I’ll post here when it’s ready to go.
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@madpilot Hi Myles, I too have an automation like yours for curtailment, and the automation works fine. However, as per my post here, when I curtail, production drops to zero. It is not mirroring consumption.
I saw somewhere you mentioned older HD Wave inverters. Mine are SE5000H-AU000BWU4’s. Are they the problem?
FYI @markpurcell
Batts
@batts I posted the settings I used, that worked for me on a Home Hub. If you are using the same settings, I’m not sure. Maybe someone else has experience with that specific inverter? I never tried curtailing on the HD wave when I had one.
I have had differing results with different firmware.
My theory is the Export Control functionality isn’t as well utilised/ tested across the fleet.
I’m running 4.16.23 which is getting quite old now, but I find it stable.
I spoke to my installer and had an online chat to Solar Edge agent in India a couple of days ago.
Someone has tweaked something (don’t know what) and it is working, provided I add a delay of several seconds before setting the site limit parameter.
If I don’t add the delay, there is no curtailment at all despite the site limit setting of zero.
NEW PROBLEM:
Battery at 100%. Curtailment active.
Production is curtailed to solar edge perceived consumption (solar edge cannot see/incorporate a non-solar edge battery). If battery happens to drift into discharge ( i.e. supplying load) , then solar edge sees that as a reduction in consumption and curtails further. I watched it drift slowly to a point where production was close to zero and battery was supplying most of the load. Surely there must be a way to position CTs to account for presence of a non-solar edge battery?
Or should I just onboard control to Amber?
@markpurcell @madpilot I apologise for still being baffled.
Solar curtailment with multiple devices is probably my biggest headache in Smartshift.
Surely there must be a way to position CTs to account for presence of a non-solar edge battery?
Yep, you totally can, though you’ll need to install an external production meter - this will tell your SolarEdge inverter about the other inverter, and allow it to take into account the other system. Though if the other system is also trying to limit exports you’ll have a bad time. Does the other battery have solar on it too?
I had this issue with my Powerwall, with SolarEdge export limit set to 0W, the Powerwall would end up running the household load and solar production would go to 0W.
I set SolarEdge export limit to 200W, which means a little bit leaks during negative feedIn, but that is enough to stop the Powerwall from taking over.
I also found different results with different values, very responsive at 500 W, too slow at 50W so do some experiments.
My installation is smpler than that @madpilot . Three single phase SolarEdge inverters with 1 leader and 2 followers. Two Powerwall 2’s on phases 1 and 2.
Recent email from Amber suggests you can provide load control curtailment on SE only when a consumption meter is installed. My CTs are set up as an import/export meter, so i am guessing they need to be repositioned and set up to measure site load only, and configured as a consumption meter before you could possibly onboard? I also noticed you are looking for testers where an export meter is installed but it is suggested that will only be on/off curtailment, so not ideal. Nevertheless, i enrolled today for the testing using email t**h@b****n.net.au if you want to look me up.
@markpurcell thankyou for your suggestion, i will experiment further. I have also observed that my site limit in HA appears to default to zero, but until i change this value, the site limit on SetApp Status remains at maximum, ie not limited. For this reason alone i have already commenced setting a non zero value in my curtailment automation. So i am happy to try larger values as you suggest.
I have also observed that the HA commands dont always reach the inverters with a small warning message displayed. Would it be worth repeating the commands after a small time delay in the automation?
EDIT. I am uncertain of the CT setup. I think there is a single CT on each phase which, on phases 1 and 2, are measuring site load less battery input. These are summed to provide SE’s version of import/export. ??? I then derive site load for phases 1 and 2 by subtracting the associated battery load.
I just found this post from last year. Exactly what happened to me. I’ll try to get the battery to 100% today and experiment with the limit.
UPDATE:
@markpurcell Thank you Mark, I seem to have it working now. Tried 500W first, then 200W. Production follows site load well and battery stays in the remain-at-full-charge mode. I have settled on 250W as a site limit for now. I have left an 8 second delay in the automation before setting the limit.
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My curtailment has been working well with one exception:
[Reminder that my system has 3 single phase inverters with ‘i1’ as the leader.]
Each time FIT changes from a negative value, and automation ends curtailment by setting Limit Control Mode to ‘disabled’, inverters 2 and 3 instantly reduce production to zero; then all 3 steadily ramp up to 100%. The ideal behavior is that 2 and 3 DO NOT reduce production at all, and that all 3 simply ramp up from present value.
I have solved this by keeping the Limit Control Mode enabled and varying the Site Limit instead. The important features of my automation now are as follows:
- Automation only runs if battery charge is above 95%.
- Although redundant, I have retained the instructions to enable Limit Control Mode, (it should remain active 24/7), to ensure correct mode is always set whenever the automation runs in case of inadvertent manual selection.
