Automatic Battery Charging with Solcast Solar Forecast and Home Assistant - Part 1

[@robertjones5395]

Very interesting. I'd be very interested to gain an insight on your payback. PV & battery. The HA integrations stuff seems the way to go to optimise the extra potential lost with many proprietary apps, it must take enormous amounts of your time to prepare, but the potential value gain by others can be tremendous. Thank you for sharing - eagerly awaiting part 2!

[@craig3527]

I found this really helpful. Looking forward to part 2 so I can get home assistant programmed! Thanks.

[@revronjevron]

It's been a busy summer for me but I'll be recording some more content soon. Stay tuned

[@stuartpetrie5571]

Great video. Lots of detail and much appreciated for your efforts sharing this great project. My parts have just arrived so the build will start tomorrow. I have similar setup to you with Solis Inverter and PureDrive batteries. Just requested Octopus to move me from Go to Flux today since I am now a net exporter for the summer months. Keen to see your yaml coding for this project, looks great. This is what really makes Solar work when it is all automated with intelligence.

[@revronjevron]

We recently made the switch to Flux too and it’s working brilliantly in this nice weather. So much so in fact that there’s hardly any point in discharging the batteries during peak because our natural export is so significant anyway. Lovely to see the system coming into its own after a winter install. Yesterday’s yield over 40kWh :). How are you getting on with the build Stuart?

[@david_g821]

Great video, well explained. I hope you will find time to follow this up. I am keen to see the yaml and learn how you implemented this in HA.

[@TheTrossachs]

Great video, definately on my list of winter jobs to do. Would love to see the part 2 and the HA coding automation behind it

[@MultiDelboy69]

This is just what I need for my Solar PV+ Batt+ Solis system

[@revronjevron]

Great to hear! Happy to help

[@irishpete79]

Great video - thanks. I’ve just ordered the hardware parts and have a Beelink waiting to begin the transfer of my HA from an old laptop to a pro mic setup. Will be very interested in part II and more detail in setting up the coding side of things. Thanks again.

[@revronjevron]

Great stuff, getting yourself up and running on a solid machine makes HA very powerful, and is much easier to use. Anything in particular you’d like me to cover in future videos? I’ve had a busy summer but will have more time to put into development over the coming months. All the best

[@alastairjewsbury8847]

Hi, this is a great video, I’m totally new to HA but I’ve got solar panels and really keen to do what you’ve done but have a massively steep learning curve ahead of me. This video is very informative and I really like how you’ve gone about it, but I beg with you to do the follow up video so that myself and others with less experience can benefit from it. Really hope you can sometime soon. Thanks.

[@NacNacMOTT]

Excellent video. Thank you so much. Any idea when Part 2 will come out?

[@adibbins]

Hi Jev, just found your great video, a fabulous explanation of your journey and solution, I will get my parts ordered, so I can follow a long, am looking forward to the rest of the series.

[@revronjevron]

For extra simplicity you can connect direct to the Elfin unit - so the only parts required are that and an Exceedconn connector. This is the most straightforward method and works perfectly

[@nigelsykes3333]

Just to echo great video and the RS485 splitter is a great piece of kit mine is now working a charm with the PUSR W-610 wifi module I already had. Look forward to the next video in the series 🙂

[@revronjevron]

Great to hear! Knowledge is power :) Do you have anything you'd like me to cover in future videos?

[@nigelsykes3333]

@revronjevron Hi Jev Would be great to see how you set up the actual charging automation to start / stop the charging on the inverter . Bit nervous about prodding the inverter with test automations . Any guidance would be greatly received

[@neilcummins2]

Great informative video, looking forward to the next in the series 👏

[@revronjevron]

Awesome, thank you!

[@mark82421]

Many thanks Jev!

[@revronjevron]

You're very welcome!

[@richardoliver4904]

great video this is now my quest. have just got my rasperry pi and as i have a solis inverter will follow all guidance and may seek some help along the way! thank you richard

[@revronjevron]

Thanks Richard, great to hear you are on the way to implementing HA to control your system. If you don't mind losing Solis Cloud I recommend connecting direct to HA - much easier!

