question

HI Matt, thanks for your interest.

1. Ideally we would be able to adjust the parameter in node red. Not sure i need a dashboard - i can just about get my way around node red so im sure if you tell me which nodes to edit i can do that myself.

2.We have both DC coupled solar and AC coupled wind through a Quattro. See screenshot below.

3. we would want to:

• Export all solar (so loads will be powered from battery)

During certain hours when battery SOC meets a set value.

4. ideally we would be able to have multiple conditions/time slots, but not the end of the world if there is only a couple. So that the feature would turn on and off automatically when conditions are not met, ie

from 8am-10am, if SOC>90%, send all generated power to grid (so that when SOC drops <90%, power goes back to batteries

from 10am-2pm, if SOC>70%, send all generated power to grid

from 2pm-7pm, if SOC>50%, send all generated power to grid

from 7pm-11pm, if SOC>30%, send all generated power to grid

Where i can change the hours and the SOC for each rule. But they should all work the same i.e. on when conditions are met (i.e. send to grid) and off when conditions are not med (i.e. charge the batteries).

And one final complication - we aren't allowed to export more than 6kw, which is currently set up as a limit in the ESS settings. However if using a node red setup instead, we would need to make sure that if we are in 'send all generated power to grid mode', that any power generated over 6kw doesnt get wasted and instead goes to the batteries i.e. 6kw to grid, balance to batteries.

Hope all that makes sense and isn't too difficult to set up.

Thx

wow, thanks so much Matt! i appreciate you doing this for free but still happy to pay you something, or if you want to nominate a charity i would be happy to make a donation on your behalf. thx again

Update: so ive got wind, pv and soc all coming through, but when you said the system would give a msg - im not sure if i have done something wrong? I put all your code into the OnStart tab of node 2 is that correct?

Hi Matt,

The code has been working great but recently i have noticed a few times that even though conditions have been met, and gridsetpoint is -6000, the system is not selling back to the grid but is charging the batteries instead. Like right now. Any idea why this would happen? I am on 'optimized without battery life' so that is not the reason.

And in trying to fix it i have managed to break it. I went back to your original code but it's no longer changing the grid setpoint like it used to. Dont know where i have gone wrong but i suspect a recent victron update has changed something ( All i am trying to do now is set the gridpoint to -6000 at certain times of the day depending on SOC - without any of the inputs from solar) it just doesnt work any more

I run NR on a seperate machine based on an SSD so not worried about write cycles, but I am concerned about the GX's storage longevity...

I think my second answer above would work for you (as Dirk mentions you can get data from global context if you prefer/and are using most up to date venus os).

Hi @avukat38

So first thing to flag is you've got 2 smart solars going into one dcSolar change node.

If you do this then the function will use either smartsolar1 or smartsolar2 (it wont add them together like i imagine you're hoping it will).

You'll need to add another change node. ie change topic to dcSolar1 thats for smartSolar1 and then similarly dcSolar2 for smartsolar2.

Then edit the function to do something like:

if (msg.topic === "dcSolar1") {
  dcSolar1 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 3
  global.set('dcSolar1', dcSolar1);
}

if (msg.topic === "dcSolar2") {
  dcSolar2 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 3
  global.set('dcSolar2', dcSolar2);
}

var dcSolar = global.get("dcSolar1") + global.get("dcSolar2");

The other question I have is how do you want the three phase setup to work?

Do you need per phase control? I'm not as familiar with 3 phase installs so i'll need to read up on whether you can control per phase grid setpoints. ie do you use "Total of all phases" or "Individual phase" in ESS settings.

The original poster said they needed a criteria where if their acLoads were greater than 10kw then they didnt want the gridsetpoint to be changed.

If you dont need that criteria you can remove:

if (msg.topic === "acLoad") {
 
  acLoad = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 2
 
  global.set('acLoad ', acLoad);
 
}

and remove any references of acLoads from any of the if statements.

