Growatt With Solar Assistant and Home Assistant

[ChrisG]

I know some people will crap on this post because it’s not efficiently using a solar inverter for its full intended purpose but whatever. Some are simply looking for a low cost backup solution for critical loads in their house in the event of a grid outage. That intent is what started me in this never-ending path of PV self reliance and my very first inverter purchase in 2020 of a Growatt 3000 SPF 48v. This little inverter isn’t the greatest but it’s pretty damn good. Yes there is some LED flicker when on battery, yes it has low PV voltage input and it’s not highly configurable…MAYBE.

I still use this inverter to power my garage lights/fridge/freezer/few other things with no PV attached, simply for backup and testing, just a 10kwh battery but can deploy PV in a few minutes if needed. This unit has really been rock solid.

Growatt Automation with Solar Assistant and Home Assistant: Flickering LED lights are a PITA but IF ONLY using this inverter for backup (sure other cheap inverters are the same), there is an easy way around this which allows you to also cycle your batteries slowly.
Steps:

1. Keep Inverter in Grid Bypass mode always (will auto change if grid goes down for backup)
2. Leverage Solar Assistant and Home Assistant to change CHARGER SOURCE PRIORITY based on SOC/Voltage, whatever you use (scripts below). For me, at 50% SOC I switch charger priority to grid/solar and at 100% (after 1 hour to get some balancing) I switch to Solar Only.

This automation only cycles your batteries and leaves enough for backup. In my case with Growatt 40w self consumption, it takes 116 hours to go between states of changing charger source priority. This is ONLY changing charger source priority, NOT output priority (grid vs inverter). The above steps keep your lights from flickering as you’re always on grid pass through but also slowly cycling your batteries so they are not always at a high state of charge and using whatever method you want to charge your batteries.

Scripts:

alias: Growatt - To Utility @ 50% SOC - Utility Charge
description: Growatt - To Utility @ 50% SOC - Utility Charge
trigger:
- platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.battery_state_of_charge
for:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 0
below: 50
condition: []
action:
- device_id: <mydeviceID>
domain: select
entity_id: <myentityID>
type: select_option
option: Solar and utility simultaneously
mode: single

alias: Growatt - To Battery @ 100% SOC - Solar Only Charge
description: Growatt - To Battery @ 100% SOC - Solar Only Charge
trigger:
- platform: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.battery_state_of_charge
for:
hours: 1
minutes: 0
seconds: 0
above: 99
condition: []
action:
- device_id: <mydeviceID>
domain: select
entity_id: <myentityID>
type: select_option
option: Solar only
mode: single

There is a lot you can do with SA and HA. Just have to drive in. I also have HA integrated with OpenWeatherMap which allows to change charge source priority if a large storm is coming in for example. Really cool stuff.

 

[wattmatters]

Nothing to crap on. You are using the tools you have to do what you need them to do.

I use SA/HA + a bit of Node Red to manage the operation of our off-grid system and how it interacts with grid power and battery. Works really well.

Runs the whole home at night from the battery and cuts back to grid in the daytime when our grid-tied PV is generating and can take over. Monitors the grid system to make decisions on when to cut to/from grid supply.

The automations also control the battery charging, which is mostly covered by the off-grid PV but based on solar forecasts and how much the battery requires to be fully recharged it can decide to draw some supplemental energy from the grid PV system, but never to import from the grid.

e.g. yesterday/last night the battery SOC got down to 60% by early this morning (wife did a bunch of clothes washing and drying last night), which means the LiFePO4 is very low, the rest of the capacity is my backup sealed lead acid reserve capacity (for outages).

System cut over to grid at 7:14AM as there was enough grid PV to run the home, and the system knows the off-grid PV won't have enough generation today to fill the battery back up so it automatically started some supplemental grid charging, ramping up/down the supplemental charge rate based on how much excess grid PV I have. It will only do that until the system knows the off-grid will be able to complete the job of charging the battery.

I have a dashboard to see the status of these functions:



Plus the grid system overview:


And what our loads are doing:

 

[ChrisG]

@wattmatters , sweet dashboards.
This Growatt is my just testing system I often mess with. Guess my point to this post is even for people just starting out with inverters/battery/PV and you don’t want to spend a lot, you can absolutely do a lot with these cheaper inverters and integrations. It's all about setting expectations and figuring out the art of the possible.

 

[wattmatters]

For sure. I would not have done a lot of what I have without this interactive ability to control stuff. I started with a cheapie clone 4 kW AIO and it showed what was possible, so I upgraded the inverter to a much larger capacity unit (8 kW) because I knew the system could do a lot more than I originally set out (which was for outage backup). It might still be a crappy inverter and if it dies, well I'll choose something a bit more robust but with the same controllability.

 

[ChrisG]

Well crap...apparently you can do this automation directly in Solar Assistant now.

 

[DIYPV]

Well crap...apparently you can do this automation directly in Solar Assistant now.
View attachment 172187

Yes, seems to work reliably.

I’m running a few automations in solar assistant that prioritizes solar usage and charges to a full battery before premium TOU times, while minimizing grid usage. I’ve also setup another automation to taper charge current similar to closed loop inverter/battery communication.

I’ve considered HA, but seems too complicated to me. I’ll work with SA automations for now and see how much I can accomplish with it.

 

[ChrisG]

Yes, seems to work reliably.

I’m running a few automations in solar assistant that prioritizes solar usage and charges to a full battery before premium TOU times, while minimizing grid usage. I’ve also setup another automation to taper charge current similar to closed loop inverter/battery communication.

