FoxESS Community - Owners & Installers Forum

I am running predbat with FoxESS-Modbus and my new KH7 inverter. I've noticed that FoxESS-Modbus can only put the inverter into one of three work modes:
- Self Use
- Back Up (when Back-Up or Force Charge is selected in FoxESS-Modbus)
- Feed-In Priority (when Feed-in First or Force Discharge is selected in FoxESS-Modbus)

The problem is that, due to the above limitations:
- If Force Charge (Back Up) mode is invoked when excess solar is being generated the excess solar is discarded - it is neither exported nor used to charge the battery
- If Force Discharge (Feed-In Priority) is selected it will not export charge from the battery to take advantage of good export rates unless feed-in limits have been exceeded. It will only export excess solar to the grid.

This means that I lose two major benefits of predbat:
- taking advantage of cheap/free/negative import rates to charge the battery during the day without discarding excess solar energy that is being generated at the time
- taking advantage of high export rates by exporting charge from the battery.

Does anyone have any advice for how/whether I can actually achieve either of the above benefits of predbat, either with or without FoxESS-Modbus?

I think you may have to create account to message Nathan under discussions (I see you have now done!)
https://github.com/nathanmarlor/foxess_modbus

or look to see if the solution from Nicois fits your needs better?
https://github.com/nicois/foxess-control

What did you end up doing with this?

I've just had a KH8 installed an am frustrated to learn of the restrictions in local control availability and how they impact Predbat.

I found that the FoxESS-Control integration gives access to more modes on the KH7

Great. And these modes are adequate for your needs I guess?

Do you use modbus or the cloud version of the fox-control integration?

Do you use predbat at all?

Cheers

Not sure about cloud but with modbus I can confirm "Force Discharge (Feed-In Priority)" definately exports from both battery and solar with Predbat.

I can also confirm that from November stats and the "bonus IOG daytime charges" that the solar isn't being binned. To be 100% sure I'd really need to check again on a bright summer day where solar exceeded EV use (the only time I get daytime charges on IOG)

I did use basic automations as there were a few issues with Predbat for my install in the past around daytime EV charging or at least non-charging dispatches causing peak rate use, but it now seems pretty effective. It takes quite a bit to get Predbat setup properly, I did just use home assistant automations which were almost as effective but the predicted load is useful as i have heat pump now- lets system work out if there is likely to be power to export.