Force discharge setting overrides battery

[Kipplekat]

Quick question regarding how to correctly configure force discharge slots. We have peak rate between 4pm-7pm so when we have a good day of solar like today we want to discharge our battery on a schedule like today so that it discharges down to a certain percentage. We tested it by setting it to 61%.

The excess power went to the grid which was great, but once the battery was at 61%, instead of discharging to the house it went into standby and we drew electric from the grid at peak price. Is there any way to configure the logic so it understands once this discharge to the grid level is met that it should then discharge the rest to the house?

We’ve disabled the discharge to grid for now until we understand how to configure it correctly.

[evilbunny]

I'm currently testing a python script I'm writing using @TonyM1958 FoxESS-Cloud python library

What I've come up with so far works out the amount of surplus power and then calcs how many watts to discharge at during the peak export period not the battery percentage because I hit the same limitation you did.

I also set it to not bother unless the export wattage exceeds house load so I don't get a nasty surprise that way either.

Still working on my script but once I'm happy with the results I'll publish it on my GitHub repo.

[GregHoward]

Fox ESS need to urgently fix this, in Australia it's costing lots of people with Globird money every day. I've emailed Au support 5 days ago without any reply other than the auto reply that says they will reply within 24 hours??

[Kipplekat]

Is it by design or an actual bug? I’m manually discharging and then switching it off now to prevent drawing from the grid

[evilbunny]

Is it by design or an actual bug? I’m manually discharging and then switching it off now to prevent drawing from the grid

Most likely over looked, I've not heard of anywhere in the world but Australia getting free power due to so many rooftop solar systems installed.

As I wrote above, use time + watts to work round the lack of a better solution for now.

The script I've written downloads hourly forecasts from BoM to guesstimate air con usage between 2pm and when solar drops off, which was about 5:30pm today but it's a moving target so fun and games getting my head round such a complex beast.

[evilbunny]

Fox ESS need to urgently fix this, in Australia it's costing lots of people with Globird money every day. I've emailed Au support 5 days ago without any reply other than the auto reply that says they will reply within 24 hours??

Would have been more productive banging your head against a brick wall, they never answer the phone either.

[GregHoward]

Agree, they need to get on top of the support. Any reply is better than none. But if your going to sell a product into a country then you need to work with the countries conditions. I would think it's an easy fix to coordinate turning off discharge with the end time & the maximum battery %

[evilbunny]

Agree, they need to get on top of the support. Any reply is better than none. But if your going to sell a product into a country then you need to work with the countries conditions. I would think it's an easy fix to coordinate turning off discharge with the end time & the maximum battery %

That will take time to dev and then test etc

Even if they come up with something that can do self use after hitting a SOC the reason I'm writing a python script is to go a step further by also using weather and solar forecasts among other things to maximise battery life, not too much, not too little kind of thing.

[alexls]

Is it by design or an actual bug? I’m manually discharging and then switching it off now to prevent drawing from the grid

I think it's (another) bug in the new app. AFAIK it used to discharge down to Force Discharge SOC, and then would perform normally down to Min Soc.
I saw this same behaviour yesterday though - it discharged down to 40% (FD SOC) and then started drawing from grid even though my MinSoc was 10%. Fortunately I was keeping an eye on it and so updated work mode to Self Use.

[GregHoward]

I have a feeling the old app was the same? but not 100% sure as I only used it for about 2 weeks before the new one was released

[alexls]

It used to work. Otherwise Octopus Flux would be pretty much useless for any Fox customers.

See

[Kipplekat]

Does my installer need to raise a bug or do fox review this forum?

[B16YUG]

I'm experiencing exactly the same problem on this new firmware on both my installations - I'm 100% certain it used to discharge to the SOC value and then resort to self use / e.g. run the property from battery.

I'm trying to raise a support ticket myself but haven't got the email confirmation to do so yet (asked for it at 5:30pm - now 20:30 and nothing in junk.... maybe that part of the system is buggy too!
Wish i hadn't upgraded the firmware now!

[alexls]

Additionally, tried a standard 'don't discharge' eariler. This is where I want the load powered from solar first, then excess from grid without using the battery. MinSOC and FDSOC set to 10%, MaxSOC 100%, FD power 0W.
This definitely used to work, but today it basically just turned solar off. All load came from grid, with 0W solar even though it should have been around 1kW at the time - which is what I got when I disabled the scheduler again.
So they've really screwed something up somewhere.

[evilbunny]

Additionally, tried a standard 'don't discharge' eariler. This is where I want the load powered from solar first, then excess from grid without using the battery. MinSOC and FDSOC set to 10%, MaxSOC 100%, FD power 0W.
This definitely used to work, but today it basically just turned solar off. All load came from grid, with 0W solar even though it should have been around 1kW at the time - which is what I got when I disabled the scheduler again.
So they've really screwed something up somewhere.

