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Keith Arnold avatar image
Keith Arnold asked

Ccgx limiting charge, why?

I have a multi 48/5000/70. Fronius primo 4 kW on ACout1, Li-ion battery. Running ess.

Fronius zero feed-in is working... too well, at the wrong situation.

Eg with battery on with life, soc is low but ccgx is limiting the fronius and very little charging.

If I switch to without life then the limit is mostly removed and charge increases by at least double or more. In keep battery charged also much better use of the PV power.

So why is ccgx limiting charge in with battery life?

Have posted before but no answers. Trying again. Posted in ess not charging batteries, why?

Other issue but I’ll solve that by connecting the fronius to lan with cable opposed to wlan.

CCGX Color ControlFronius
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4 Answers
Rob Duthie avatar image
Rob Duthie answered ·

Hi

Have you checked the the charge limit in the VE configuration settings?

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Keith Arnold avatar image Keith Arnold commented ·

Yes the charge limit is 45 Amps. But with battery life only about 10 amps charging. Thing is as soon as I switch to without battery life the charge increases double or more so nothing obvious holding it back. It can charge more but for some reason rather pulls the fronius back.

Others have same problem. See ess not charging... but not answers from victron.

Tried DVCC on and off.

And it is not small limiting, like down to 50 % or more of PV capacity....

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Rob Duthie avatar image Rob Duthie Keith Arnold commented ·

Hi Keith

Have you checked the PV capacity setting in VE config for the ESS setting, that can limit power in certain charging modes. i have a similar system with a Mulitplus2 with a PV inverter on the output and running a Lithium battery pack from a Nissan Leaf.

Do you want a copy of all my settings from it?

Note with lithium battery packs. your meant to run without battery life. That's what i am running with.


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Keith Arnold avatar image
Keith Arnold answered ·

I am also running without battery life, the only way i get meaningful charginging. Even then my fronius looks like a jagged tooth shark on vrm , all the control pull backs. End of day my batteries are not properly charged.

I have Hauwei li ion 100 Ahx2. I have another 2 on order to add.

Yip, pv is correctly sized.

Think victron need to look at their control algorithms and priorities. Currently performance is far less than expected....

At least i have found out why my fronius was falling off the ccgx. Seem fronius had an isue with wifi power. The latest firmware has increased wifi power and since i installed it, connection is good.

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Rob Duthie avatar image
Rob Duthie answered ·

When it starts the charge cycle is it in Bulk mode? and have the ESS settings in the VE config set the correct Ah capacity of the battery bank?

You can save a txt file of the settings in the Multi and post it here?

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Keith Arnold avatar image Keith Arnold commented ·

Yes it is in bulk. Correct Ah. I have tried adjusting the charge limit to higher value. Does not help.

Only taking it off with battery life helps but even then it could do much better utilization of pv.

Ill try the copy of settings later. Is this in vrm?

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Rob Duthie avatar image Rob Duthie Keith Arnold commented ·

For lithium battery you dont need battery life enabled, i have 3 kW of PV grid tied going though my Mulitplus 2 on the output so all the PV power is directed to charging at the maximum current charger of the Mulitplus 2 in my case 32Amps.

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Keith Arnold avatar image Keith Arnold Rob Duthie commented ·

Thinking the benefit that with life gives is that the battery soc can be held in the higher region. In particular in South Africa where one needs standby power more often than others.

I relooked ve and ess settings and have increased charge current. Suggested charge rate is 20 amp each, max 50 A each. So I have set it higher. See what happens tomorrow.

I am waiting delivery of another 2 batteries plus a 250/60 MPPT controller. So I foresee more challenges ahead....

Fronius communication is much more stable. The latest firmware fixed a bug that reduced WiFi power on the datamanager. Now signal strength is better. The unit was on the limit for a while.

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Rob Duthie avatar image Rob Duthie Keith Arnold commented ·

Hi Keith

Without battery life you can set the SOC limit as well and get the benefit of more charge control etc, With battery life is designed for Lead acid Gel/AGM battery cells only. As all settings for lithium setting are without battery life, as lithium has a totally different charge profile and set points. As i have tired a similar setup and it does not work correctly with battery life enabled.

Regards

Rob D

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Keith Arnold avatar image Keith Arnold Rob Duthie commented ·

Thanks, had not picked this up in documents. I know it charges better in without life setting.

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Keith Arnold avatar image
Keith Arnold answered ·

After much consideration of the smart meter not working, its like pushing a rope theory, I decided to reinstall the fronius smart meter on the grid before the multi. Kept the primo on output 1.

Switched fronius zero feed-in off. Configured the primo/smart meter to do zero feed-in directly with zero as set point.

I increased my ccgx grid setpoint to 500W as this is about my minimum load (base load if you like). So to me it really does not matter as there is plenty of load to push and pull from the battery.

Day 1 and I am happier with the results.

1. No feed-in, zero. With the ccgx trying to do the job 1 to 3 % feed-in.

2. It seems only once did the smart meter have to act decisively on reducing PV. And that was immediately after a period of discharge and drastic load change.

3. Healthy charging as and when PV was available. Day has been a bit overcaste. So I look forward to a nice sunny day to check the performance.

So far, MUCH BETTER,


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