- Site limit for curtailment is 250W (for reasons described in previous post)
- Site limit non-curtailed is large (I used 15000W)
- I have retained a time delay before setting Site Limit. I found that changing the site limit was less reliable if not delayed.
alias: My Solar Curtailment
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id:
- sensor.amber_feed_in_price
action:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.amber_feed_in_price
below: 0
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.useable_percentage_remaining
above: 95
sequence:
- metadata: {}
data:
option: Export Control (Export/Import Meter)
target:
entity_id: select.solaredge_i1_limit_control_mode
action: select.select_option
- delay:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 5
milliseconds: 0
- metadata: {}
data:
value: "250"
target:
entity_id: number.solaredge_i1_site_limit
action: number.set_value
default:
- metadata: {}
data:
option: Export Control (Export/Import Meter)
target:
entity_id: select.solaredge_i1_limit_control_mode
action: select.select_option
- delay:
hours: 0
minutes: 0
seconds: 5
milliseconds: 0
- metadata: {}
data:
value: "15000"
target:
entity_id: number.solaredge_i1_site_limit
action: number.set_value
mode: single
Thankyou guys - I seem to have a similar setup to @batts, and I’ve been having trouble with Load-Following Curtailment using Amber. I have 3x SE Inverters and 2x SE Batteries enrolled in SmartShift and have so far been letting them control things… but getting frustrated lately with the On/Off curtailment they seem to be doing. I’ll now experiment with bringing control back locally and see if I can get the Load-Following working.
My home system comes with SolarEdge 9.9KW and Tesla Powerwall 2 Battery (with Tesla invertor as main invertor). Just switched to Amber Electric. I noticed that in any cloud or sunny day, the battery will be fully charged within about 2 ~ 2.5 hours. As my Grid supplier is Ausgrid. between 10-3pm, there is penalty of extra 1.2cent for feed in. Watching the Amber app, I can see most time during day time between 10-4pm, the feed in are negative. However, It seems no way to cut off my Tesla to send power back to grid. Tried off-grid option, Tesla will auto resume after bettery runs above 73%. It seem the only way to reduce my cost is to use Amber Smartshift to set reserve battery power (stop charging battery) before 10am. However, so far I have not found a way to do it automatically. No SmartShift integration I found. Tried Tesla custom integration, The export function doesn’t work even I set TOU with higher feed in price in Tesla app. Anyone can help me to find a solution?
Are you on Smartshift? You need to register your SolarEdge inverter too - we can curtail that.
If you want to do it via Home Assistant, install the Solaredge Modbus Multi integration from HACS.
This automation will get you started
alias: Solar Curtailment
description: ""
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id:
- sensor.amber_feed_in_price
condition: []
action:
- choose:
- conditions:
- condition: numeric_state
entity_id: sensor.amber_feed_in_price
below: 0
sequence:
- data:
option: Export Control (Export/Import Meter)
target:
entity_id: select.solaredge_i1_limit_control_mode
action: select.select_option
- data:
value: "0"
target:
entity_id: number.solaredge_i1_site_limit
action: number.set_value
default:
- data:
option: Disabled
target:
entity_id: select.solaredge_i1_limit_control_mode
action: select.select_option
mode: single
Note, you’ll need to need to mess around with the site_limit value, if your Powerwall isn’t charged - setting it to zero will stop the Powerwall charging correctly. (You can set it to zero one it is charged). From memory, that is a percentage, so find a number that will leak 100-200W to the grid.
Thanks. Even I have Solaredge invertor, However, it does nothing. As I got Tesla Powerwall battery. The invertor control the power flow is Tesla invertor.
yes. I am on smartshift. And it seems there is no addon’s for smartshift in HA.
For my situation, my tesla battery will be fully charged within about 2hours if it is sunny days. And Ausgrid charges extra between 10-3pm if exceeds certain amount of power. So the logic best working for me is to let Tesla invertor stop charging battery before 10am if it is sunny/cloudy days. I got both Tesla Powerwall and Tesla custom integration installed. And amber electric integration installed. However, I can’t find way to let Tesla invertor stop charging battery and send exccess solar power to grid instead. I can see Amber smartshift has battery control button to do so. And when I was on Tesla VPP, I do see this action happens when Tesla VPP took control. There was an article talking about set export mode to everything and in tesla app, put feedin price very high. to force tesla send exccess power to grid. However, it doesn’t work with I am with Amber.
Just getting started here, so this might be a dumb question…
Does the official Amber integration provide the actual Amber price(s), say for the last half-hour block? It provides the price (estimated) for the current block, but I don’t see any actuals.
The fiorst few posts of this thread refer to a 48-element array where the first 24 elements are actuals and the last are forecast. I assume the actuals have been deprecated? I can see the forecast array in General (forecast) but nothing similar under Price.
If I’m right, is theree an easy way to get the actual price for the last half hour block and store this in a statistics sensor? I can of course save the current block at (say) 29:30 past the half-hour but that seems kludgy.
Not at the moment. It’s planned. I just have to get past my current PR to get the API library updated first.
Basic plan at the moment:
- Update the price sensor to include the advanced prices forecast
- Deprecate the forecast sensor in favour of a forecast service
- Add support for 5 minute prices
- Add an actual price sensor, that returns the last ratified actual price
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I had Tesla battery signed up with Amber Electric just more than a month. Just wondering if you have some way to get Amber SmartShift manual battery operation working under HA? As the Tesla battery takes less than 2-3 hours to get fully charged. I tried to work out how to set SmartShift battery operation mode “Preserve battery” [Let solar power sends all extra to grid, not charging battery] before 10am except raining days. And so far got no luck.