Schneider XW Pro 6848 Stuck in AC Passthrough

[JFKS]

For roughly the last six months I’ve been trying to get the settings dialed in on my XW Pro 6848 and MPPT 80/600 so it sells excess PV to the grid without depleting the battery bank (three EG4-LL 100A 5 KWh batteries, communicating on the Schneider Xanbus via the Insight Home). I was gradually getting it sorted out, having learned over a period of time that:

a. Neither “SOC Control” or the mysterious “Enhanced Grid Mode” does what is claimed in the manuals, at least in inverter firmware 1.11.01 bn 49)

b. Depending on what grid code you’re using (my electrical utility said they don’t care which I use), you get frequent extremely heavy selling from the battery (far in excess of the max sell amperage you've configured) as the inverter tries to prop the grid up through frequency, voltage, and power factor excursions. Depending on the duration and depth of the excursion, this would often result in the inverter dropping into AC Passthrough, then re-entering grid support a few seconds later.

The end result is that although I found the inverter/charger/battery combination to be rock-solid when off-grid or when Sell to Grid is disabled, like so many others have reported in this and other forums, selling your excess PV generation is sketchy at best.

Now within the last couple of weeks the inverter has stopped Selling to Grid and refuses to come out of AC Passthrough at all no matter what settings are applied, battery condition, etc. Even following an inverter reboot it will just sell to the grid for a few seconds, then drop into AC Passthrough and stay there. It is not throwing any alerts of any kind though.

I noticed that new firmware (2.04.00 bn 29 for the inverter, V1.17 bn 79 for Insight Home) is now available, both having features which would potentially improve the Grid Support performance. Unfortunately, my inverter still won't leave AC Passthrough with the new firmware loaded.

Even more ominously, I’ve noticed that when running the inverter off-grid (no grid connection at all), its output voltages tend to be lower compared to where they used to be (was typically 124/248 VAC, now more like 118/236VAC even under a fairly light load). Voltages are still normal while in AC Passthrough, and when the inverter is bypassed, indicating interconnections remain good.

All the above suggests to me that all the transitioning between Grid Support and AC Passthrough that resulted from over-selling to the Grid, draining the battery, etc has pitted some relay contacts somewhere in the bowels of the inverter.

Anybody have any similar experiences or better ideas? I contacted Schneider tech support through the website a couple days ago. I received an automated reply and case number back, but nothing since.

For what its worth, my system is intended mainly as a personal test-bed and includes both DC and AC-coupled PV, all installed as prescribed by the manuals and IAW the NEC. Even though its essentially dead in the water at the moment, I expect that with some better firmware (maybe 2.0 is it, I just haven’t been able to try it) and perhaps more education on my part, the XW Pro/EG4 combination is eventually going to be kick-butt. Will let you know what I find and hopefully save others from whatever problem I’ve run into.

John

.

 

[JBertok]

From the sound of the way it's working, it seems like it's in "SoC" (State of Charge) mode for Grid Support in the "Battery Settings" on the Inverter. If that's the case, then it does run at full power when in Grid Support mode until the "Grid Support" SoC is reached. Under "Grid Energy Management" you've got the two adjustments for determining how much power you want to keep in your batteries, in both voltage or State of Charge, but only one of those is active at a time depending on the SoC Enable setting under Battery.

For a self-consumption configuration I'd run it in voltage mode and try to maintain a full battery bank, only exporting if all my own needs are met. If you're in a net-metering region where you're not getting 1:1 for power sold, and you have enough array, then it might be advantageous to set the Grid Energy Management settings to a lower voltage (or SoC) to drain the batteries some more during the evening so a bigger portion of the next day's production is going to yourself by recharging the batteries.

Verify that "Backup Mode" under Advanced Configuration is enabled. Oddly named, this toggle is what enables grid-forming. I think they should have called it GRID FORMING!

I am running v2.04 but am not sure any of its changes would affect your scenario. It adds some LifePower LiFePO4 closed-loop support which is cool.

Your voltages are fine, 110/220 minimum.

 

[JBertok]

From the sound of the way it's working, it seems like it's in "SoC" (State of Charge) mode for Grid Support in the "Battery Settings" on the Inverter. If that's the case, then it does run at full power when in Grid Support mode until the "Grid Support" SoC is reached. Under "Grid Energy Management" you've got the two adjustments for determining how much power you want to keep in your batteries, in both voltage or State of Charge, but only one of those is active at a time depending on the SoC Enable setting under Battery.

