Growatt 5000 ES SNU Charge Source Priority Not Working ...

[Olasitu]

I am recently observing a fault with my Growatt 5000 ES charging behavior.

My Charge Source Priority is set to SNU – Solar and Utility.

However, over the last few weeks – Solar is restricting the power being pulled from the Utility source. Prior to this Solar and Utility would always combine to about 3000W into charging my batteries.

When there is PV power, grid is restricted to about 100W and when I turn off the PVs the Inverter pulls about 3000W from the Grid.

The issue is that this slows the battery recharge rate and wastes the small window of time to recharge the batteries. We have frequent power cuts here.

Please see attachments.

Would appreciate any thoughts and recommendations.

I have 2 Growatt 5000 ES installed in Parallel with 2 x Blue Carbon 48V 200Ah Lithium Battery Pack For Solar Home System. PVs are Mono 10 x 550W. 5 panels each in series to each Inverter. Priority is set to Solar, Utility and Battery.

 

[timselectric]

When in SUB mode.
As soon as solar is available, grid charging is stopped. The only way to charge from both solar and grid at the same time. Is if you are not using the inverter. Because the inverter and AC charger is the same board. This board can be used as one or the other, but not both. As soon as solar is present in SUB mode, the board switches from AC charger to inverter. So that solar can power the loads.

 

[Olasitu]

When in SUB mode.
As soon as solar is available, grid charging is stopped. The only way to charge from both solar and grid at the same time. Is if you are not using the inverter. Because the inverter and AC charger is the same board. This board can be used as one or the other, but not both. As soon as solar is present in SUB mode, the board switches from AC charger to inverter. So that solar can power the loads.

Thank you for your response. Do you have any documentation on this? I have had my system for over 6 months and I have certainly observed over 1000W going into the battery at the same time from BOTH PV and Grid - Concurrently. I do stand to be corrected.

 

[timselectric]

Were you in SBU mode before?
You can charge from both sources if in SBU mode and bypass is active.
Or in UTI mode.

 

[Olasitu]

Were you in SBU mode before?
You can charge from both sources if in SBU mode and bypass is active.
Or in UTI mode.

No. I wasnt. I have always been in SUB mode.

 

[timselectric]

Not sure what else I can offer. I don't know how it was working in both ways at the same time, before.

 

[Olasitu]

@timselectric

I think I am getting more clarity. Please look at the attached.

I have 642W being pulled from PV, 509W from the Grid, Charging is using 425W and 468W being consumed. From your post it appears .... the Grid is powering consumption in Bypass mode while it is the PV ONLY charging the batteries. Otherwise it should be pulling >2000W from the Grid.

So what looks like both PV and Grid charging at the same time is really not the case. One is charging and One is supporting the consumption.

 

[timselectric]

Yes, I believe that you are correct.

 

[agrogers]

Hi Olasitu. I have the same problem in SNU charge mode. When the PV is available it charges the batteries very slowly (<1A) - it seems to be using the little PV available after powering the load. The utility is also available but no power comes from it for charging. If I disconnect the PV, the charge current immediately jumps to 20A - the maximum allowed. Reconnect the PV and the charge current drops back to <1A.

My understanding of SNU mode is that BOTH solar and utility should charge the batteries at the same time. My SNU mode works like CSO mode - uses solar first and then Utility when the sun goes down.

This is a problem of course because the batteries should be getting a full charge when we have utility power. I can charge them if I turn off the solar panels... but that is a very backward step.

As far as I can recall, my system (2 SPF 6000ES in parallel) has always worked like this. Did you find an explanation / solution? Does resetting the inverters help you?

 

[AshleyL]

Hi Olasitu. I have the same problem in SNU charge mode. When the PV is available it charges the batteries very slowly (<1A) - it seems to be using the little PV available after powering the load. The utility is also available but no power comes from it for charging. If I disconnect the PV, the charge current immediately jumps to 20A - the maximum allowed. Reconnect the PV and the charge current drops back to <1A.

My understanding of SNU mode is that BOTH solar and utility should charge the batteries at the same time. My SNU mode works like CSO mode - uses solar first and then Utility when the sun goes down.

This is a problem of course because the batteries should be getting a full charge when we have utility power. I can charge them if I turn off the solar panels... but that is a very backward step.

As far as I can recall, my system (2 SPF 6000ES in parallel) has always worked like this. Did you find an explanation / solution? Does resetting the inverters help you?

View attachment 203604
View attachment 203603

Not really.

In SUB mode, the priority is to use solar power for load first, then any remaining extra will be dumped into the battery. Remember, the main purpose of off-grid-solar inverter is to minimise the use of grid power, not to maximise the usage of grid.

Have some reading at the PDF file I uploaded here. The information you would like to read is page 22 - 27

Note: The page relevant to yours is page 24. Notice that the grid doesn't have any arrow (regardless of the green/grey color)?