[@richardoliver4904]

@@revronjevron Thanks Jev it seemed a good idea to retain the solar cloud function, but until I watched your video had not come across this as all others have interfaced directly with the inverter. I love the logic of your program. It’s very interesting that since I’ve had my equipment circa 3 years, I now use it in a different way, and indeed the size of my battery which I now split in half and share duty cycles during summer. This all because I now get paid the same amount for export as I do import at night. Hence I’m happy to export all my daily surplus in the summer excepting sufficient battery charge. As always the challenge is in the winter, but again unlike previous winters, I won’t be too concerned if I fully charge my battery, as it will result in more export the next day, if the sun is shining. However, as a retired chartered elec engineer I love these projects and getting more control! Thanks again Richard

[@da_elimelech]

Eager to see how to configure this in HA!

[@martinwatson8081]

Great video and very detailed - thank you

[@MrKlawUK]

really well explained, thank you. We have a givenergy system which has an integration in home assistant that lets me set a target SoC for the battery. It woudl be great if you were able to show in future videos how we’d pull that from your code as that may be simpler for some battery owners than going the additional steps you listed for your setup

[@revronjevron]

That's a useful default feature, and can be easily replicated on any inverter with automation. I don't personally use that, but I know some people set their max SoC to 98% to look after their battery long term. To clarify, max SoC is not part of my coding

[@MrKlawUK]

@@revronjevron I'd like to automate like your description so will be following along - but on givenergy we can set a desired SoC through an API so hopefully I can adapt your approach to do that rather than setting a charge timer.

[@ivankarpov4547]

Great Video and very interesting topic. When we can expect part 2?

[@hectyre]

I'm using solar assistant which also brings in all of the sensors to home assistant. It runs on a pi4 and uses waveshare. Solar assistant will soon support invertor control so I'm hoping I can follow along with this but with less hardware.

[@rbenson999]

HI Jev, did you ever get to the follow on videos? Love what you've done here. Inspired me to push on further in my journey

[@ricobass0253]

Just trying to put the hardware together - My ELFIN with wifi has an antenna but I don't see that in your pictures. Have you got it inside the box? (I assume the plastic box does not attenuate the wifi)

[@ricobass0253]

I'm assuming there have been major changes to your personal circumstances as there has been no part 2 and you're not answering questions. I'm feeling very frustrated as I have the hardware built and installed but am unable to connect it or control it with Home Assistant. I have posted for help on the Facebook Solis Solar Inverter Owners Group as per your parting comment in this video.

[@user-ph8lm7nk9b]

Just what I was looking for as I’m about to start this journey, thank you, part 2,3 & 4 coming soon?

[@revronjevron]

Yes, soon! Anything in particular you'd like covered?

[@jtreg]

Yes please, you outlined what you will cover in the next 3 videos in the one and only (excellent) video you made... did you lose the motivation?@@revronjevron

[@ricobass0253]

Excellent video. Is there any reason you don't mention the "Home Assistant Green" hardware? Would it work with your RS-485 interfaces? Seems like the simplest solution as it comes with 32 GB eMMC flash drive and psu for

[@vnr1111]

Hi Ive got the solcast and inverter setup in my HA. How can we get the calculations done to automate the battery charging?

[@ricobass0253]

Have you made your code available? It would be nice to know how you translated your calculation timeline and decision tree into RS485 commands (or is it MQTT publications?)

