replit

This site is now in read-only archive mode. Please move all discussion, and create a new account at the new Victron Community site.

Idea

Anders suggested Jan 8, '22

VRM to display Generator energy production

Our typically Norwegian off grid cabin usage typically combines solar panels and generator in the darkest month of the year. The generator is run to support high energy consumers but mostly to charge batteries.

The excellent VRM portal does as fare as I can understand not display the hybrid energi harvesting where the source is both the sun and the generator and the target is mainly not consumption but to charge the batteries.

What I fail to find is how much energy has the generator produced, next to the solar panels, how much in total, and then where has it "gone", consumption or battery charging

This picture does niot tell the full story. I have 10% more in my batteries when this picture was taken than in the morning.

VRM

1641666179817.png (14.7 KiB)

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

Al commented Jan 8, '22

+1 hopefully, I think it should be displayed in an update, a few people have requested this recently.

Yep the dashboard overview should really include 'From Generator' also.

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

mvader (Victron Energy) commented Jan 9, '22

Hi, the generator production is available. Try the pulldown on VRM where it says “system overview”.

And see kWh download on advanced page

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

Anders commented Jan 9, '22

@mvader (Victron Energy)
I thought that was what I did. These are the numbers from yesterday - I ran the generator one hour in the evening.

Under advanced I can find the AC Input power graph and the generator status.

I do find Genset under consumption, but that displays as fare as I can see only the consumed part of the Genset energy - not the actually produced.

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented · Jan 11, 2022 at 03:13 PM

Hi @Anders understood. We'll look into this.

0 ·

Al commented Jan 9, '22

@mvader (Victron Energy) Yes generator is displayed in dashboard but only the directly used power, it does not show total power from the generator including what is used to charge the batteries. It looks like grid is displayed as the total, solar is displayed as the total, but generator is only displayed as the directly used portion.

For people like myself with Quattro's I can sometimes have shore power on ACIN2, and generator on ACIN1, if I want to compare how much solar generation vs grid (Shore power) I can compare on the dashboard, but I can't compare total generator power to solar easily.

If we put generator on ACIN2 then it will display the total power consumed like it does for grid, but this isn't ideal.

I think for many the Dashboard System Overview would be really helpful to show both ACIN totals, especially for those of us who normally use a generator instead of the grid as a backup to solar.

The Dashboard Consumption page also only shows the direct use From Genset, and From Solar, but there is a solar tab which shows both 'Direct Use' and 'To Battery' maybe a generator tab to show both would be nice, or if nothing else just the total of generator use in the 'Overview' would make sense and be great!?

Please forgive me if I have missed it, but I don't see a widget for total kWh use of generator in advanced, and I have not tested v2.8X yet in case generator production is better displayed in the update.

Many Thanks

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

vward commented Jan 11, '22

Yes, I would like this too, for an off grid system with Generator only on AC1. We've installed the beta for the VRM (~2.80v36) at the moment, but all that is shown is the total hours the generator runs, but not how many kWH are produced in total. To estimate fuel use, we would like to know the total kWH produced by the generator. SMA does this (on the Sunny Island), but not Victron.

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

ako commented Sep 4, '22

I agree , knowing what our Generators produce Would be extremely useful , knowing how many hours its runs isnt as important to most people .

I did read somewhere that this was being either considered or worked on but not heard any more .

2 |3000

Attachments: Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

johanndo commented Sep 4, '22

The total generator produced energy is there, also the total solar and total shore power, the buffered energy too (battery in / out).

It doesn't matter if you consume the generator (or solar) energy directly or store it temporary for later use by charging your battery or heating your water, you only delay the usage and waste some energy for transformation and storage, but in the end, you use what you produce.