I set mine to 1W yesterday between 11am and 2pm and the battery charged from solar + 1W from the grid and everything else including the hot water system pulled power from the grid as well.

I also noticed when getting the schedules from the API it has solar limits shown not just grid limits.

Code: Select all

             {'enable': 1,
              'endHour': 13,
              'endMinute': 58,
              'extraParam': {'exportLimit': 100000.0,
                             'fdPwr': 1.0,
                             'fdSoc': 80.0,
                             'importLimit': 100000.0,
                             'maxSoc': 100.0,
                             'minSocOnGrid': 30.0,
                             'pvLimit': 20000.0,
                             'reactivePower': 0.0},
              'startHour': 11,
              'startMinute': 1,
              'workMode': 'ForceCharge'},

[alexls]

Just came across this:
https://github.com/TonyM1958/FoxESS-Clo ... Fox-App-v2

Discharge Cut-off SOC: sets the battery SoC where discharging should stop. On newer inverters, battery discharge will stop when the SoC falls to this level and the house load will be met from the grid for the remainder of the time. On older inverters, the system will revert to self use mode and the battery will supply the house load until Min SoC.

I now realise (from that page, and the lack of a setting in the app even though it's there in the web interface) it's because they don't even look at MinSOC in the FD schedule. So that renders Flux unusable on 'newer inverters' then. Who on earth made that decision?

[evilbunny]

Who on earth made that decision?

There's a saying: The Two Most Common Elements in the Universe Are Hydrogen and Stupidity

Mum bought a Dyson Mop and Vacuum robot, which just came out in Australia. What they don't tell you in the shiny TV ads is it will only mop if it can get to the floor itself because it's been programmed to have an obsessive compulsion to keep it's mop roller excessively clean.

It just does not remember when it's mop roller has been cleaned and not used. This can at times lead to 3+ cleaning cycles on the dock before the thing will actually mop.

Then there is the avoid area rules in the app which can only shrink to about a 1.5 x 1.5m area, so to stop it going over a carpeted step you have to move the avoid area constantly to vacuum all floors.

While the software has dumb limitations the hardware is beyond excellent and it cleans and mops better than anything else and the indoor positioning is mind blowingly accurate.

[Jonesthesteam72]

Just trying to set up my schedule yet again, the reserve is stuck at 20%, write error if I try to change it, and this is via the website rather than the app, before i used to discharge to 20% and the battery had the remainder to run down before midnight but now it just goes back to the grid.
Numerous write errors to get the schedule set whereas before it normally just worked, just quite frustrating currently and the lack of comms is getting annoying

[evilbunny]

Just trying to set up my schedule yet again, the reserve is stuck at 20%, write error if I try to change it, and this is via the website rather than the app

I had that happen due to the work mode chosen or something like that, and it wasn't until I fiddled further I could save.

The web UI needs refinement to stop people being able to enter conflicting things before they try to hit save.

[alexls]

Confirmation from Fox:

During the Force Discharge time window, once the battery reaches the configured FDSOC (60%), the inverter will stop discharging the battery.

From that point onward, all load will be supplied by the grid, even if your Min SOC is set to 10%. This is the normal operating logic of the Force Discharge mode.

So we need them to change/revert this absolutely ridiculous behaviour ASAP.

[Kipplekat]

‘Logic’

[alexls]

Just had a further response, after several back-and-forths:

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Our current system logic is indeed designed so that once the FD SOC is reached, the battery stops discharging during the Force Discharge period (especially if the time block is relatively long).

Thank you very much for your feedback. Our project team is actively working to optimise the platform, so that after reaching FD SOC, the system can automatically return to Self-Use mode, maximising self-consumption and overall efficiency.

We truly appreciate your suggestions and will strive to make this feature available as soon as possible.

[evilbunny]

I finally have a beta version of a python script to try and maximise free power for 3 hours a day and a higher FiT between 6pm to 8pm.

viewtopic.php?t=2855

[CDubbs]

I raised this issue the day after Fox released the updates that changed the forced discharge behaviour
viewtopic.php?p=12544#p12544
Since then haven’t bothered to FD any excess and faff around with switching it off.
On Tuesday it was the first properly sunny day in the UK since around October and had a full battery in the evening so decided to export around 7kw, set the schedule up, and forgot about it, it did discharge approx what I estimated and has set FDSOC to 30%, then it had dropped back onto self use which MINSOC inset to 10% and was not drawing from the grid.
Then yesterday was another sunny day, 2 in a row!!!, the same schedule was still active and again it fell back onto self use at set MINSOC and did not draw from the grid.
So something has changed.
Good news is today is back to grey and gloom and cold, that’s more like it

[Dave Foster]

Something has definitely changed in the back end within the last few days, when you look on the V2 website the slot it inserts between 00:00-23:59 that sets the fall back state is now showing simply as 'Remaining Time Slots' and it no longer appears to interfere with the running schedules - fingers crossed.