How can I work out a daily production?
-
MiddleHouse
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Sat Jun 10, 2023 9:35 pm
Hi all - brand new user, panels installed this weekend. Is it me or is the APP and website not very useful i.e. how do I get total production? It is all focussed on Yield which doesn't tell you what you produced in the day as anything which goes to the battery is only included once discharged. I just want to know what my production was for the day - standard on all other Apps.... On the statistics you can get PV Power which is the equivalent but you can only get a graph with no total. There are numerous graphs and no totals displayed which is really annoying. Am I missing something or are the APP/Website just not very good?
I struggled to see what my panels were producing at first. I have now found how to get those data, but I had to go to the installer's and get them to configure the system correctly, as initially I only had access to the battery inverter-charger and couldn't see that they had failed to connect one of the two solar panel banks (I now think the connector had separated 4 or 5 days after installation). It also took me a while to find which parameter I needed to graph for the main inverter because its name is somewhat less than blindingly obvious.
This is for the version of the App on a PC (Windoze 10) and you may have to do it different on a phone.
For a graph of output over a day, open a page for the details page of the battery inverter-charger (mine is a model AC1-5.0-E). Near the bottom of that page, on the left side (to the right of the FoxEssCloud panel that can be folded away to the left) there's a greyed-out dialogue box saying "Please select". Despite it being greyed, select that and a fairly extensive menu for what you can plot comes down. Scroll down to Meter2Power and select - I said the name wasn't obvious. Then press the button labelled "Search" next to the dialogue box mentioned above. At least for me, the app then plots the total output from the panels, for the day selected from the calendar box on the right.
I also like to graph Load Power, Output Power, Feed-in Power, and Grid-Consumption Power to see where that solar power is going. SoC (Battery State of Charge) is also useful, but it squashes all the others down, so I have that on a separate browser tab.
For output totals, I have to go to the details pages for the two separate inverters (a Model S2000, and a Model S1500) for the two sets of panels I have. Their default graphs show Output Power and Feed-in-Power for the set, which, for me, are always the same, and give the power supplied by that bank of panels for the day - you can select which day from the calendar dialogue box to the far right. Select "Statistics" from the toggle-box on the left above the graph, and select "months" from the pull-down just left of the calendar box. That plots the sums of the total yield for each day in the selected month, as a bar-graph. If you hover over a bar, the total power yield value for that day is displayed.
I also use the data I can get from Octopus, as CSV (Comma Separated Variable) files. I paste the power import and export data from those files into an Excel spreadsheet I have written, and now enter the day's panel set yields, to analyse a month at a time.
All the stuff to the east of column R is about what I'm saving through having Economy Seven and Octopus Outgoing fixed set up, and what it costs to import at night and export in the day if the battery fills - not much, it turns out. It predicts, probably with poor accuracy, what the year's bill would be if every month was like this one. It's not quite right yet, but it's getting there.
Graham
This is for the version of the App on a PC (Windoze 10) and you may have to do it different on a phone.
For a graph of output over a day, open a page for the details page of the battery inverter-charger (mine is a model AC1-5.0-E). Near the bottom of that page, on the left side (to the right of the FoxEssCloud panel that can be folded away to the left) there's a greyed-out dialogue box saying "Please select". Despite it being greyed, select that and a fairly extensive menu for what you can plot comes down. Scroll down to Meter2Power and select - I said the name wasn't obvious. Then press the button labelled "Search" next to the dialogue box mentioned above. At least for me, the app then plots the total output from the panels, for the day selected from the calendar box on the right.
I also like to graph Load Power, Output Power, Feed-in Power, and Grid-Consumption Power to see where that solar power is going. SoC (Battery State of Charge) is also useful, but it squashes all the others down, so I have that on a separate browser tab.
For output totals, I have to go to the details pages for the two separate inverters (a Model S2000, and a Model S1500) for the two sets of panels I have. Their default graphs show Output Power and Feed-in-Power for the set, which, for me, are always the same, and give the power supplied by that bank of panels for the day - you can select which day from the calendar dialogue box to the far right. Select "Statistics" from the toggle-box on the left above the graph, and select "months" from the pull-down just left of the calendar box. That plots the sums of the total yield for each day in the selected month, as a bar-graph. If you hover over a bar, the total power yield value for that day is displayed.