For a self-consumption configuration I'd run it in voltage mode and try to maintain a full battery bank, only exporting if all my own needs are met. If you're in a net-metering region where you're not getting 1:1 for power sold, and you have enough array, then it might be advantageous to set the Grid Energy Management settings to a lower voltage (or SoC) to drain the batteries some more during the evening so a bigger portion of the next day's production is going to yourself by recharging the batteries.

Verify that "Backup Mode" under Advanced Configuration is enabled. Oddly named, this toggle is what enables grid-forming. I think they should have called it GRID FORMING! Also, under "Backup Mode Settings" in Advanced, verify AC Coupling is enabled.

I am running v2.04 but am not sure any of its changes would affect your scenario. It adds some LifePower LiFePO4 closed-loop support which is cool.

Your voltages are fine, 110/220 minimum.

 

[n2aws]

For roughly the last six months I’ve been trying to get the settings dialed in on my XW Pro 6848 and MPPT 80/600 so it sells excess PV to the grid without depleting the battery bank (three EG4-LL 100A 5 KWh batteries, communicating on the Schneider Xanbus via the Insight Home). I was gradually getting it sorted out, having learned over a period of time that:

a. Neither “SOC Control” or the mysterious “Enhanced Grid Mode” does what is claimed in the manuals, at least in inverter firmware 1.11.01 bn 49)

b. Depending on what grid code you’re using (my electrical utility said they don’t care which I use), you get frequent extremely heavy selling from the battery (far in excess of the max sell amperage you've configured) as the inverter tries to prop the grid up through frequency, voltage, and power factor excursions. Depending on the duration and depth of the excursion, this would often result in the inverter dropping into AC Passthrough, then re-entering grid support a few seconds later.

The end result is that although I found the inverter/charger/battery combination to be rock-solid when off-grid or when Sell to Grid is disabled, like so many others have reported in this and other forums, selling your excess PV generation is sketchy at best.

Now within the last couple of weeks the inverter has stopped Selling to Grid and refuses to come out of AC Passthrough at all no matter what settings are applied, battery condition, etc. Even following an inverter reboot it will just sell to the grid for a few seconds, then drop into AC Passthrough and stay there. It is not throwing any alerts of any kind though.

I noticed that new firmware (2.04.00 bn 29 for the inverter, V1.17 bn 79 for Insight Home) is now available, both having features which would potentially improve the Grid Support performance. Unfortunately, my inverter still won't leave AC Passthrough with the new firmware loaded.

Even more ominously, I’ve noticed that when running the inverter off-grid (no grid connection at all), its output voltages tend to be lower compared to where they used to be (was typically 124/248 VAC, now more like 118/236VAC even under a fairly light load). Voltages are still normal while in AC Passthrough, and when the inverter is bypassed, indicating interconnections remain good.

All the above suggests to me that all the transitioning between Grid Support and AC Passthrough that resulted from over-selling to the Grid, draining the battery, etc has pitted some relay contacts somewhere in the bowels of the inverter.

Anybody have any similar experiences or better ideas? I contacted Schneider tech support through the website a couple days ago. I received an automated reply and case number back, but nothing since.

For what its worth, my system is intended mainly as a personal test-bed and includes both DC and AC-coupled PV, all installed as prescribed by the manuals and IAW the NEC. Even though its essentially dead in the water at the moment, I expect that with some better firmware (maybe 2.0 is it, I just haven’t been able to try it) and perhaps more education on my part, the XW Pro/EG4 combination is eventually going to be kick-butt. Will let you know what I find and hopefully save others from whatever problem I’ve run into.

John

.

I'm using 2.04, so grain of salt:

I've never gotten "enhanced grid support" to work with SOC. so, what I do is set the grid support votage to 53.6 (my batteries float at 54v) even with SOC enabled. The other thing, make sure you are using 99% or lower for the grid support setting. It'll never work at 100%

I generally set mine to 65%, then the way it works is. until the batteries get to 66%, it prioritizes charging the batteries. at 66, it sells to grid up to the limit you set in the grid sell amps. If you allow i tto do max, it'll dump 29a to the grid, until your batteries hit 65% again. then it'll charge to 66%, and sell to grid until 65%. rinse/repeat.

In my particular case, I don't have a NEM agreement, so I actually have a wattnode, and have "zero export" or. "grid zero" setup. so in my particular scenario, even if the inverter CAN sell 29 amps back to the main panel, it'll curtail until I have zero'd my meter. that may be 5a, or 2amps, or 18 amps.. etc. so during the day, my batteries charge beyond my minimal SOC setting. then through the night, it'll "sell back" as much as it can to my main panel to zero it, until it gets down to my grid support SOC. (as mentioned above, I set it to 65%, so I always have some reserve if the power goes out)

 

[400bird]

a. Neither “SOC Control” or the mysterious “Enhanced Grid Mode” does what is claimed in the manuals, at least in inverter firmware 1.11.01 bn 49)

I had to abandon that firmware for that exact reason and roll back to an older version.

