Schneider XW Pro Enhanced Grid Support issues

[n2aws]

I am having the exact same issue with a XW6848 pro, SCC100-600 and Grid Support Selling. The battery is a fortress e-vault with closed loop comms. This issue has been going on for over a month and I have tried everything and all Schneider does is want to down grade and upgrade the firmware and waste my time. I can not get the solar alone to sell without selling battery power with it. This is with the GSV above 65! I have also had issues with settings not saving when all my devices had the latest firmware. You would literally change a value, save it, wait for it to go from green go back a page or refresh and come back to the page you just adjusted and the original value would be there! This was with InsightLocal and the cloud. Schneiders response was to down grade the current firmware and then install the latest firmware (again, wasting more time to run out the clock) and that fixed the problem for maybe a day. All while trying to get the system to sell power to the grid. I currently have a older firmware version and I am not having issues with settings staying so I am leaving it because the newer versions did not do a damn thing in terms of Grid support and PV selling. I have attached screen shots of this behavior and all my settings that are relevant hoping in desperation someone can help. I have been doing this for 14 years and have numerous Schneider's in the field that never had issues until this nonsense.

Many of us would be happy to help, but I think this thread has been abused enough, can you start another thread (if you want to link to it here, thats fine)

*edit* User posted this question here

 

[Wily]

I have installed a Schneider XW Pro Inverter with their MPPT 100 600 charger and Lithium Smart batteries. I have the latest firmware. The unit works great from a performance point of view, seems quite efficient based upon heat it dissipates and is incredible at handling surges! I have a 6 HP 240 V compressor and it starts it without the slightest hesitation. However, I am also selling to the grid. I wanted to do their Enhanced Grid Support. Meaning… keep batteries charged, use the power from the PV to run the house and sell any extra to the grid. I scoured the documents and the WEB and could not get information for it to work properly… meaning: It would only sell to the grid at the rate of the “max sell amps”! The impact of which was to discharge the battery at a high rate until the batter SOC (or voltage.. depending on mode) would be reached and then it would stop using energy from the PV, the house would be fed from the grid, the battery would then be recharged to above the SOC limit and then the cycle would start all over again! Constant large current cycling of the battery about every 55 seconds.

I called technical support multiple times and all they gave me was the manual information and said it should work… but it did not.

In searching the WEB, I found multiple people encountered this problem but no one including Schneider had a solution! Well, I stumbled upon the solution… They say that the Grid Support voltage should be set to 64 Volts in order to enable the Enhanced mode. That does not work. I have verified this on my system and the exact system of a friend of mine (we bought same equip. at the same time).

The answer is to run it in the SOC mode but have the Grid Support voltage at the float voltage of the charge controller! Then it works beautifully!!! Just a note: the charger settings on the MPPT must be the same values as on the Inverter.

I wasted about 25 hours with this issue and Schneider was no help at all. I believe that at this point I understand the system better than their technical support people.

If any of you struggled with the same issue… I hope this will help you!

Thank You romangeek
I have been struggling with this for a long time now. My system is now performing as it should,

 

[Wily]

I was reading your problem and how did you solve it, very well done...I wonder if to activate the SOC mode in the inverter you have to have the batteries in close loop or can it be done in open loop?...I have the problem that when I sell to the grid it pulls the batteries... I have them in open loop and the grid support in 64V... thanks

I am running my xwpro 6848 open loop, with romangeek,s settings and it works great.

 

[Roman59]

I am running my xwpro 6848 open loop, with romangeek,s settings and it works great.

Hi....could you share the parameters you used?...it would be of great help to me...thank you

 

[Wily]

Wow I had just changed them again to do some fine tuning. I have her dialed in now. (I hope) ha ha
I hope this helps you.

 

[Roman59]

Wow I had just changed them again to do some fine tuning. I have her dialed in now. (I hope) ha ha
I hope this helps you.

Ok...could you send some screen shoots of the changes you made...I don't understand, my battery does not close loop but I must activate the SOC mode for it to work correctly?...excuse my lack of experience in this

 

[Wily]

Ok...could you send some screen shoots of the changes you made...I don't understand, my battery does not close loop but I must activate the SOC mode for it to work correctly?...excuse my lack of experience in this

Ok...could you send some screen shoots of the changes you made...I don't understand, my battery does not close loop but I must activate the SOC mode for it to work correctly?...excuse my lack of experience in this

 

[Roman59]

Thanks but the graph is not clear, even if I zoom in

 

[Wily]

Thanks but the graph is not clear, even if I zoom in

Not sure how to make it more readable.

 

[Wily]

Not sure how to make it more readable.

 

[Wily]

Thanks but the graph is not clear, even if I zoom in

 

[Wily]

Thanks but the graph is not clear, even if I zoom in

 

[400bird]

Instead of taking screenshots, you can print to PDF within your browser. It should stay legible and all be in one document .

 

[Wily]

Thanks but the graph is not clear, even if I zoom in

how's this.

 

[Roman59]

how's this.

Thanks....

 

[Hamish]

I expect it to NEVER sell battery energy to the grid.
On-Grid
XW Pro 6848
MPPT 80-600 x 2
Discover 42-48-6650 Li-Ion x3
Generac 6730 20KVA
300-w panels x24

N2aws: Apologies for the delayed response. Holidays and taxes and ... intervened
I appreciate your response especially the paragraph "The last point is key."

