Schneider XW Pro - gramming

[flpilgrim]

I'm working out the final kinks in my system trying to make it as automatic as possible when I'm not here.

I figured out how to get the inverter to charge at the rate i want starting at the voltage i want but to do that i have to enable grid sell. We don't currently have or want to sell power back so i set the grid amp sell setting to 0. When i had it running yesterday my dashboard was showing small amounts of energy being intermittently pushed back into the grid. Does 0 not mean 0 with my Inverter? Has anyone else tried this?

I'm going to write a Schneider for Dummies manual if i ever wrap my head around all this stuff ?

 

[timselectric]

With a grid-tied system. Zero export is a balancing act. As loads turn on and off , the inverter must ramp up and down to match what is needed. During this adjustment time, a little power will travel in or out. Until the system is equalized.

 

[flpilgrim]

Equalized as in qualifying the grid's ac? so eventually it will stop exporting even tiny amounts if i leave it alone?

 

[timselectric]

Equalized as in qualifying the grid's ac? so eventually it will stop exporting even tiny amounts if i leave it alone?

Equalized, as in balance between import and export.
To maintain zero.
Tiny amounts are unavoidable.

 

[zanydroid]

Equalized as in qualifying the grid's ac? so eventually it will stop exporting even tiny amounts if i leave it alone?

It's physically impossible to never send any energy in.

Rather the guarantee is that on average the energy is 0. IE, if it accidentally sends too much, it'll in the next few seconds pull some energy from grid.

Also, keep in mind that zero export does not mean, don't need permission from grid to connect.

 

[n2aws]

Equalized as in qualifying the grid's ac? so eventually it will stop exporting even tiny amounts if i leave it alone?

Most utilities don't care about small transient spikes of energy being pushed back. they care more about continuous power being pushed.

What timselectric is describing is:

When the XW pro (or any inverter) is satisfying loads.. and then large loads shut off, it takes a few milliseconds for the inverter to see the reduction in load, and adjust accordingly. As a result, it pushes that energy back to the grid for a second (the power has to have somewhere to go)

If you are trying to zero sell, do you have a wattnode installed?

 

[flpilgrim]

Most utilities don't care about small transient spikes of energy being pushed back. they care more about continuous power being pushed.

What timselectric is describing is:

When the XW pro (or any inverter) is satisfying loads.. and then large loads shut off, it takes a few milliseconds for the inverter to see the reduction in load, and adjust accordingly. As a result, it pushes that energy back to the grid for a second (the power has to have somewhere to go)

If you are trying to zero sell, do you have a wattnode installed?

we don't. does that have a relay to stop energy going out: like a plumbing check valve? our remc requires liability insurance that would cost more than we could cover selling back at wholesale.

We're going to add another battery with our tax return and should be pretty much grid-free after march. I'll charge manually or pass through when i need to until then if necessary.

Am I correct in having to have grid sell enabled to have the inverter control grid, house loads, and battery management automatically?

 

[n2aws]

Am I correct in having to have grid sell enabled to have the inverter control grid, house loads, and battery management automatically?

We would need more detail, to help with configuration questions.

How is the XW pro wired? Do you have a critical loads panel on "AC Out" or is "AC Out" feeding your main panel?

What are your goals? It sounds like net metering is not likely in your forseeable future. Are you trying to go completely offgrid, or just reduce your energy consumption from the grid?

Do you want to use your batteries daily, keep them at 100% and ready for emergencies, or do time of use rate shifting (charge batteries during the cheap periods, use them during the high periods? etc.


The typical wiring setup is, Grid input to AC1, AC out to a small critical loads panel with a handful of important circuits, and possibly a generator to the AC2 input. so, unless you say otherwise, I think most of us will assume this is your layout.

 

[goodoleme]

Do you have the WattNode?

 

[BentleyJ]

While we're waiting for the info n2aws asked for, its worth mentioning Peak Load Shave can be used to supply a critical loads subpanel and will reduce grid consumption to almost 0 without the need to enable Sell. Although when Peak Load Shave is enabled and operating during the time window, the internal battery charger is disabled for obvious reasons. Since you have a charge controller I'm assuming you don't often need to use the inverter-charger.

 

[flpilgrim]

We would need more detail, to help with configuration questions.

How is the XW pro wired? Do you have a critical loads panel on "AC Out" or is "AC Out" feeding your main panel?

What are your goals? It sounds like net metering is not likely in your forseeable future. Are you trying to go completely offgrid, or just reduce your energy consumption from the grid?

Do you want to use your batteries daily, keep them at 100% and ready for emergencies, or do time of use rate shifting (charge batteries during the cheap periods, use them during the high periods? etc.


The typical wiring setup is, Grid input to AC1, AC out to a small critical loads panel with a handful of important circuits, and possibly a generator to the AC2 input. so, unless you say otherwise, I think most of us will assume this is your layout.

yes, grid to ac1, with a critical loads panel: well pump, fridges and freezer etc.

working our way towards completely off grid.

right now i just have the 1 home built 14kw battery, i don't mind drawing it down to cycle but days with heavy clouds like today won't recharge it fully so im stuck with periodic grid charging for a couple more months. i think i have my settings so i can let it charge at 30 amps or so at night without losing sleep over it.

