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steve555 asked

Easy solar ESS always charging when grid is connected and AC readings not credible

My Easy solar 5000 ESS with 6x pylontech US2000C was working perfectly for many weeks.

I have grid setpoint set to 50W and it was working flawlessly tracking this value, with nearly all power being produced by the solar MPPT as expected.

I had ESS SOC set to 30% and on a number of occasions I saw the grid charger kick in to maintain this value when the SOC was reached. Otherwise the grid would only supply around the 50W that was configured.

However this weekend I noticed the victron was pulling substantial grid power when the SOC was way over the minimum setting . The battery was being charged at around 3kW but the AC in reading was showing 0W and also the AC loads were showing zero watts , even though there was about 400W at least of load.

ess-prob-2024-07-07-11-16-59.png

I assumed I had left a scheduled charge programmed , as I had added 2x pylontech the previous weekend and had used this function to charge the batteries initially, however there was no scheduled charge period enabled. Even so the loss of GRID in and AC Loads meter readings would not have been explained by this.


If I disconnect AC in then everything goes back to normal.

(here is a snapshot from right now , where I have a big load due to water heater being connected ,and good solar output ) . Note that the AC loads reading is back


ac-disconnected-2024-07-08-13-33-55.png


So in short, when AC input is connected the battery charges until it's full from AC IN , and the meters no longer show realistic values ( AC IN and AC out show zero , although clearly a significant power is being pulled from AC IN).

In terms of 'what changed' in the setup or configuration : shortly before it began to misbehave I was experimenting with changing the grid set point as a way of forcing a battery top up ( rather than using the scheduled charging periods ). I had briefly set the grid setpoint to 2500W and watched the battery charge up from AC IN for a few tens of minutes, then I returned it to 50W. Everything was working as normal afterwards, but around an hour or so later I noticed it was misbehaving as described above.

I have read https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/115139/issue-with-ess-taking-power-from-grid.html which is similiar. However the grid problem does not seem likely. I have retested connecting AC IN many times now , having powered off and powered up several time, and also updated firmware ( largely out of desperation - as it was working perfectly without needing any update).

It feels like a hardware malfunction. I don't know to debug further. Very grateful for any advice.

Steve





ESS
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3 Answers
steve555 avatar image
steve555 answered ·

Update:

Having left AC IN disconnected since I wrote above post, I just retried connecting it as I was filling out a victron support request and wanted up to date screen shots .

It briefly worked as expected see below:

ac-in-ok-2024-07-09-14-49-59.png


But after a few minutes reverted to the fault mode described in this ticket


ac-in-gone-wrong-2024-07-09-14-53-09.png


Looks like I need to finish the support request. Hopefully victron can help.


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steve555 avatar image
steve555 answered ·

I doubt this will interest anybody , but leaving it here as a record.

With AC-IN disconnected, the metering consistently shows we are getting out more energy ( on AC OUT) than we are putting in ! Here is a snapshot , battery is fully charged and MPPT is in limit mode due to low output load. But the meters show more power is output on AC-OUT than is being supplied by the MPPT to the battery. Obviously the meters are not working very accurately anymore, even with AC-IN disconnected.


ess-ac-in-more-outthanin-2024-07-10-17-21-23.png



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steve555 avatar image
steve555 answered ·

Update on this:

After raising a support case with Victron, and having the configuration and installation verified ( it was fine ), I was asked by the technician to fiddle with the 'current sense' terminal.

Mine is a jack socket. After powering down the system I inserted and removed a jack plug of the same size several times. After re-starting the system ( over an hour ago ) every is working as expected again. I will continue to monitor it, but it has clearly made a difference, so this looks like the cause for now.

I hope this helps someone

ess-ok-now-2024-07-17-19-19-21.png



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