Now within the last couple of weeks the inverter has stopped Selling to Grid and refuses to come out of AC Passthrough at all no matter what settings are applied, battery condition, etc. Even following an inverter reboot it will just sell to the grid for a few seconds, then drop into AC Passthrough and stay there. It is not throwing any alerts of any kind though.

Have you tried resetting to factory defaults?
If not, I'd recommend that as a first step. There may be some setting causing this and because the settings transfer forward through firmware updates, the problem persists.

Even more ominously, I’ve noticed that when running the inverter off-grid (no grid connection at all), its output voltages tend to be lower compared to where they used to be (was typically 124/248 VAC, now more like 118/236VAC even under a fairly light load). Voltages are still normal while in AC Passthrough, and when the inverter is bypassed, indicating interconnections remain good.

All the above suggests to me that all the transitioning between Grid Support and AC Passthrough that resulted from over-selling to the Grid, draining the battery, etc has pitted some relay contacts somewhere in the bowels of the inverter.

I wouldn't read too much into that slight decrease in AC voltage. You've got AC coupled PV, right? That could drive up the voltage and explain the differences if you took the low readings after sunset.


It's been almost a week and the OP hasn't replied, they might be gone forever, so this may be pointless.

 

[JFKS]

Sorry for the silence... Not a lot of progress to report or time to log on in the evenings, but will post an update on what so people know its still underway. To summarize:
- Schneider Tech Support got back to me via email within a few working days of my request for help. They requested some info Insight Home MAC info, etc) that would allow remote access to my system.
- In the course of providing that and various other information to them (mostly voltage readings) I discovered that my AC-coupled panels cause one particular light fixture that's on a dimmer switch to start flickering when they are producing very low power, as at dawn and dusk when I'm most likely to have time to mess with it. Also, under certain conditions the inverter will raise the frequency to as high as 66.4 Hz to curtail AC-coupled production, which causes a UPS to kick on, and subsequently display its own reduced voltages (not the inverter's, which is still fine). Neither are necessarily the fault of the XW Pro or have anything to do with the "Stuck in AC Passthrough" problem.
- This morning SE Tech Support advised me via email that the reason the inverter won't leave AC Passthrough is that my electrical utility's grid voltage is too high, and that I should contact them to lower the voltage. They also asked me verify my Region Code is set properly.

Grid L-L voltage has been generally ranging from 245 to 248 VAC. Like JBertok and 400bird said, I'm not convinced that that is the problem. My Enphase IQ7+ inverters are still exporting power just fine at that voltage, and I doubt (but can't prove) its any higher now than it used to be while it was working. However, there may be other interactions between the XW Pro and the Enphase microinverters that I haven't noticed before so will try shutting them off and see if the XW Pro will then start Selling to Grid again. But in the past both the DC and AC-coupled exported power together very nicely at the same time.

Barring more info from SE, this weekend I'll try that, and also resetting to factory defaults and starting from scratch, as 400bird suggested. Nothing to lose by trying. It is disappointing to hear though that people are having the same SOC problems under inverter 2.04 firmware as they had under 1.11. I was hoping that would be fixed.

Thanks...
John

 

[400bird]

They also asked me verify my Region Code is set properly.

Where are you and what region code do you have set?

Grid L-L voltage has been generally ranging from 245 to 248 VAC.

I'm on California rule 21 and regularly in the same voltage range without issues. Right now, I am selling to grid at 246 vac as reported by the XW

Maybe you've got an odd grid code set?

 

[JFKS]

Where are you and what region code do you have set?

I'm on California rule 21 and regularly in the same voltage range without issues. Right now, I am selling to grid at 246 vac as reported by the XW

Maybe you've got an odd grid code set?

400bird, you were right on the money in your post a few days ago! Resetting to factory defaults and starting over cured it...

I took the day off work yesterday to try to get this figured out ahead of the coming week's 110 degree heat wave. Changing the Grid Code to HECO Rule 14 didn't help, even after powering down and rebooting the inverter following the change. After that failed, I reset the inverter to factory defaults, then re-configuring with exactly the same settings I had before cured it, big-time. It started Selling to Grid exactly as it should, and its been well behaved ever since (roughly a day later).

As a bonus, "Enhanced Grid Support" mode with SOC Enabled also seems to be working now without selling from the battery constantly, although I'd like to see that run for a week straight under a variety of conditions before I'll believe it. I'll give it some time, then post my observations and settings under a new thread.

