question

Barbara (Victron Energy) avatar image
Barbara (Victron Energy) asked

New in Dynamic ESS: Battery balancing

We are excited to introduce a new feature designed to extend the lifespan of your battery through regular balancing charges.

This enhancement to Dynamic ESS ensures your battery periodically charges to 100%, maintaining full capacity for 2 hours. Dynamic ESS will select the cheapest time of day for these full charges, saving you money while protecting your battery.


Why is this needed?
Typically, the schedule in Dynamic ESS won’t keep your battery charged to 100% for some time due to price considerations. However, not reaching full charge can shorten the lifespan of your battery. Regularly charging to 100% helps maintain battery health and longevity.

Note: this is especially helpful when sun hours are limited in the days, meaning the battery doesn’t get charged frequently.


How do I set it up?
You don’t have to do anything! By default, periodic charging will occur every 14 days for all Dynamic ESS users. If you prefer to opt out of this feature or want the charging to happen more frequently than every 14 days, you can adjust these settings in your Dynamic ESS configuration.

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How will I know if periodic charging is happening?
In the DESS section of your dashboard, you will see an information box on the day(s) periodic charging is scheduled. This will help you understand why the DESS schedule includes more frequent charging on those days.

screenshot-2024-07-16-at-151447.png

This new feature ensures your battery remains healthy and efficient, providing you with reliable performance and peace of mind. For more details and to manage your settings, visit the Dynamic ESS configuration in your dashboard.


VRMdynamic essDESS
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9 Answers
mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Hi all, last update: the last fix was deployed early this week, and the battery balancing feature works really well now!


Have a good weekend, Matthijs

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huskyte avatar image
huskyte answered ·

Ok, seems useful. Is it fully functional? Last night (AC charge) it tried to reach full charge and didn't, so neither balancing happened nor the message disappeared. Now I reached it (100% smart shunt and JK CAN), but the message is still there. I already changed it to 60 days, but still the message shows.
Can you elaborate the algorithm in the background?

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stegzzz avatar image
stegzzz answered ·

Hi @Barbara (Victron Energy), this is a nice option but I'm a bit puzzled to find that I have the message "Battery balancing has been scheduled for this day." continuously displayed since feature installation -- three days ago. Not sure when the balancing operation is meant to complete, surely it shouldn't take days? Or maybe it does. Some additional explanation of the functionality would be appreciated.

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kompenhans avatar image kompenhans commented ·

same here

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nickdb avatar image
nickdb answered ·

The issue seems to revolve around sites where the battery sits at 99%. The team will be looking into ways to improve this.

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kompenhans avatar image kompenhans commented ·

my batterie was yesterday around 75% - but did not get filled up by the new maintenance even after showing the message.

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stegzzz avatar image stegzzz commented ·

My battery maxes out around 96% because I have limited the charge voltage to stop high voltage alarms, may be relevant?

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nickdb avatar image nickdb ♦♦ stegzzz commented ·

Yes, it will not clear that message/state if it currently does not hit 100%. If that is reduced to 99%, yours will still not be a good candidate as it will never get near full SOC.

It is mostly pointless trying to balance a battery if it will only ever get to 96%, so in your case I would disable it.

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kompenhans avatar image
kompenhans answered ·

why did it on my system not even start to load once to 100%.
there was not a single try to do so. what are the pre-requisits?

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image
mvader (Victron Energy) answered ·

Hey all, there is a bug in the implementation that can cause the behaviour described, that on certain systems/situations it doesn't attempt to charge, or that it doesn't keep it fully charged long enough.

We're working on a fix.


Thank you for the reports!

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mvader (Victron Energy) avatar image mvader (Victron Energy) ♦♦ commented ·

Hi all, short update: fixing the issue that certain systems would never finish balancing, and therefore intend or try to balance day after day, is going very well.


With a bit of luck we'll be able to release the fix next week.

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h2009 avatar image
h2009 answered ·

@mvader (Victron Energy) Does this battery balancing reset the 'timer' if the batteries are full from solar power? That would be great if it is to avoid wasting grid energy.

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nickdb avatar image nickdb ♦♦ commented ·

It checks when the last full cycle was, whether or not it was done manually doesn’t matter, the interval is since the last time it was fully charged for the defined number of hours.

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sitnikov avatar image sitnikov nickdb ♦♦ commented ·

5h at 26.07 - 100% . battery balance scheduled and run at 29.07 (pls see my comment below)

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nickdb avatar image
nickdb answered ·

Please note a fix has been pushed into production, so this should be resolved for most users, apart from a small group of sites which will be addressed soon.

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nw24 avatar image nw24 commented ·

I have the latest firmware release installed but I’m still seeing the issue where the system tells me Battery Balancing is scheduled day after day. I must be one of the small group of sites.

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sitnikov avatar image
sitnikov answered ·

It seems he doesn't always choose the right time. Is it a timezone problem?

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