mode also?
AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
I believe so - see the working modes doc attached to this post- https://diysolarforum.com/posts/1007676/
@AZ Solar Junkie looking for any suggestions here - so my battery ran out during the night (I raised the cut off to 20%). The bypass kicked in as expected but now the sun is up and my solar should have started to recharge but it hasn't. 07:30am is when I see charging start at the moment (April). Voltage is good. When I tested it the 1st time it was during the day and the PV was already active (see my screen shots above).
Have I messed up my settings somehow or do I have a problem?
Have I messed up my settings somehow or do I have a problem?
AZ Solar Junkie
Maricopa, AZ
The only potential issue I see with your settings is that you have the discharge cut-off and the on grid EOD thresholds set to the same value. I always set the discharge cut-off threshold to be lower by a couple percentage points.
EG4_Jared
Online Support for EG4 Electronics
If you could DM the serial number for the inverter, I can take a look.
Not sure how big your array is but I've noticed with my smallish array the PV charging/inverting doesn't turn on until there is about 50-60 watts of solar being produced. I assume this is because the inverter uses about that when using PV power.