[@TomPattison]

Hi Jev, great video! Actually more like an online course actually - thanks for going to so much effort & for the wiring diagram too 👍🏻 One question about the up coming automation. I think I will stick with your guide to start, but I was just wondering how hard it would be to adjust the charging amps instead of the length of the charging window? (As I’m on octopus go with my EV)

[@revronjevron]

Hi Tom, thanks and I'm glad it's been useful for you. Easy answer really - altering charge current instead of charge times is a simple change to make. If you're looking to not drain your solar PV battery into your EV, then a long charge window at 0 amps [or very close to 0 depending on your setup] would ensure no home battery charging, but EV charging would happen from the grid. The downside to that is that your base load would also come from the grid, so you'd be paying for those kWh's (albeit at a lower rate) even at the height of summer. If this is acceptable to you though, then it's a very good solution 👍

[@TomPattison]

@@revronjevron great to hear and fully understood. Looking forward to the next episode 😊

[@yoshidis4]

Great video, thanks. Can I please ask how did you do the battery firmware upgrade?

[@n8091977]

Fantastic video. Did you get round to making anymore of the series?

[@revronjevron]

It's been a crazy summer for me but starting to have some more free time. Is there anything in particular you'd like to see in future videos?

[@davidbroster]

Hello, I've watched the video and wonder if there is a repository somewhere with the various codes for HA and python. I have 4kw panels and Solis invertor and seperately 7.2kWh of batteries on a 2nd Solis invertor (installation of batteries was 2 years after panels). I also have KIA Niro EV and am supplied by "Intelligent Octopus". I'm a retired electronics engineer with reasonable coding skills. I ask this question on code since you gave impression your (excellent) video part1 was 1/4 episodes. RSVP ..... David

[@stefanhorn6780]

pretty similar setup to me, i habe a 5kwp sse facing array with 5k inverter and 2*fox lv5200, i have built homeassistant on a raspberry pi, but failed miserably to connect.. the modbus being the missing link, thank you so much for this, i will attempt to build and connect the modbus when i get back off my hols, any advice on that would be great... silly question, do i need a 13amp socket for the modbus, currently don't have any sockets in my loft thank you for putting this online

[@revronjevron]

Modbus can travel a very long distance on twisted pair cabling - 300m or so comfortably. If running power to your inverter location is difficult, you could consider the modbus interface located elsewhere with Cat cable running from it to your inverter

[@brianshano]

Good info, thanks. Is there a Part 2?

[@revronjevron]

Coming soon! Are there any subjects you'd like me to discuss?

[@miketargaryen1210]

Where is part 2?

[@KevinBagshaw]

Would you be able to share the YAML code please?

[@ricobass0253]

Any news of part 2?

[@georgelza]

...do you have a video that explains how to integrate solecist into HA.. I already have access to my inverter via its own functionality. I want to bring the Solcast values into HA so that I can then run yaml or node red flows.

[@revronjevron]

I can do a video on this yes, great idea!

[@bulletcom]

Exactly what I'm about to do - following step by step :) I also need to factor in off-peak charging of my EV without it draining the house battery - intending to do this by setting the charge times on the inverter with a rate of zero to prevent it discharging while the car is connected. This will allow me to also use spare PV power during the day to top up the car. Shame Tesla don't yet offer V2G otherwise I'd instantly have access to a mahoosive additional house battery!

[@revronjevron]

Charging your battery - even at a small or nil rate - will indeed allow you to grid charge your EV, avoiding battery drain. This could be automated in HA, so whenever your EV is charging, a small (pv system) battery charge is initiated, then cancelled when EV is full

[@MrKlawUK]

does the yield take into account charge speed limit? eg if the inverter can only charge the battery at 3kw it should ignore yield above that for the battery?

[@revronjevron]

Not sure I understand the question

[@MrKlawUK]

@@revronjevron your calculation takes into account how much solar will be generated the following day when its estimating the SoC? but you may not be able to use all the solar estimated by solecast - eg if your inverter limits to 3kw charging, but solcast estimates 4kw generation for several hours - that's a few kwh not available to use.

[@revronjevron]

This is more a question of whether your inverter was correctly specified. Also if your inverter limits to 3kW charging - how much house load are you using at that moment? And is your battery full? All will play a part in determining how much energy can be distributed to each component of your system.

[@mark82421]

No heat pump?

[@revronjevron]

We don't have one no, it wasn't quite suitable for our needs

[@miketargaryen1210]

Guess this is a dead thread . . .