Setting up and tuning Solar Assistant Automations

[klondike]

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Octopus

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Aims of the Automations

My aim was to produce simple Solar Assistant automations that will make use of the Solar forecast (currently only in the Beta software) to top up the battery during the overnight cheap slot such that the power imported along with energy from the solar panels leaves the battery fully charged to maximise the high return export starting a 4pm through to 7pm. That requires some knowledge of your system. If you have not read  Precursor to setting up Solar Assistant automations for SunSynk inverters already I suggest that you start with that.

Adding an Automation

In the Solar Assistant GUI click the Power tab



At the bottom of the page there is a Button named + Add Automation



Clicking that brings up



Clicking Rule Table results in a dropdown list of automations and with each permitting up to two selections for when the selected action takes place.




The Work Mode timer

This is the set of time slots and options present on the SunSynk LCD screen. Missing from this is the Solar export when battery full which I assume everyone would want once their DNO is issued. I have included it in my set of automations to ensure it is always set on.





Use timer is checked and I never alter that although it can be changed in an automation.

Each of those timeslots has a number from 1 to 6 which will be needed in some automations in addition to the Time of Day specified in the automation.

Line 1 - this is simply there because I have seen in many reports that you should start with 00:00 as running through from line 6 to line 1 may lead to problems. So I just started with 00:00

Line 2 - this is the Octopus Flux cheap import period

Line 3 - just a filler to...

Line 4 - Octopus have started offering free use hours usually from 2 til 3

Line 5 - Filler

Line 6 - Filler

SunSynk has no forced export through its GUI and the Workmode Automation which achieves that has no need of specific slots.

Should you choose you can edit this as if you were using the inverter GUI

Power I left to default.

State of Charge are all set to the maximum discharge value of 20%.
You could scrape a little extra usable capacity from the battery by lowering this in the Inverter Configuration but at the risk of shortening the battery working life which I don't consider a good idea.

None of the charge boxes are ticked.

Cheap Rate overnight import

The automation has to be done in two individual automations and mirrors how it would be achieved through the inverter LCD screen GUI.

I kept this simple at straight 2 through 5 regardless of how long the charge will take. House load will be satisfied for the whole of that period from the grid. This is no bad thing. It is all at the cheap rate. By not taking energy from the battery this saves the unavoidable double conversion loss and marginally extends the battery lifetime.

Note that this uses Slot 2. You will need to adjust this if not using Slot 2.

Grid  Charge



Set Charge Capacity

This is based on the minimum import needed to avoid grid import before Solar energy starts providing for daytime load and to reach as close as possible  to 100% by the 4:00pm export slot. As solar forecasts can be inaccurate and home load can vary this will be a compromise. There will be some tweaking needed for sure initially.

This is set at 02:00 and the same set of values repeated at 03:00 and 04:00 as the estimate is updated hourly. Some of those updates may be made too late to affect the outcome but it is easier to just repeat the lot than worry about that.

Capacity is reset to 20% at the end. Not strictly necessary but tidier.



Forced Export at  high export rate



A couple of notes.
The first three lines from 12:30 on are  for the Octopus free energy days forcing an export if the battery has no room to take a charge in the hour of free energy usually from 14:00 to 15:00.
Those lines will need changing if the free period is different or a different discharge time is required. That time will vary with the likely solar import at the time. The first line needs to be set to Zero Export to CT before the next day.

The only gain is a few kwh of modest value export plus whatever extra use of home load you make on the day. When power is cheap because of wind rather that solar it is possible that no export at all is needed.

The automation potentially runs for the entire slot. The solar export rate needs setting to ensure the inverter can export from full down to the desired endpoint designed to last through to 2:00am.  This is setting is covered in  https://letschat.club/index.php?topic=6087.0

Zero Export gets set at the end of the high rate export period even if it didn't complete in time.


Octopus free energy days

These two automations charge the battery on free energy days. Note they use Slot 4 in the Workmode timer



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