To answer your questions though, I'm in north central KS. Evergy is the power company, and they said (in writing) that they didn't care what grid code I use. So before Sell to Grid quit working, I cycled through IEEE 1547 2003 and 2018, HECO Rule 14, and (most recently) CA Rule 21 trying to find one that wouldn't aggressively over-sell to the grid and drain my battery. I could see subtle differences in their sensitivity and response to freq and voltage excursions, but had just concluded the battery sell-out problem was fundamentally buggy inverter firmware when Sell-to-Grid quit working altogether. Its been a long road...

Main lessons learned:
- when something used to work and now it doesn't but its not an obvious hardware problem, try resetting/rebooting.
- the DIY community on this forum has a broad understanding of how this stuff works that extends beyond what Tech Support (who is presumably more hardware-focused) can sometimes provide.

Many thanks for the help...

John

 

[JFKS]

I'm using 2.04, so grain of salt:

I've never gotten "enhanced grid support" to work with SOC. so, what I do is set the grid support votage to 53.6 (my batteries float at 54v) even with SOC enabled. The other thing, make sure you are using 99% or lower for the grid support setting. It'll never work at 100%

I generally set mine to 65%, then the way it works is. until the batteries get to 66%, it prioritizes charging the batteries. at 66, it sells to grid up to the limit you set in the grid sell amps. If you allow i tto do max, it'll dump 29a to the grid, until your batteries hit 65% again. then it'll charge to 66%, and sell to grid until 65%. rinse/repeat.

In my particular case, I don't have a NEM agreement, so I actually have a wattnode, and have "zero export" or. "grid zero" setup. so in my particular scenario, even if the inverter CAN sell 29 amps back to the main panel, it'll curtail until I have zero'd my meter. that may be 5a, or 2amps, or 18 amps.. etc. so during the day, my batteries charge beyond my minimal SOC setting. then through the night, it'll "sell back" as much as it can to my main panel to zero it, until it gets down to my grid support SOC. (as mentioned above, I set it to 65%, so I always have some reserve if the power goes out)

N2AWS: I never have figured out the posting visibility rules on this forum, so will repeat something I just replied to 400bird with... At the moment, it looks like resetting my inverter to factory defaults, then re-configuring it from scratch the same way I had it before fixed the "Stuck in AC Passthrough" problem. Not only that, at the moment, with 2.04 firmware its not repeatedly selling out my battery constantly like it used to with 1.11, which was exactly what you described in your post above. I've currently got my Max Sell Amps set to the equivalent of 2.5 kW. If it doesn't have 2.5 kW of excess PV to sell to the grid because of sun conditions or self-consumption, it sells however much it has. The battery is in float at 99% SOC and so far it looks like it will pretty much stay there unless I drain it during a power outage. Relevant settings are SOC Enabled, Grid Support Voltage set to 64V, Min Grid Support SOC at 90%, and all Charger and Inverter Bulk, Float and Absorption voltages set to 56.5V (for my EG4-LL batteries with closed-loop BMS).

I've been sorely disappointed by "Enhanced Grid Mode" so many times before that I want to watch it for awhile before I decide its working and stable. Stay tuned...

John (KN4NR)

 

[n2aws]

N2AWS: I never have figured out the posting visibility rules on this forum, so will repeat something I just replied to 400bird with... At the moment, it looks like resetting my inverter to factory defaults, then re-configuring it from scratch the same way I had it before fixed the "Stuck in AC Passthrough" problem. Not only that, at the moment, with 2.04 firmware its not repeatedly selling out my battery constantly like it used to with 1.11, which was exactly what you described in your post above. I've currently got my Max Sell Amps set to the equivalent of 2.5 kW. If it doesn't have 2.5 kW of excess PV to sell to the grid because of sun conditions or self-consumption, it sells however much it has. The battery is in float at 99% SOC and so far it looks like it will pretty much stay there unless I drain it during a power outage. Relevant settings are SOC Enabled, Grid Support Voltage set to 64V, Min Grid Support SOC at 90%, and all Charger and Inverter Bulk, Float and Absorption voltages set to 56.5V (for my EG4-LL batteries with closed-loop BMS).

I've been sorely disappointed by "Enhanced Grid Mode" so many times before that I want to watch it for awhile before I decide its working and stable. Stay tuned...

John (KN4NR)

I see from your last post, you're a ham radio guy. Bonus! I knew I liked you. lol

Yeah man, when you're comfortable with it, I'd love to hear your settings.