I also use the data I can get from Octopus, as CSV (Comma Separated Variable) files. I paste the power import and export data from those files into an Excel spreadsheet I have written, and now enter the day's panel set yields, to analyse a month at a time.
All the stuff to the east of column R is about what I'm saving through having Economy Seven and Octopus Outgoing fixed set up, and what it costs to import at night and export in the day if the battery fills - not much, it turns out. It predicts, probably with poor accuracy, what the year's bill would be if every month was like this one. It's not quite right yet, but it's getting there.
Graham
- Attachments
-
Graham Fountain
I have a similar question, but more related to the CT2 clamp with the AC1-5.0-E inverter. I added the extra clamp to monitor PV output, the manual suggest to put the arrow towards the house loads, but normally this would point towards power source (as does the grid CT clamp).
Having it pointing at the loads gives a -ve power figure as expected, even though it is +ve as it's a power source. If I swap this round the power figure goes +ve as expected, but the load_power inverts at the same point.
Which way should the clamp face?
Pictures before and after switching clamp direction...
Any help appreciated.
Ian
Having it pointing at the loads gives a -ve power figure as expected, even though it is +ve as it's a power source. If I swap this round the power figure goes +ve as expected, but the load_power inverts at the same point.
Which way should the clamp face?
Pictures before and after switching clamp direction...
Any help appreciated.
Ian
- Attachments
-
-
You're not missing anything, they are pretty terrible.MiddleHouse wrote: ↑Sat Jun 10, 2023 9:44 pm Hi all - brand new user, panels installed this weekend. Is it me or is the APP and website not very useful i.e. how do I get total production? It is all focussed on Yield which doesn't tell you what you produced in the day as anything which goes to the battery is only included once discharged. I just want to know what my production was for the day - standard on all other Apps.... On the statistics you can get PV Power which is the equivalent but you can only get a graph with no total. There are numerous graphs and no totals displayed which is really annoying. Am I missing something or are the APP/Website just not very good?
You can hand crank something like graham has done which is useful for high level "what was this month like compared to last month, or the same time last year" measurements. If you really want detailed information from your system the best way is to connect to the RS485 (=serial) port on the inverter, and use something like Home Assistant to log and visualise the info.
Actually, I use the Excel sheet for daily analysis. I'm trying to see if there's a value of max state of charge that will minimize both the export of power I drew in overnight and the consumption of power at the higher tariff for economy 7. And to get what I need for that I need the daily Output Power values for the two solar panel set inverters and the change of SoC for the day from the app, and the charge capacity of the battery, which I worked out from how much Output power in kWhs gives what change in SoC - using the change in SoC for the day and the charge capacity of the battery to get how much power overall was stored or drawn from it.
However, it's very much more an issue of minimizing consumption in the high tariff period, which just means charging to 100 percent every night. Still, it's something to do till I can get back to fixing the Dolomite Sprint, TR7 Sprint, and Herald.
If I just wanted to try to minimize the power consumption from the house, I'd just look at the load value from the app. But minimizing that consumption would basically mean continually beating the kids with a stick, etc., and the SS (Social Services, not SchutzStaffel - well maybe) tend to frown on that a lot. So, I have to resign myself to minimizing the cost of whatever excessive quantities of power the little darlings (The Horde of the Things) might use - it's the continuous infrared cooking of the tortoise and boiling the turtle in whatever that soup it's swimming in might be that wind me up most.
But there's still some work to do with this spreadsheet: I've now got it to calculate the daily house Load Power (Grid consumption - Grid Export + Solar Output Power + Battery Output Power). But I've now found I can get the Load Yield value on the Sites Details page. Those two values have a day-to-day profile with a very similar shape, but differ by between 1.5 and 2.3 times, i.e the house load I calculate is about twice the Load Yield value, which is disconcerting. Moreover, the differences and ratios don't match up with any other parameter.
However, I just manually entered the data to calculate Load Yield from Feed-in Yield, Consumption Yield, Battery Output Power, and the Solar Output Power values, i.e. using nothing from the Octopus CSV data. From that I get a Load Yield value that is between 2 and 5 percent of the house Load Power I calculated first, i.e. also very different from the Load Yield value on the Sites Details page. So I think that latter value from the app must either be calculated or measured wrong somewhere, or isn't what I think it is.