If however you do want that criteria you'll need to pass acLoads data into the function (the same way you have with soc and dcLoads etc)

You've correctly remove the acLoad variable definition but you've not removed acLoads from the if statements. The error code is letting you know the error is on line 44, in the 19th position which is where acLoads is used in the code even though you've removed the definition of the variable.

ie You've got:

if(soc >70 && acLoads <10000){
.....

If you're not using acLoads you need to remove all references to it ie change this to:

if(soc > 70) {
....

You have to do that everywhere there's reference to acLoads.

Do you want to try post the whole code on here. I can tweak it for you and explain what I change.

The bits that stand out are lines 10, 14 and 18

You've updated the code to get the acLoad2 but you've forgotten to change lines 10, 14 and 18 to change the variable from dcSolar1 to be acLoad1 or acLoad2 or acLoad3 depending on which case you're in.

I spotted one typo acloads1 should be acLoads1, the rest looks ok to me. Unless you're getting more errors?

The other thing I'd mention is you've not setup exported in this function, it's defined but it wont have a value written to it (unless you're doing that in another function).

You'll either need to it to this function somehow or you can use another flow to get the data in because you're using global.

Because you're using global you can use a completely different flow to get the data into global just need to set it like

global.set('exported',msg.payload);

This is assuming you use a new flow and the only message being passed in is the total exported figure.

var acLoad = global.get("acLoad1") + global.get("acLoad2") + global.get("acLoad3");

var acSolar = global.get('acSolar');

var dcSolar = global.get("dcSolar1") + global.get("dcSolar2");

var gridSetpoint = global.get('gridSetpoint');

var exported= global.get('exported');

//setting soc variable depending on inputs from flows

if (msg.topic === "acLoad1") {
acLoad1 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1

global.set('acLoad1', acLoad1);

}

if (msg.topic === "acLoad2") {
acLoad2 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1

global.set('acLoad2', acLoad2);

}

if (msg.topic === "acLoad3") {
acLoad3 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1

global.set('acLoad3', acLoad3);

}

//setting soc variable depending on inputs from flows

if (msg.topic === "exported") {
exported = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1

global.set('exported', exported);

}

if (msg.topic === "acSolar") {
acSolar = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 2

global.set('acSolar', acSolar);

}

if (msg.topic === "dcSolar1") {
dcSolar1 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 3

global.set('dcSolar1', dcSolar1);

}

if (msg.topic === "dcSolar2") {
dcSolar2 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 3

global.set('dcSolar2', dcSolar2);

}

//this is used to check if gridsetpoint is already 0, if it is then we won't bother updating it.

if (msg.topic === "gridSetpoint") {
gridSetpoint = msg.payload;

global.set('gridSetpoint', gridSetpoint);

}

if (msg.topic === "acLoad") {
acLoad = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 2

global.set('acLoad ', acLoad);

}

//The main logic.

if (exported < 10000) {

gridSetpoint = acLoads - acSolar + dcSolar;

} else {
gridSetpoint = 0;

}

if (gridSetpoint !== global.get('gridSetpoint')) { // Check if gridSetpoint is going to change

global.set('gridSetpoint', Math.min(gridSetpoint, 0));

msg.payload = Math.min(gridSetpoint, 0);

return msg;

}

This is likely because exported is undefined....

so the final if statement:

if(exported < 10000)
is the same as saying
if(undefined < 10000) and undefined is not less than 10000 in javascript.

So as soon as you defined exported to be a number it should work. If not you'll have to add in some debugging in the function to see what's going on in more detail but my guess is exported being undefined is the issue

To check if i'm right or not you could add this to the bottom of the funciton:

else{
msg.payload = 'hello';
return msg;
}

if debug1 then outputs hello then that's proved it's because exported is undefined.

So you're trying to get your code to adjust grid setpoint until it's exported more than 10,000

So you're written the if statement to say if exported <10000) then adjust gridsetpoint.

However the variable exported you havent written a value to. so export = undefined.