I'm pretty happy with the current setup I've got, but I've never really been able to get the enhanced grid support work with SOC.
Since I don't sell back to the grid, I've just set my "zero sell" to get me down to about 1200 watts coming in from grid. so, thats my baseline. no matter how much I'm "selling back" it'll always try to make sure 1200 watts is coming in from the grid (rather than true net zero)

But, to make it work the way I want, I have SOC enabled, but grid sell voltage set to 53.6.. and then set grid support for any SOC above 65%. I'd love to make it work like you describe so I always have 99% reserve, instead of 65% reserve.

 

[JFKS]

I see from your last post, you're a ham radio guy. Bonus! I knew I liked you. lol

Yeah man, when you're comfortable with it, I'd love to hear your settings.

I'm pretty happy with the current setup I've got, but I've never really been able to get the enhanced grid support work with SOC.
Since I don't sell back to the grid, I've just set my "zero sell" to get me down to about 1200 watts coming in from grid. so, thats my baseline. no matter how much I'm "selling back" it'll always try to make sure 1200 watts is coming in from the grid (rather than true net zero)

But, to make it work the way I want, I have SOC enabled, but grid sell voltage set to 53.6.. and then set grid support for any SOC above 65%. I'd love to make it work like you describe so I always have 99% reserve, instead of 65% reserve.

One last post on this thread, then maybe eventually start a new one on "XW Pro Sell to Grid Instability with mixed DC/AC-coupled Solar" or something to that effect.

After a week of watching it run, I figure the "Stuck in AC Passthrough" problem is resolved, having been fixed by resetting the inverter to factory defaults and re-configuring from scratch. As for how well it now sells excess PV to the grid without depleting the battery, that's still a question. It did great for several days straight with settings for "Enhanced Grid Support" (SOC Control On and Grid Support Voltage = 64). Then one afternoon it abruptly began alternatively selling from the battery to meet the Max Sell Amps, dropping Sell to zero while recharging the battery, running correctly for a few minutes, then repeating the whole cycle. Over and over and over again until the sun went down and PV dropped to a point where the batteries could no longer recharging. Next day, the same thing...

I've opened a ticket with Schneider to sort this out. From what little I've had a chance to mess with it I suspect its actually an interaction with my AC-coupled microinverters, because shutting them off made the problem stop on the one occasion I've tried it. If so, inverter firmware 2.04 might be working just fine on systems having only DC-coupled panels, which by itself would be -fantastic-.

For what its worth, I've attached a pdf of the one-line diagram for my system. Its got both AC- and DC- coupled panels and separate main load center and critical loads panels, so all the stuff I'm running into may not apply to everybody who reads it. Not shown on the diagram is that the batteries are Signature Solar EG4-LL's with RS485 communication to the Insight Home.
John

 

[n2aws]

One last post on this thread, then maybe eventually start a new one on "XW Pro Sell to Grid Instability with mixed DC/AC-coupled Solar" or something to that effect.

After a week of watching it run, I figure the "Stuck in AC Passthrough" problem is resolved, having been fixed by resetting the inverter to factory defaults and re-configuring from scratch. As for how well it now sells excess PV to the grid without depleting the battery, that's still a question. It did great for several days straight with settings for "Enhanced Grid Support" (SOC Control On and Grid Support Voltage = 64). Then one afternoon it abruptly began alternatively selling from the battery to meet the Max Sell Amps, dropping Sell to zero while recharging the battery, running correctly for a few minutes, then repeating the whole cycle. Over and over and over again until the sun went down and PV dropped to a point where the batteries could no longer recharging. Next day, the same thing...

I've opened a ticket with Schneider to sort this out. From what little I've had a chance to mess with it I suspect its actually an interaction with my AC-coupled microinverters, because shutting them off made the problem stop on the one occasion I've tried it. If so, inverter firmware 2.04 might be working just fine on systems having only DC-coupled panels, which by itself would be -fantastic-.

For what its worth, I've attached a pdf of the one-line diagram for my system. Its got both AC- and DC- coupled panels and separate main load center and critical loads panels, so all the stuff I'm running into may not apply to everybody who reads it. Not shown on the diagram is that the batteries are Signature Solar EG4-LL's with RS485 communication to the Insight Home.
John

I have no AC coupling. I've seen the same behavior when using SOC.

When engaging schneider support, I was told the grid support SOC setting is the culprit. lets assume it's set at 70% for the sake of discussion.

When the SOC is at or below 70%, the inverter prioritizes charging the battery, so directs all of the (DC coupled) current. I specifically say DC coupled, cuz I have no AC coupled to worry about/know about. once the batteries charge to 71%, it can go back to grid sell/grid support mode. so essentially you have this constant 70/charge, 71/sell cycle.

