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My DNO is going to upgrade my supply from 60A to 80A. As I will be away I would ideally like to put the system into island mode beforehand so there will be zero current flowing when they pull out the fuse.
What is the best way of doing this remotely? I need to be 100% sure I can restore it afterwards. It is a Multiplus II-GX 5k running in ESS mode, at this time of year it is virtually certain there will be plenty of charge in the battery.
The system can be put into INVERTER mode and it will then ignore and disconnect the ACin.
Return the system back to ON mode to restore the grid connection.
Thanks @anieuwstadt, I have tried it all out and it seems to work fine.
For anyone reading this, you have to go to Advanced|Settings|General to enable this capability, it is turned off by default. (There is also a link from the Controls panel).
Then click on the icon in the top r.h. corner of the Dashboard, the Controls panel now has extra features and you can select the operating mode from there.
Warning: do not select OFF by mistake, there is no passthrough in this state so you can turn the whole house off accidentally including your router etc., from which situation you cannot recover remotely.
IMHO there should be a big warning at this point (as there is when you first enable the mode controls), @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) what do you think about adding this?)
It was considered where to put this warning and how prominent to make it.
In the end the current situation was decided as the best compromise.
The feature is disable by default, there are two large warnings, one that requires a confirmation and acknowledgement that you can power down the system.
The reason to not make it repeated every time is that there are people in their vans and boats that are using this on/off functionality every day, or even multiple times a day.
Fair enough @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) . But you can also set it to OFF from the Remote Console, as @anieuwstadt has pointed out.
This is not disabled by default and (unlike the VRM Dashboard) there are neither warning notices nor a 5 second countdown in case you want to change your mind.
It is also a bit misleading as there are tick and cross symbols at the bottom of the window, but actually they don't work as confirmation/escape since the change takes place anyway as soon as you press the radio button.
Hi,
The Inverter mode can also be set here:
Remote Console > Device List > Inverter > Switch > Off (Don't choose this) / Charger Only (Don't choose this) / Inverter Only / On
Thanks again @anieuwstadt, I thought I had seen it somewhere else. Even easier to make a mistake from that screen!
Perhaps I will resurrect my plan to fit a changeover contactor in place of my manual bypass switch so if the Multi drops out for any reason the critical loads will automatically revert to the grid.
Bizarrely with the Multi set to Inverter Only the total loads shot up to nearly 9kW and the battery eventually tripped out on overload. I think my EV charger may have been confused by something and demanded the full 7kW.
Sitting one evening fiddling with settings and... "So, if I switch it to Charger Only, it's going to switch to passthru right?", Click. CLICK ..... darkness.
Nope.
It's not intuitively obvious that Inverter Only is what you want to disconnect from the grid, or that Charger Only (which by definition must involve connection to the grid) does not give you passthrough. These options are not explained in the inverter manual, the ESS manual or the Getting Started with VRM manual.
In fact according to p6 of this manual <When the switch is switched to 'II / Charger Only', only the battery charger of the Multi will operate (if mains voltage is present). In this mode input voltage also is switched through to the 'AC out' terminal.>
@Paul Campbell is your house load connected to AC-Out 2 ?
The block diagram on the Mult's cover shows relay contacts between the bi-directional inverter block and AC-Out 2, but no such contacts for AC-Out 1. So if the grid power can reach it for the purpose of Charging then I don't see how it can fail to reach the AC-Out 1 terminals also.
Will try it once the dishwasher has finished its cycle.
I only have a single ACOut. Multiplus 24/800
... and only a single circuit, so while I ended up in darkness, only in that room and I could still switch it back on using my mobile phone.
OK, different from my MPII-GX 48/5k then @Paul Campbell. But according to this manual you should have passthrough as well <In this mode input also is switched through to the ‘AC out’ terminal>.
Have just done the experiment with some interesting results:
i) switch to Charger Only. No dip and I do have AC passthrough
ii) switch directly to Inverter Only. Everything cuts out. After a few seconds the Multi switches on automatically in Inverter Only mode. Loads recover.
iii) switch back to Charger Only. Everything cuts out and this time stays out. Display says OFF.
iv) switch house to bypass, wait for router to boot up, change mode back to ON with Remote Console. Everything now normal. Take house off bypass. Glad I installed the bypass switch now(!)
Moral: when switching mode go through ON every time. This stuff needs to be in the manual.
VRM is having problems ATM but I don't think is implicated in the above as I am using Remote Console direct over my LAN.
On boats we run the router from the batteries rather than the AC to keep it alive if the inverter goes off. No idea if this is a useful thing for ESS systems. For highest availability, dual power sources with auto back up from battery and AC could be arranged.
So the inverter went...
"So you want me to ignore the AC-Inupt and switch to charger only. Right oh boss!"
Darkness.
