question

freddi-il-morro avatar image
freddi-il-morro asked

Stop generator with color control gx when enough solar

I have my color control gx configurated to start/stop my generator. The only thing I can't find back is how to stop the generator when the smart solar mppt charger puts enough power in the batteries that the generator is actually not needed any more to run. Don't like to waste diesel when batteries can get full with the sun.

Cant use battery voltage as with a SoC of 50% and pulling a load out of 60A the voltage drops to 48.2 . And with a SoC of 20% battery has 48.6V without any load. So then the generator will start with 50%.

So this is no option.

Relay of Mppt i use for night lights.

Would victron see it valuable to add "solar charger voltage" as a parameter in the color control to shut down the generator when active due to battery SoC?

Any other suggestions?

CCGX Color Controlgenerator auto start
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1 Answer
Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

It would not be easy for the GX device to determine if there WILL be enough solar energy for the battery to reach a certain SOC before the sun goes down. Current production (power) is not a good predictor of what might happen later in the day. For example, clouds may move in.

You could potentially use something like Node Red to reduce the generator's SOC threshold if the solar production is currently above a preset value then restore if when solar production falls below it. But you could see the generator starting and stopping during the day as solar production varies.

You could potentially use time of day by setting the quiet time so that the generator only runs after solar production typically falls off for the day, say 5 PM.

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