They've also told me that they are working on a firmware update that will let SOC control behave more like voltage control where.. assuming you have schnieder charge controllers.. the comms would be able to determine how much the charge controllers are producing, and sell that back to the main panel thus essentially keeping your SOC at the solid number you've set it at rather than the cyclic charge/sell thing. That was 6+ months ago.

Originally I was concerned about microcycles, but.. as near as I can tell, with LiFePo chemistry, thats not really a concern.

 

[JBertok]

I don't run AC-coupled sources, but I do have a house full of APC Backups that would not like the frequency shift if I tried to. Would get the same result you had. Have you considered running an external contactor running from the Auxiliary Relay in the XW Pro for the micro inverters? Since you're running SoC you'd have precise control over it yourself.

Also, whoever's telling you the grid voltage is too high, I'd disagree. I get 250V at night, 243V during the day from the grid and have no problem at all. In fact, high voltage disconnect doesn't trip until 138V per leg as the default setting in the XW. Calling the utility pretty much invites them to snoop into your business - something I try to avoid. I did adjust and balance the AC Advanced Settings voltage to bring up the inverter voltages to exactly 240.0V; I think my XWs came from the factory calibrated to around 236V. (Changing and testing that has to be done in Invert mode, disconnected from grid and loads.) In retrospect I should have pushed them up to 246V to more closely match the grid average so that when the inverters trip into backup mode the loads won't see so much instantaneous voltage drop.

Since running Enhanced Grid Support mode with AC-coupling isn't a recommended configuration, it makes me think that the configuration parameters for each installation must be too tedious to get right for Schneider to endorse.

On the issue of wiping the XW's back to default - that bit me too. I don't know what it is but there is something getting screwed in the configurations we can't see. My issue was that my second inverters with not come out of Pass-through reliably and start working when it should. A wipe and reset of both inverters fixed it - running V2.04

One more pondering about grid-support - Regardless of whether or not the Charger is enabled or disabled, the Recharge Voltage or SoC setpoint has a bearing on Grid Support mode enabling, in my experience. I run in voltage mode, and for my setup there seems to be a .5 volt heuristic between "Grid Support Voltage" and "Rechange Voltage" for tripping Grid Support. But, it will let you set the recharge voltage to an equal or higher voltage than Grid Support. For example, if I set Grid Support voltage to 50V and my recharge voltage to 51V, Grid Support mode will only pull the batteries down to about 51.5V and then trip off rather than gradually back off. To prevent mode-switching I have the habit of keeping my chargers at 40V with the disabled to prevent that setting from being a factor if want to deplete my batteries.

 

[400bird]

there seems to be a .5 volt heuristic between "Grid Support Voltage" and "Rechange Voltage" for tripping Grid Support.

Yeah, it's one of those things that Schneider has documented but it's hard to find and really needs to be in the GUI.
When there is a qualified AC source, it will not discharge past 1/2 volt above the recharge voltage setting. I don't think grid support voltage factors in, the Grid Support (edit to correct my typo) recharge +0.5 volts takes precedent and stops the discharge regardless of other settings. This same background setting is the reason why AC coupling doesn't work right, it won't automatically recharge the battery from solar.
If I could discharge down to 50 volts while the charger block timer is active (so the charger is off) then when the timer finishes out and PV starts producing, your charge block timer ends so the charger could become active. However, the +0.5 volt offset means the battery never made it down to recharge voltage.

In theory they've addressed this with the newest firmware, but I've yet to hear any verification on that or try it myself.

 

[JBertok]

I can confirm it's the same in v2.04 on the XW Pro and v1.18 on Insight. Maybe addressed in XW Pro firmware v2.10

This would need to be fixed for one of my wish-list items, which is three tiers of time-based setpoints for Grid Support Voltage and for Battery Recharge Voltage so someone with a huge battery could take advantage of TOU Metering and better manage preferable battery reserves based on time of day/night.

With so many setpoints needing a home in the UI, I understand the challenge in presenting them. Most things now have a blue question mark explanation to help. I think that setpoints for a related function, like the Grid Support mode range of operation, could be more clearly depicted on a common sliding scale where all values that affect each other disallow misconfiguration. It would also be nice to see more use of "grayed-out" depictions of settings other settings in the hierarchy make them unusable. There is some of that already, but it is incomplete. That said, some settings should be allowed to be set, even while grayed-out, but others should be locked out.