I did set GSV to 65V. I could not set Float to Bulk: Inverter is 2-stage (no float) and the MPPT/SCCs are prevented from changing the float voltage by the BMS (Discover 6650 batteries. Bulk/Absorb = 55.92V, Float = 53.6V), RSoC% =99% I wait for the system to go into float and watch for a long time (several hours.) I still see the constant charge/discharge cycle. while floating.

What I want is for the system to NEVER harvest battery energy when solar and/or grid is available. But it is always harvesting and returning energy to the batteries. This is not what EGS is supposed to be doing.

EGS, Sell and SoC are all enabled. I have contacted the installer, Schneider SE, a consultant, Discover Batteries -- no joy. (I think they all think I am an idiot. BS EE Purdue '66.) I am starting to believe SE is still having a problem with the firmware. I am looking for a workaround. Or fixed firmware. (Currently at V2.04/B29.)

Thanks for your help.

#1) I can't imagine a BMS is overriding your grid support SOC settings.
#2) Enhanced grid support specifically prioritizes the batteries, so it shouldn't sell to the grid *from* batteries.

If it's exporting from batteries to the grid, there is a reason. there is something misconfigured somewhere.

If I set the settings I described in my previous post, my XW won't even send energy to support the critical loads, until the battery SOC is at 100% and the SCC's go to float. If it won't send power to even support the protected loads, it certainly wouldn't send it back to the grid.

That said, I've repeatedly asked for your settings. I'm not sure anyone can help without them.

Attached are my XWPro and MPPT settings.

 

[BentleyJ]

Based on other Forum members who have experienced the same Enhanced Grid Support issues regarding battery depletion-they have recommended setting GSV to the same value as the MPPT Float Voltage.

At this time, I don't recall if SoC control is Enabled or Disabled and I can't seem to find the posts that mention it.

 

[Hamish]

If load shave is 0 amps, and SOC is set to 100%, it will use PV generated power to support the loads only when the battery is full.. When the PV power goes away (dark, clouds, etc) then it stops supporting the loads and uses the grid to satisfy those. Enhanced grid support prioritizes the batteries.

Thats how mine is setup, and right now.. I have a good amount of cloud cover. See the screenshot below. you'll notice that 100% of the available PV power is going into the battery, and isn't being used to supply the 200w of load. When it gets to 100% SOC, it'll support loads and sell to grid.

View attachment 169541

I tried SoC = 100% but something sets it back to 99%. Load shave is disabled.

 

[Hamish]

That makes sense when adding SoC into the mix. This is a variable I don't have available with the XW+. So if you needed to actually have Peak Load Shave kick in at say 4pm for TOU the SoC setting would have to be reduced to less than whatever the battery is presently at.

It sounds like the problem described in the post was due to Enhanced Mode not working correctly on his inverter.

Yes!

 

[Hamish]

Apologies, I'm still not clear on what the issue is, or what you are trying to get it to do that it's not doing.

If you want it to export excess PV energy to the grid after the batteries are full, thats what enhanced grid support does.

The way it works is:
you set your grid support volts to 65.
You set your inverter to 2 stage charging (or disable it completely)
you set the Schnieder SCC (it must be schnieder, and connected via xanbus) to 3 stage. Set your bulk, absorg, and float voltages to whatever makes sense for your batteries.

When the sun is shining, the system will prioritize charging the batteries. Once your SCC switches to float mode AND the batteries "rest" down to float voltage, the XW Pro will begine exporting the energy being generated.

The last part is key. A lot of people think it's not working because they set float lower than bulk/absorb. So the SCC charges the batteries to (for example) 56v, but then the SCC switches to float at 54v. While the batteries are above 54v, the SCC doesn't want to "overcharge" the batteries, so it produces no power. When the batteries hit roughly float volage, the SCC will start producing energy from the available PV.

Depending on your battery chemistry, it can take a while to let batteries drop to that float voltage. So my recommendation would be to set bulk/absorb/float all to the same voltage. If thats not an option, enable the settings and watch it for a while. see if it starts exporting when the voltage drops after the SCC's have switched to float.

If that helps, cool. If not, please write a detailed description that includes 2 things. 1) What you expect the system to be doing. and 2) What it's actually doing. Please make sure to include config details/parameters.

N2aws: Apologies for the delayed response. Holidays and taxes and ... intervened
I appreciate your response especially the paragraph "The last point is key."

I EXPECT the system to NOT harvest battery energy if solar and//or grid is available, but it does.

I did set GSV to 65V. I could not set Float to Bulk: Inverter is 2-stage (no float) and the MPPT/SCCs are prevented from changing the float voltage by the BMS (Discover 6650 batteries. Bulk/Absorb = 55.92V, Float = 53.6V), RSoC% =99% I wait for the system to go into float and watch for a long time (several hours.) I still see the constant charge/discharge cycle. while floating.

What I want is for the system to NEVER harvest battery energy when solar and/or grid is available. But it is always harvesting and returning energy to the batteries. This is not what EGS is supposed to be doing (?)

EGS, Sell and SoC are all enabled. I have contacted the installer, Schneider SE, a consultant, Discover Batteries -- no joy. (I think they all think I am an idiot. (BS EE Purdue '66.) I am starting to believe SE is still having a problem with the firmware. I am looking for a workaround. Or fixed firmware. (Currently at V2.04/B29.)