Solar Assistant - data logger

[Lt.Dan]

I too have been using the Power tab. I use it to switch to the grid when battery falls below 10%, and to switch back on at various battery states (depending on how solar is going to be that day/week). It works very well surprisingly!

 

[wattmatters]

I too have been using the Power tab. I use it to switch to the grid when battery falls below 10%, and to switch back on at various battery states (depending on how solar is going to be that day/week). It works very well surprisingly!

I really like it. I haven't touched a button on my inverter for months.

 

[jasonhc73]

I really like it. I haven't touched a button on my inverter for months.

I have never been able to have the grid charge amps work.

 

[wattmatters]

I have never been able to have the grid charge amps work.

You mean this?

Mine adjusts the setting just fine.

 

[Joe BoyKey]

Here's November for my grid tied system:

View attachment 74571


I had an Home Assistant outage 30-Nov to 1-Dec so missing most of the last day.

Weather has been pretty ordinary this Spring/early Summer. A lot wetter than normal.

Aside from the production data, I also have consumption monitoring so you can see the self consumed solar and the exports to the grid. Also have Solcast PV forecasting integrated (the dashed line) and CO2signal, which assess the live CO2 intensity of the grid imports and calculates an integrated proportion of non-fossil energy consumption.

Solcast is interesting - here's a day's forecast for yesterday overlaid with the actual production data:

View attachment 74573

It was a little optimistic in the morning but it forecasted the afternoon storm pretty well. It's actually pretty darn good at forecasting the production trends, if not getting every hour exactly right. You could definitely do some automation on this basis, such as changing load and battery charge priorities.

It supplies an hourly production forecast out for a week, which is updated every so often. Solcast updates it at least hourly but I'm not sure how frequently the Home Assistant application polls the forecast updates. The HA integration makes some decision about when to lock in the forecast number for archive purposes.

When the Solar Assistant update goes live I'll add my off grid to it, but I'll need to check on how it want to be added since I already have one system in the Energy tab. There is certain information I'd want it to integrate (solar, load and battery) and some I would not (e.g. any use of grid power, since that's already captured by the grid monitoring system above).

How did you get the Gauges on the right of Graphs? I have the top one "Energy Distribution" thanks joe.

 

[wattmatters]

How did you get the Gauges on the right of Graphs? I have the top one "Energy Distribution" thanks joe.

Net consumed from the grid and Self-consumed solar energy require you to have a consumption meter with integrated energy entities in HA.

My grid tied Fronius system includes a Fronius consumption meter and the Fronius HA integration has an entity suitable for use with the HA Energy module.

Fronius

Instructions on how to connect your Fronius SolarAPI devices to Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

But there are various energy integrations for different inverters and energy suppliers:

Integrations

List of the built-in integrations of Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

The Non-Fossil energy consumed gauge requires setting up the CO2Signal integration with HA. It's really only relevant for scenarios where a portion of the energy is supplied from the grid and your system also has consumption monitoring with energy entities compatible with the HA Energy module as per net consumed/self-consumed gauges above.

Electricity Maps

Instructions on how to use the Electricity Maps (formerly known as CO2Signal) data within Home Assistant

www.home-assistant.io

Funny though as the CO2Signal data seems to have disappeared for me in the last couple of days. Need to look into that.

Pierre said that the latest Solar Assistant (non-beta) firmware release:

• Added integration for HomeAssistant energy module.

But there is no documentation on where/how it does that. I can find no Solar Assistant entity compatible with the Energy module.

 

[Super Fly]

I can't speak about fronius, but I can say I do have DEYE and its working quite fine in solar assistant

 

[jasonhc73]

You mean this?
View attachment 76836
Mine adjusts the setting just fine.

Which inverter do you have?

My MPP-Solars LV6548s just blink and nothing happens. It happened on the LV5048's also.

 

[robby]

Anybody using this with a Sol-Ark and also using the Dongle and PV-Pro at the same time?

 

[wattmatters]

Which inverter do you have?

It's an unbranded PIP-4048HS clone.

 

[jasonhc73]

It's an unbranded PIP-4048HS clone.

I just tried it on my LV2424 and it adjusted the AC amps just fine.

When I adjust the AC amps on the LV6548s it shows a random number, but doesn't actually change anything. After I refresh the screen, the original setting is the same before trying to adjust it.

 

[XO4001]

Anybody using this with a Sol-Ark and also using the Dongle and PV-Pro at the same time?

Using it on 2 Deye's and working fine together with solarman (the chinese version data logger)
Once you start looking at SA you want to forget the other it so much more detailed.

 

[robby]

Using it on 2 Deye's and working fine together with solarman (the chinese version data logger)
Once you start looking at SA you want to forget the other it so much more detailed.

Thanks, that is good news. PV-Pro is very detailed and has a very good interface but the once every 5 minute update thing is a PITA when you trying to manage loads in real time.

 

[wattmatters]

When I adjust the AC amps on the LV6548s it shows a random number, but doesn't actually change anything. After I refresh the screen, the original setting is the same before trying to adjust it.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest sending Pierre a note about that given it's in the Voltronic family of inverters.