I’ve considered HA, but seems too complicated to me. I’ll work with SA automations for now and see how much I can accomplish with it.

Just realized I lost my manual config ability in Solar Assistsnt with this beta. Not sure where to tweak voltage, etc, used to be able to get to the granular settings through the power tab.

 

[DIYPV]

Not sure if this is what you’re talking about.

Some manual configurations will appear after you setup automations. It will limit the list of manual controls to the specific settings which are being automated. Kind of like an override feature.

 

[ChrisG]

Not sure if this is what you’re talking about.

Some manual configurations will appear after you setup automations. It will limit the list of manual controls to the specific settings which are being automated. Kind of like an override feature.

I used to be able to manually change settings by clicking on the output priority selection on the power tab which linked me to another page where edit individual settings, not automation just one time changes. That capability seems to be gone.

 

[DIYPV]

I used to be able to manually change settings by clicking on the output priority selection on the power tab which linked me to another page where edit individual settings, not automation just one time changes. That capability seems to be gone.

Try configuration tab and scroll down to inverter section. On right of Status - connected, click settings and see if that’s what you’re looking for.

 

[ChrisG]

Try configuration tab and scroll down to inverter section. On right of Status - connected, click settings and see if that’s what you’re looking for.

That’s it!! Thanks.

 

[tommyg]

Hi All, I have recently setup a sph6000 with SA and HA, I am trying to build automations in HA what allow me to utilise the Octopus Intelligent off-peak rate additional slots that can be allocated during the day when I plug in my Tesla. Basically my thinking is that on days of low solar production I can top up the batteries before the evening peak period starts.

I have this running in a very basic way i.e. if Tesla charging then off-peak is available so charge the batteries by putting them in Battery First mode, if Tesla stops charging then switch back to Load First, the problem I have is that this disables the scheduled AC Charging timeslot and erases the time start/stop values. Does anyone have any thoughts about how I can manage this better?

Just to add, I don't have the entities available to me in HA in order to set/change the timeslot, I have to manually go into SA or Shine.

 

[MaikaiLifeDIY]

Do you have the ability to see all the

Hi All, I have recently setup a sph6000 with SA and HA, I am trying to build automations in HA what allow me to utilise the Octopus Intelligent off-peak rate additional slots that can be allocated during the day when I plug in my Tesla. Basically my thinking is that on days of low solar production I can top up the batteries before the evening peak period starts.

I have this running in a very basic way i.e. if Tesla charging then off-peak is available so charge the batteries by putting them in Battery First mode, if Tesla stops charging then switch back to Load First, the problem I have is that this disables the scheduled AC Charging timeslot and erases the time start/stop values. Does anyone have any thoughts about how I can manage this better?

Just to add, I don't have the entities available to me in HA in order to set/change the timeslot, I have to manually go into SA or Shine.

do you have the ability to see all the raw nodes exposed by SA to HA? The mqtt explorer add on for HA will let you see them if you don’t have another way.

 

[kelddamsbo]

Well crap...apparently you can do this automation directly in Solar Assistant now.
View attachment 172187

Strange I dont get Automations on
Software version: 2024-01-23
I use Growatt TL3-XH

 

[Rho]

Nothing to crap on. You are using the tools you have to do what you need them to do.

I use SA/HA + a bit of Node Red to manage the operation of our off-grid system and how it interacts with grid power and battery. Works really well.

Runs the whole home at night from the battery and cuts back to grid in the daytime when our grid-tied PV is generating and can take over. Monitors the grid system to make decisions on when to cut to/from grid supply.

The automations also control the battery charging, which is mostly covered by the off-grid PV but based on solar forecasts and how much the battery requires to be fully recharged it can decide to draw some supplemental energy from the grid PV system, but never to import from the grid.

e.g. yesterday/last night the battery SOC got down to 60% by early this morning (wife did a bunch of clothes washing and drying last night), which means the LiFePO4 is very low, the rest of the capacity is my backup sealed lead acid reserve capacity (for outages).

System cut over to grid at 7:14AM as there was enough grid PV to run the home, and the system knows the off-grid PV won't have enough generation today to fill the battery back up so it automatically started some supplemental grid charging, ramping up/down the supplemental charge rate based on how much excess grid PV I have. It will only do that until the system knows the off-grid will be able to complete the job of charging the battery.

I have a dashboard to see the status of these functions:

View attachment 172024

Plus the grid system overview:
View attachment 172025

And what our loads are doing:

View attachment 172026

Please where are charts being generated. Solar Assistant, Home Assistant, Growatt or combination. It appears you have got this down.

 

[wattmatters]

Please where are charts being generated. Solar Assistant, Home Assistant, Growatt or combination. It appears you have got this down.

Home Assistant dashboard.

 

[Rho]

Home Assistant dashboard.

Thank you. I have SA and pi orange. I have growatt avaliable just wasn't comfortable with it.
I guess HAssit is in my future.

 

[wattmatters]

SA provides an MQTT bridge, and you install the MQTT integration in HA. SA have a guide which even I was able to follow:

SolarAssistant integration with Home Assistant

SolarAssistant can integrate with Home Assistant via MQTT and supports the Home Assistant auto discovery protocol.

solar-assistant.io

Obviously you'll need a Home Assistant instance set up and running. That will need to be on its own computer, be it another RPi or on a PC. Mine runs on a virtual machine set up on a second hand NUC PC (was cheaper than a Pi and way more powerful). They will also both need to be connected to the same network.

It'll provide a whole raft of data channels and ability to control the inverter's various operating modes and parameters. If your SA has batteries connected then it'll report on them as well.