question

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Kari Saaranen asked

Powercontrol prioritization

I'm about to get AC current sensors for grid (Victron external sensor) and for AC PV (Victron ac sensor) next week.

If I've understood correctly, this makes my Easysolar 2 GX aware of AC PV grid feed and I can utilize it to charge my batteries or power my "critical loads" or AC loads that are in my ACout (I've just now come to assume that without a "real" grid meter I cant really see them separately?).

However, I'm not sure if this will lead to also battery power being expended for my non-critical ac loads where I wanted to only use excess solar for them? Is there another measurement for ACout or how will this work out after all? Is it in any way possible to use both the external AC sensor (as "grid meter") and the internal one in ACin (critical loads)?

gridAC PV Couplingac
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4 Answers
Kari Saaranen avatar image
Kari Saaranen answered ·

In the end I gave up and went with two CG-meters which worked until my ABB inverter blew up last summer. Now I have a grid meter and a Fronius inverter (and a extra CG meter for something else) and everything is fine. I would not recommend the current sensors for anything, really. They are cheap but not reliable.


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Kari Saaranen answered ·

Ok, just got the AC current sensor for my PV and it was not detected when I used the settings here https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ac_current_sensor:start

Then I noticed VEconfig says to turn all dipswitches but 1 off (3k setting), so I uploaded new config and rebooted gx device and now PV inverter is visible, although zero watts now as the sun has set. However now ESS is not working - battery is full but I'm drawing power from the grid. Is this normal behaviour? I configured the PV inverter as being connected to ACout because I also got the external grid sensor (PV feeds in after the ext sensor)

2022-05-10-210840-vrmvictronenergycom-a339b0a4aba3.png


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Kari Saaranen answered ·
I think I might have solved my problems:

1. Aux input 1 was used by grid code (although somewhere it was said current sensor assistant would disable it but seems it doesnt) -> connected the sensor to Aux 2

2. Pictures of the dip switch setting are SUPER confusing. Everywhere else the black dots show where the switsh should sit, so I had it wrong.

3. The polarity of the wires have to be correct or no reading will be shown. It would be nice to have the polarity marked at the connector.

4. After uploading new config with the assistant from remote veconfig and the system has automatically restarted, you need to wait a few minutes and then reboot gx device or the "PV inverter" doesn't show up


So now I just wait and see how it performs, hope all will be well.

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Kari Saaranen answered ·

Situation update: ESS seems to work and PV inverter power is pretty much spot on, but now I'm on the second night without sun and ABB tells me PV power is zero but VRM tells me AC PV is producing 89-129 watts of power. Maybe this clears in the next days, otherwise everything is fine. I hope the manual will include this behaviour and the need for proper polarity & proper aux input in the future, I was pretty mad two days prior to this :D


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