Here's an example:
(With a battery configurated as FLA or Custom, and with Equalization Support correctly enabled)
- When the XW Pro Charger is disabled, the UI lets you turn on Equalize Now, which then immediately returns a fault warning saying that an unsupported battery type is selected and you must have FLA or Custom battery types. A false error. The actual problem is the disabled Charger.
- Once the warning has been set, enabling the Charger and then enabling Equalize Now does not clear the warning, you have to do it manually in Controls. Or even better, put it both places and show them in sync with each other so that changing either updates the other elsewhere in the UI.
- The Equalize Now is a toggle. Why? It should be an "apply" control and located in Controls. As much as I wish Equalizations were schedulable with calendar intervals, I think this could be dangerous for those not verifying adequate ventilation and/or water maintenance. So why is it necessary to turn on, and turn off, Equalize Now? Make it automatically update to "off" upon completion, and refresh the status in the UI.

I use my XW Pro chargers ONLY to periodically equalize because doing it with the MPPTs is too unpredictable and ultimately wasteful of PV, and you have to disable Grid Support anyway. Also, if you enable Equalize Now in the MPPT it has the same problem, and STAYS ENABLED! It will equalize every damn day. Guess how I know that... So, I would love to make implementing equalization less of a manual PITA.

Is there any real-world scenario of needing Equalization after every charge cycle where a Toggle make more sense than an Apply?

I would love to help them with this stuff. I'd do it for free.

 

[Roman59]

I have a xw6848 pro exporting to the grid, it's working quite well but I've noticed that when night comes it draws around 1amp from the battery. I have it configured in grid support at 54.3v. I would like to know if that is normal or is the system supposed to go to ac pass through?...some configuration that I have forgotten..thanks

 

[400bird]

That's likely idle consumption. It takes energy to run the inverter electronics and that comes from DC.

 

[GXMnow]

Yes, the idle power is about 30 to 60 watts on average. When mine is sitting in AC bypass, I see the battery current fluctuate from +0.75 to -0.75 amps. That seems to be the minimum it can show. A few days ago when mine was fully charged early, it just stayed at discharging 0.75 amps at 56.7 volts = 42.5 watts. That is running all of the electronics in the XW-Pro as well as the Gateway box over the Xanbus. That is actually pretty low standby power for an inverter that large.

And yes, that stupid "Recharge Volts" setting needs to be re-programmed. The way it stops the inverter 0.5 volts early is just plain dumb. It should have separate values to force a charge or stop the inverter. And what makes it really dumb, is it does have the separate entry. If you set "Grid Support" higher than "Recharge Volts" + 0.5 volts, then it will stop grid support even higher, but you can't make it run lower.

Before I managed to get my PLC working properly, I almost went to a timer to just disconnect the AC1 grid connection for even a minute each morning to force it to start a charge cycle again. The SW "Smart Charge" evidently just looks for any current exporting to the grid input. When that happens, it goes into charge mode to prevent the back feed from an AC coupled grid tied inverter. If that code works in the SW, why can't that put it in the XW-Pro??

 

[JFKS]

I can confirm it's the same in v2.04 on the XW Pro and v1.18 on Insight. Maybe addressed in XW Pro firmware v2.10

This would need to be fixed for one of my wish-list items, which is three tiers of time-based setpoints for Grid Support Voltage and for Battery Recharge Voltage so someone with a huge battery could take advantage of TOU Metering and better manage preferable battery reserves based on time of day/night.

With so many setpoints needing a home in the UI, I understand the challenge in presenting them. Most things now have a blue question mark explanation to help. I think that setpoints for a related function, like the Grid Support mode range of operation, could be more clearly depicted on a common sliding scale where all values that affect each other disallow misconfiguration. It would also be nice to see more use of "grayed-out" depictions of settings other settings in the hierarchy make them unusable. There is some of that already, but it is incomplete. That said, some settings should be allowed to be set, even while grayed-out, but others should be locked out.

Here's an example:
(With a battery configurated as FLA or Custom, and with Equalization Support correctly enabled)
- When the XW Pro Charger is disabled, the UI lets you turn on Equalize Now, which then immediately returns a fault warning saying that an unsupported battery type is selected and you must have FLA or Custom battery types. A false error. The actual problem is the disabled Charger.
- Once the warning has been set, enabling the Charger and then enabling Equalize Now does not clear the warning, you have to do it manually in Controls. Or even better, put it both places and show them in sync with each other so that changing either updates the other elsewhere in the UI.
- The Equalize Now is a toggle. Why? It should be an "apply" control and located in Controls. As much as I wish Equalizations were schedulable with calendar intervals, I think this could be dangerous for those not verifying adequate ventilation and/or water maintenance. So why is it necessary to turn on, and turn off, Equalize Now? Make it automatically update to "off" upon completion, and refresh the status in the UI.

