Hey Victron,
here in Germany, there is a app/service available, called "Stromgedacht". It is made by the grid operator "Transnet BW", but they said that the information is suitable for whole germany. (https://www.stromgedacht.de/)
All the information is readable through a JSON-API, and I would love to see it integrated into the victron system. They are looking for integrations with OEMs and are very supportive on this questions.
So, what does it do?
The app / api reports 4 different states for the german grid, maximum 2 days in advanced iirc. They are:
- "Supergreen": Everything is shiny, very much renewable energy, grid is stable.
- "Green": Regular Operation Mode.
- "Orange": Consumption should be reduced to avoid (expensive) redispatches due to grid limitations.
- "Red": Grid-Safety is in danger.
Now, this doesn't necessarily follow just the prices due to renewable energy, for example today, we have an orange window: Renewable power in northern germany is quite cheap, swiss pumped-storage plants are on a shopping-spree - and all the energy has to be transferred through the german grid.
That leads to grid exhaust situations and the german grid operators have to do "redispatches" to ensure grid-stability. (I.e. buy electricity somewhere in Switzerland to satisfy the demand, and reroute the overhead in northern germany elsewhere)
So, what could victron use this information for?
Few thoughts, what victron could do with this information:
- Configurable "low limit" for battery-soc: When an orange phase is reported, ensure a minimum soc-level. Take this into account for charge/discharge scheduling in Dynamic ESS / regular ESS.
- Configurable control of EV-Chargers, i.e. "do not charge while orange, unless force override is used by the user"
- Set a flag on dbus / mqtt / one of the IO ports that will be "true" during orange and red phases, so controlled consumers (heat pumps, heaters, washing machines, etc...) could query some sort of "do-not-consume-now"-Information.
As for "grid feed" questions you would need to consult Transnet BW for details. I can't tell whether it would be supportive to maybe "increase" the grid-feed during orange phases (sort of "delay battery charge option"), or if that would actually put more stress on the grid. Most likely depends on the very exact geo-location of the user, thus can't be generally setup.
