New to Solar - Solis Hybrid - Weird grid charging statistics

[AvengerUK]

Hi All,

We've recently had storage fitted to our array - and for the last few nights we've enabled grid charging in off-peak hours (Octopus Intelligent).

During non-grid charging hours, everything seems fine (as far as we can tell) - nothing abnormal when it comes to usage.

However during charging hours (and exactly mirroring them from what I can see - not an expert at using the dashboard yet!) - Grid consumption is a lot higher than the battery charging usage, which is because the home consumption is reporting high also. Nothing is in use during this time - EV was also un-plugged.

Example from the 27th below -

From the report itself - it states 6.5kw was imported from the grid during this charge - of which 3.7kw was reported to be to the battery, with house consumption at 3.1kw




The same pattern was observed on the 28th - where house consumption increases with the charge only.

Looking at my Octopus dashboard for electricity for the 27th - its reporting 2kw being used in total for the day.

(readings for today 28th not yet available, although the Solis dashboard states I've imported 5.3kw so far and used 4.8kw - which I suspect will again be a lot higher than what is reported to Octopus)

--

I have asked the installers, but thought I'd post here also to see if there's anything I can do / should be "bothered about".

Thanks all,

 

[SeaGal]

I don't use the Solis app, so limited what I can offer. But I assume you have an RAI - is that correct? If so have the CT clamps been installed correctly?

What looks odd to me about your graph is that the "phantom power consumption" does not occur exactly with the charge period. The imported power goes up correctly as charging starts, but 1/3 way through the charging period an extra house usage is shown. But that extra usage then drops down before the charge period stops - most odd.

 

[AvengerUK]

Sorry - RAI? - not sure about the clamps - but that was in the back of my mind.

Just looking through some additional graphs - without the grid charging period, everything is normal (as far as I can see) - it's only with the charging period that this occurs - todays graph for example the increase in consumption does happen at the exact same time as the import/battery charge starts, and finishes at that exact time.

I suspect when I get my usage report from Octopus tomorrow it'll be significantly lower than what's being reported by the app - so it does seem like a sensor?

Graph from this morning below is a bit more representative - I think my EV was in play Wednesday morning!

 

[SeaGal]

Solis RAI is the model of inverter and battery, but no PV input.

Will you get 30min readings from Octopus report? If so, that might shed more light on it.

Otherwise someone who knows about the Solis app / cloud monitoring may be able to help out more - sounds like it could be a bug (though a strange one) on the Solis reporting software rather than your actual setup.

 

[AvengerUK]

Ah right - its a RHI as there is PV input also. The clamp does seem to be a bit inaccurate to be honest when it comes to consumption.

Yes I do get 30 minute readings - which are a lot less than what is shown (for comparison I'm waiting for today's to show on the dashboard as I know my EV wasn't interfering!)

 

[SeaGal]

OK - what do you mean by 'inaccurate'? Can you share a pic of your TOU screen to check that is set correct?

It would be interesting to see what the main RHI screen shows during the charge up period - but that would mean getting up at 2am.

 

[AvengerUK]

Inaccurate as -/+ 100w as quite often the dashboard shows "0w" in use - which obviously isn't true.

It's set to self-use mode - settings below (with the new data stick you can get remote access - so this is from the solis cloud dashboard) _

 

[AvengerUK]

So I believe I've found the issue - although I'm not sure where else to put it / as the installer is coming back I may as well leave it to them...

The grid usage clamp and the house consumption clamp are together on the main line in the meter box - as such, when the batteries charging - the house consumption clamp will read that...(I think)

 

[SeaGal]

The RHI will normally have just one CT clamp (attached to an Acrel or Eastron power meter), with the clamp around the incoming grid live wire.

 

[AvengerUK]

Yeah it does - It's connected to an Eastron (the other clamp is for the car charger apparently, so ignore me!)

Only very slightly further forwards - the inverter did have a firmware update which seems to have reduced the phantom usage as far as I can tell (~600w) - and had the installers back to have a look, all we did find out is that other users where they've got guest access have exactly the same patterns where the off-grid charging is enabled only.

I have a ticket with Solis outstanding - but both I and the installers are out of ideas.