I use my XW Pro chargers ONLY to periodically equalize because doing it with the MPPTs is too unpredictable and ultimately wasteful of PV, and you have to disable Grid Support anyway. Also, if you enable Equalize Now in the MPPT it has the same problem, and STAYS ENABLED! It will equalize every damn day. Guess how I know that... So, I would love to make implementing equalization less of a manual PITA.

Is there any real-world scenario of needing Equalization after every charge cycle where a Toggle make more sense than an Apply?

I would love to help them with this stuff. I'd do it for free.

Yeah, it's one of those things that Schneider has documented but it's hard to find and really needs to be in the GUI.
When there is a qualified AC source, it will not discharge past 1/2 volt above the recharge voltage setting. I don't think grid support voltage factors in, the Grid Support (edit to correct my typo) recharge +0.5 volts takes precedent and stops the discharge regardless of other settings. This same background setting is the reason why AC coupling doesn't work right, it won't automatically recharge the battery from solar.
If I could discharge down to 50 volts while the charger block timer is active (so the charger is off) then when the timer finishes out and PV starts producing, your charge block timer ends so the charger could become active. However, the +0.5 volt offset means the battery never made it down to recharge voltage.

In theory they've addressed this with the newest firmware, but I've yet to hear any verification on that or try it myself.

As near as I can tell, Schneider has the "Enhanced Grid Support" working, at least in inverter firmware 2.04 and when running with SOC enabled. It wouldn't surprise me if the various voltages (Grid Support, Recharge, etc) still figure into their algorithm somehow, but my system has been pretty stable now exporting extra PV production to the grid without cyclically selling out the battery for a couple weeks now. Every now and then during a grid freq or voltage sag it will sell energy from battery in accordance with whatever the Grid Profile is telling it to do, but I'm ok with that.

My current settings are SOC Enabled, Grid Support SOC 98%, Grid Support Voltage 64V, Recharge Voltage 50V, Recharge SOC 90%, Bulk/Boost and Absorption Voltages all at 56.5V. My battery bank now stays topped off at between 97 and 100% all the time, and any charging that is needed comes from the DC-coupled panels via the MPPT 80-600 charger. I have charging from the inverter disabled.

One exception to its good behavior: On two occasions in the last couple weeks the system got stuck in some kind of cycle sending power from the battery to somewhere unknown. I suspect it was going to AC-coupled microinverters that were periodically checking grid impedance by drawing a load (like they do during initial startup). I'll eventually figure it out, but don't have time to mess with it at the moment.

I think it would be worth their effort for anyone who has closed-loop battery comm, an XW Pro, and some flavor of SE charger and wants to keep their battery constantly topped off to load up 2.04 firmware and give it a try. And if it acts screwy, reset the inverter to factory default and re-configure again from scratch before you give up on it.

John

 

[wheisenburg]

And yes, that stupid "Recharge Volts" setting needs to be re-programmed. The way it stops the inverter 0.5 volts early is just plain dumb. It should have separate values to force a charge or stop the inverter. And what makes it really dumb, is it does have the separate entry. If you set "Grid Support" higher than "Recharge Volts" + 0.5 volts, then it will stop grid support even higher, but you can't make it run lower

I am having a similar problem to this person with my recharge settings. I experimented some with the SOC charge cycles and with the BMS driven charging. Neither seemed to work very well. So I went back to voltage rather than SOC control. If set correctly that is working fine while the power is on. If I set the recharge voltage, eventually, a charge cycle is triggered every 3-4 day to top the batteries back up.

The problem seems to be that the recharge will only trigger when the voltage actually drops so that it EXACTLY matches the recharge voltage. After a power failure (or when just testing off-grid) I can't get the inverter to enter a recharge cycle other than by manually resetting the recharge voltage to match the current volts. Even the force recharge doesn't seem to work. It looks like I need to print off my settings and then try the reset to factory settings.

This recharge cycle used to work fine, when I first got the system. Assuming the batteries were drawn down by running off grid, the recharge triggered as soon as power was restored. When I first got the system running and was testing things out I had the chargers on both my inverters set to the default of 140 amps. So when it started charging it was sending 280 amps into the my 3*100 amp/hour batteries. The batteries are capable of handling that, but the incredibly loud hum that was produced made me think something was wrong and the system was about ready to blow up. Turns out it was just one of the wire gutter covers vibrating and nothing serious. I set the charge current down to 30 amps each, so it takes 3 - 4 hours to charge up, which is the right way to charge the batteries.

I also have AC coupled IQ8s. I have not been able to get them to produce power off grid. The IQ8s just seem real temperamental about following a Schneider Inverter, so they may kick in produce a little power and then turn off, or they never even turn on. I have reliable power here, so I have decided that my best solution, is to just get a generator to recharge the batteries in the event of an outage.