Graham
However, it's very much more an issue of minimizing consumption in the high tariff period, which just means charging to 100 percent every night. Still, it's something to do till I can get back to fixing the Dolomite Sprint, TR7 Sprint, and Herald.
If I just wanted to try to minimize the power consumption from the house, I'd just look at the load value from the app. But minimizing that consumption would basically mean continually beating the kids with a stick, etc., and the SS (Social Services, not SchutzStaffel - well maybe) tend to frown on that a lot. So, I have to resign myself to minimizing the cost of whatever excessive quantities of power the little darlings (The Horde of the Things) might use - it's the continuous infrared cooking of the tortoise and boiling the turtle in whatever that soup it's swimming in might be that wind me up most.
But there's still some work to do with this spreadsheet: I've now got it to calculate the daily house Load Power (Grid consumption - Grid Export + Solar Output Power + Battery Output Power). But I've now found I can get the Load Yield value on the Sites Details page. Those two values have a day-to-day profile with a very similar shape, but differ by between 1.5 and 2.3 times, i.e the house load I calculate is about twice the Load Yield value, which is disconcerting. Moreover, the differences and ratios don't match up with any other parameter.
However, I just manually entered the data to calculate Load Yield from Feed-in Yield, Consumption Yield, Battery Output Power, and the Solar Output Power values, i.e. using nothing from the Octopus CSV data. From that I get a Load Yield value that is between 2 and 5 percent of the house Load Power I calculated first, i.e. also very different from the Load Yield value on the Sites Details page. So I think that latter value from the app must either be calculated or measured wrong somewhere, or isn't what I think it is.
Graham
Graham Fountain
I think I've found the problem with the Load Power value on the Sites Details page: it has a 10 minute sample interval, where the Load Power on the Inverter Details page (which can't be displayed in Stats form to give a day's total) has a 5 min interval. In which case, if the calculation is the same, it will have a basic error of a factor of two, but varying from that, depending on how much the sample values are going up and down.
So, the value calculated from the CSV data downloaded from Octopus, i.e. with only the Solar Power and SoC values from the app, will be near enough the value for the house load and I should ignore the bar graph values on the Sites Details page. But both line graphs are correct, just the one on the Sites Details page is a bit lacking in detail - which I can see now I look.
Graham
So, the value calculated from the CSV data downloaded from Octopus, i.e. with only the Solar Power and SoC values from the app, will be near enough the value for the house load and I should ignore the bar graph values on the Sites Details page. But both line graphs are correct, just the one on the Sites Details page is a bit lacking in detail - which I can see now I look.
Graham
Graham Fountain
-
Paul Wildsmith
- Posts: 18
- Joined: Fri May 19, 2023 2:22 pm
Sorry to sort of hijack this. Just to ask Ian about ct2 as I want to add this to my separate pv.
Any CT well do? Where did you buy yours? Presume just add the wires into the connector.
Thanks!
Any CT well do? Where did you buy yours? Presume just add the wires into the connector.
Thanks!
-
Dave Foster
- Posts: 1297
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm
You need to get the correct match for the CT clamp transducer - you can buy them for Foxess on this link https://www.tradesparky.com/solarsparky ... aio-rangesPaul Wildsmith wrote: ↑Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:56 am Sorry to sort of hijack this. Just to ask Ian about ct2 as I want to add this to my separate pv.
Any CT well do? Where did you buy yours? Presume just add the wires into the connector.
Thanks!
They do just wire into the existing ‘meter’ plug where CT1 is fitted - the plug is a bit fiddly to get into, it comes with a tool but the installers tend to keep them, you can do it with a couple of flat bladed screw drivers - if you do a search on here i’ve posted a few pictures over the months of how to access the connectors inside
Paul, sorry for the delay. As Dave posted got mine from tradesparky and it's the same as his link, the fox one. I've got a spare tool if you need it. Just drop me a note and I'll pop it in the post. I put mine on the AC line next to the inverter as the PV and battery inverters sit next to each other. Follow the manual on the direction, it points towards the house loads, not the PV inverter. The signal will be a -ve power when generating, as attached picture. Just enable CT2 on the inverter when connected.
- Attachments
-
-
-