So the code is trying to do:

if (undefined<10000)

which is returning the result false and setting gridsetpoint to 0. If gridsetpoint is 0 and hasnt changed the function doesnt output anything.

What you need to do is write a value to exported. Which is what is missing from your flows at the moment.

You need to find the data node for exported power and write it to the global variable exported. (the same as what you've done for soc, dcSolar acLoads etc but you now need to do it for exported.

Then your code will run at the moment grid setpoint is just being set to 0 and never changing.

I'm not sure why it's outputting those messages. You're not returning the msg unless

Im not sure that EM24 is the right metric for exported but dont think that would cause the debug issue you're seeing.

I thought the debug was going to be connected to acLoad2 and acLoad3 to get those messages coming out.

However I spotted a few more typos acLoad instead of acLoads:

 
var acSolar = global.get('acSolar');
 

 
var gridSetpoint = global.get('gridSetpoint');
 
var exported= global.get('exported');
 
//setting soc variable depending on inputs from flows
 
if (msg.topic === "acLoad1") {
acLoad1 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1
 
global.set('acLoad1', acLoad1);
 
}
 
if (msg.topic === "acLoad2") {
acLoad2 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1
 
global.set('acLoad2', acLoad2);
 
}
 
if (msg.topic === "acLoad3") {
acLoad3 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1
 
global.set('acLoad3', acLoad3);
 
}
 
//setting soc variable depending on inputs from flows
 
if (msg.topic === "exported") {
exported = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 1
 
global.set('exported', exported);
 
}
 
if (msg.topic === "acSolar") {
acSolar = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 2
 
global.set('acSolar', acSolar);
 
}
 
if (msg.topic === "dcSolar1") {
dcSolar1 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 3
 
global.set('dcSolar1', dcSolar1);
 
}
 
if (msg.topic === "dcSolar2") {
dcSolar2 = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 3
 
global.set('dcSolar2', dcSolar2);
 
}
 
//this is used to check if gridsetpoint is already 0, if it is then we won't bother updating it.
 
if (msg.topic === "gridSetpoint") {
gridSetpoint = msg.payload;
 
global.set('gridSetpoint', gridSetpoint);
 
}
 
if (msg.topic === "acLoad") {
acLoad = msg.payload; // Extract payload from input 2
 
global.set('acLoad ', acLoad);
 
}


var dcSolar = global.get("dcSolar1") + global.get("dcSolar2");
var acLoad = global.get("acLoad1") + global.get("acLoad2") + global.get("acLoad3");
 
//The main logic.
 
if (exported < 10000) {
 
gridSetpoint = acLoad - acSolar + dcSolar;
 
} else {
gridSetpoint = 0;
 
}
 
if (gridSetpoint !== global.get('gridSetpoint')) { // Check if gridSetpoint is going to change
 
global.set('gridSetpoint', Math.min(gridSetpoint, 0));
 
msg.payload = Math.min(gridSetpoint, 0);
 
return msg;
 
}

this is function 2:

var ac = global.get('AcCons');
var sp = global.get('SolarPower');
var frcast = global.get('Forecast');
var sub = 0;
let time = new Date();
let hour = time.getHours();
let mult = 0.4;
if (frcast > 30){
    mult = 0.7;
}
//ac !== 0 && sp !== 0
if (hour<=10 && hour>=7) {
    // Perform the subtraction and subtract 1000
    sub = sp-ac;
    sub *= mult;
    sub = -Math.round(sub,0);
    // Create a new message object to send only the subtraction result
    let newMsg = {
        topic: "SubtractionResult",
        payload: sub
    };
    newMsg.complete = true;
    // Return the new message object
    return newMsg;
} else {
    let newMsg = {
        topic: "SubtractionResult",
        payload: 0
    };
    // If either AC consumption or solar power value is missing, do nothing
    return newMsg;
}

this is function 3 :

let tmp = Math.round(msg.payload.totals.solar_yield_forecast/1000,0);
 global.set('Forecast',tmp)
 msg.payload = tmp;
return msg;