question

manifold avatar image
manifold asked

measuring separate AC power usage from inverter via VRM

This may have been asked before but in different language so I wasn't sure.

I want to have a multi or quatro fully off-grid system with let's sasy 20kW of panels feeding a few different buildings with AC 240V such as small house, shed, separate office, greenhouse etc.

Ideally on my Cerbo/Octo/whatever I'd love to see what is using what, or even when there is load (like if a building should be empty/off). I can't see an obvious way to separate AC loads but i think this would be a kiler feature and with current sensors should at least be hackable perhaps.

Is this possible to do such that it would display on a GX touch 50, or mobile dashboard/VRM?

Or does it need some serious coding via VenusOS or something else?

If a Victron employee reads this I think you should consider adding this feature as I can see it becoming increasinly common for offgrid solutions, even if it's just for house and shed, but 2+ would be ideal, and put a current senson on each circuit you have! Even in a house: lights/oven/power points/hot water heater etc. The data satistic uses are immense.


Thanks :)

Phoenix Inverterac
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Ingo avatar image Ingo commented ·

@manifold I had a similar requirement to measure ACOut1 and ACOut2 separately but the current Victron range does not have the HW built into their devices to separate the measurements, it's one sensor for ACOut in total.

That said, you mentioned:

"Or does it need some serious coding via VenusOS or something else?"

Which is what I did. I made my own dashboard on a completely separate system that reads Modbus registers. I then installed my old 3P energy meter behind my Quattro and data from that device is displayed on my own dashboard. There have been some people using Grafana to create custom dashboards so perhaps that is something you could look at.

Just to give you an idea, here is my dashboard that is based on my old 3P house setup which is now 1P with L1 and L2 bridged at the source (ACOut1) and L3 (ACOut2) used for non-critical loads.

1612507987496.png

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manifold avatar image manifold commented ·

@Ingo Thanks so much for your answer. I guess a separate dashboard would be required to see this info.

I'll look into grafana as I didn't know about that!


Cheers

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alan avatar image
alan answered ·

From here, it looks like only 3 are supported (q.11).
https://www.victronenergy.com/live/energy-meters:start


I'm not sure if more can be connected and monitored through Grafana

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manifold avatar image manifold commented ·

Thanks for the answer alan, but I had looked at those devices before and from what I can tell they're used for measurements on grid applications, as in AC current going in to and out of the inverter.

And as the bottom of the page you linked me says:


They cannot be used for other purposes e.g. to measure specific, arbitrary AC loads or circuits for example
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manifold avatar image manifold commented ·

ALthough perhaps you're right in that I can use those meters with grafana!

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