 

[Samsonite801]

Hey I have a Solar Assistant question for those who have this working now (mine will be with pair of MPP LV6548 and pair of JBD BMS (16s2p), with the 2p bridged together at dual breaker panel, on inverter side of breakers)...

How does Solar Assistant handle 2 parallel battery banks, if they each have their own JBD BMS, can it read both at same time and calculate total SoC based on the two instead of just single BMS data?

Will the total SoC number be accurate? Can Solar Assistant read on both BMSs and report the sum of the current flow across the pair?

I'm assuming they account for this, because on their site I see some info about hooking up multiple GYLL shelves on the comm bus, I was just wondering if it was seamless, or if any special considerations are required.

Does Solar Assistant just provide the user with two respective SoC indicators? (perhaps I am just over thinking it) Or does it sum them together into a single SoC indicator?

 

[Joe BoyKey]

Hey I have a Solar Assistant question for those who have this working now (mine will be with pair of MPP LV6548 and pair of JBD BMS (16s2p), with the 2p bridged together at dual breaker panel, on inverter side of breakers)...

How does Solar Assistant handle 2 parallel battery banks, if they each have their own JBD BMS, can it read both at same time and calculate total SoC based on the two instead of just single BMS data?

Will the total SoC number be accurate? Can Solar Assistant read on both BMSs and report the sum of the current flow across the pair?

I'm assuming they account for this, because on their site I see some info about hooking up multiple GYLL shelves on the comm bus, I was just wondering if it was seamless, or if any special considerations are required.

Does Solar Assistant just provide the user with two respective SoC indicators? (perhaps I am just over thinking it) Or does it sum them together into a single SoC indicator?

SA doesn't support JBD yet, per pierre they will, do you have 1 sa pi running both Inverters?
I have 2 JBD Batteries - 1 51.2v 100ah and 302ah, hope it will read all plus 4 gyll's.
With 4 Gylls it gives Soc of them combined, Joe.

 

[Ted Katsouras]

Anybody using this with a Sol-Ark and also using the Dongle and PV-Pro at the same time?

Yes it works fine with Sol-Ark, I also have 6 Gyll batteries that Sol-Ark cannot communiate. Solar assistant can communicate with both. The cool thing is that the graphs on Solar assistant have 10 sec update vs 5 min on PV-Pro that way you can catch more events (detail) of your system. The front page of the Solar assistant has updates about every second.

 

[robby]

Yes it works fine with Sol-Ark, I also have 6 Gyll batteries that Sol-Ark cannot communiate. Solar assistant can communicate with both. The cool thing is that the graphs on Solar assistant have 10 sec update vs 5 min on PV-Pro that way you can catch more events (detail) of your system. The front page of the Solar assistant has updates about every second.

Yep I setup one on the weekend and the only issue I am having is that I had to remove my batteries from closed loop mode using the Canbus port. I love the 10 second updates, my wife now has a clear display in the Kitchen that she can monitor it to know when it's an optimal time to turn on the heavy loads.

I am not so thrilled about losing the closed loop battery communication. The Sol-Ark works really well with the batteries in closed loop mode, it charges the batteries in a much better way. The odd part is that there are two RS485 ports in the Canbus port and with a RJ45 Y adapter I can use both at the same time, but the moment I switch the battery mode to Lithium port 04 the Solar Assist stops getting data. I have to set it back to port 0 for it to work and when I do that the Sol-ark can no longer communicate with my batteries. I am not going to use the RS232 port as I need to have PV-Pro up and running to get updates and also all of my Data for the last 6 months is on their server.
I will see how this pans out over the next week and decide if Solar Assist is worth giving up the closed loop mode.

Sol-Ark could just fix the update delay by just allowing a local IP to get 10 second updates. I get why they don't want to have their servers hammered with data every 10 seconds but why not have a local access point that can see real time info?

 

[Ted Katsouras]

Yep I setup one on the weekend and the only issue I am having is that I had to remove my batteries from closed loop mode using the Canbus port. I love the 10 second updates, my wife now has a clear display in the Kitchen that she can monitor it to know when it's an optimal time to turn on the heavy loads.

I am not so thrilled about losing the closed loop battery communication. The Sol-Ark works really well with the batteries in closed loop mode, it charges the batteries in a much better way. The odd part is that there are two RS485 ports in the Canbus port and with a RJ45 Y adapter I can use both at the same time, but the moment I switch the battery mode to Lithium port 04 the Solar Assist stops getting data. I have to set it back to port 0 for it to work and when I do that the Sol-ark can no longer communicate with my batteries. I am not going to use the RS232 port as I need to have PV-Pro up and running to get updates and also all of my Data for the last 6 months is on their server.
I will see how this pans out over the next week and decide if Solar Assist is worth giving up the closed loop mode.

Sol-Ark could just fix the update delay by just allowing a local IP to get 10 second updates. I get why they don't want to have their servers hammered with data every 10 seconds but why not have a local access point that can see real time info?

I am assuming you selected on the settings: Battery --> Use inverter values

 

[robby]

I am assuming you selected on the settings: Battery --> Use inverter values

Yes, that works with raw numbers on the dashboard but the way the batteries are charged is a lot more aggressive without proper feedback from the BMS.