My pressing issue was that i couldn't get it to let the battery discharge down to 51.2 (my recharge volts setting) before it began a new bulk cycle. As soon as I kicked it back into operating mode after turning the charging feature back on it would immediately begin a bulk cycle. I don't know if it does that every time you manually change a setting perhaps?

 

[BentleyJ]

A new Bulk recharge cycle is triggered by:
1) Enabling the charger from the Disabled state.
2) Re-connection to Grid if Grid is lost.
3) Battery gets down to Recharge volts.
4) Battery gets down to LBCO +1V? My memory is not 100% on this particulars of this setting.

There is a Charge Block Timer that can be set so charging from the Inverter can only occur during a specific time window.

Based on your post above, indicating both a main and subpanel. Grid Sell does have to be used to direct power upstream via the Inverter AC Input to the main panel if you wish to be mostly off-grid. A Wattnode is needed to achieve 0 export. This is because once the power leaves the inverter it has no way to monitor what gets consumed at the main panel vs. what is left over to potentially go out to the grid. CT's for the Wattnode are installed on the wires feeding the main breaker in the main panel.

 

[flpilgrim]

A new Bulk recharge cycle is triggered by:
1) Enabling the charger from the Disabled state.
2) Re-connection to Grid if Grid is lost.
3) Battery gets down to Recharge volts.
4) Battery gets down to LBCO +1V? My memory is not 100% on this particulars of this setting.

There is a Charge Block Timer that can be set so charging from the Inverter can only occur during a specific time window.

Based on your post above, indicating both a main and subpanel. Grid Sell does have to be used to direct power upstream via the Inverter AC Input to the main panel if you wish to be mostly off-grid. A Wattnode is needed to achieve 0 export. This is because once the power leaves the inverter it has no way to monitor what gets consumed at the main panel vs. what is left over to potentially go out to the grid. CT's for the Wattnode are installed on the wires feeding the main breaker in the main panel.

So, the inverter would use signals from the wattnode to stop exporting power more quickly than it does now?

The only loads I'm powering are from the dedicated sub-panel I'm gradually switching circuits into. I'd like to draw power from the main panel, through the breaker i'm using there, but not feed anything back that direction at all. The inverter doesn't seem to need to send energy upstream in order to qualify that source.

I appreciate the replies, I'm learning the answers to questions i didn't know i needed to ask.

 

[BentleyJ]

So I partially misunderstood your goal of wanting to eventually be Off-Grid. I assumed you wanted to feed excess power, not used by the subpanel, back to the main panel. If this is not the case then you should not need Grid Sell at all. Peak Load Shave with Load Shave Amps set to 0 should give you what you need.
I'm using the older XW+ and have found that Peak Load Shave works quite well but does exhibit the same behavior as Grid Sell in that it does limit the amount of Grid power used but not 100% exactly to 0 amps. It does let a small amount of grid power leak through to prevent back-feed in the same way the previous posts explained that the inverter needs a buffer since it cannot react instantly to changing load conditions.

 

[zanydroid]

does that have a relay to stop energy going out: like a plumbing check valve? our remc requires liability insurance that would cost more than we could cover selling back at wholesale.

I don’t think anything has this kind of true one way valve for electrical. Is the liability for exporting, or any kind of parallel operation? With peak shave and zero export you are running in parallel with grid.

Do you have an interconnection agreement covering this system or did you set this up with no finalized discussion with POCO?

 

[flpilgrim]

We have a small rural REMC that doesn't require anything except liability insurance. Our only real problem (to my knowledge) would come in as a safety issue during a power outage for their linemen. we're used to dealing with that manually with our pto generator however and don't take chances with that stuff.

I doubt they noticed those small bumps which probably got immediately absorbed by our neighbors, but im wary of doing things i don't understand completely.

 

[zanydroid]

Our only real problem (to my knowledge) would come in as a safety issue during a power outage for their linemen. we're used to dealing with that manually with our pto generator however and don't take chances with that stuff.

That (anti-islanding) should be handled properly already by the inverter internally, unless you're using it in a mode that uses a remote instead of internal disconnect relay and (1) it is not configured correctly (2) the inverter allows it to be configured wrong.

Sounds like you are OK with asking for forgiveness later.

 

[n2aws]

We have a small rural REMC that doesn't require anything except liability insurance. Our only real problem (to my knowledge) would come in as a safety issue during a power outage for their linemen. we're used to dealing with that manually with our pto generator however and don't take chances with that stuff.

I doubt they noticed those small bumps which probably got immediately absorbed by our neighbors, but im wary of doing things i don't understand completely.

Ahh, so the "micro sellback" events are 100% due to being grid connected. During an outage, that relay would be opened (disconnecting you from the grid), and there is zero chance of the micro sellbacks affecting a linesman.

I too was really concerned about this when I first commissioned my system.

 

[flpilgrim]

That (anti-islanding) should be handled properly already by the inverter internally, unless you're using it in a mode that uses a remote instead of internal disconnect relay and (1) it is not configured correctly (2) the inverter allows it to be configured wrong.

Sounds like you are OK with asking for forgiveness later.

lol that gets harder as i get older

 

[flpilgrim]

Ahh, so the "micro sellback" events are 100% due to being grid connected. During an outage, that relay would be opened (disconnecting you from the grid), and there is zero chance of the micro sellbacks affecting a linesman.

I too was really concerned about this when I first commissioned my system.

well thats even better, im a belt and suspenders type.