I am finally going to upgrade my solar and add batteries and and make it a eps/offgrid capable.
As you all know it is a minefield of websites and systems.
I am interested in any information of the Solax x1 g4 series, specially in communicating and issuing commands to switch modes with this system, ideally using node-red.
I am interested in any feedback before I purchase the system. Interested in automating battery feedback and grid charging the battery at cheaper rate. Also any warranty/reliability issues you may have come across.
May I ask how you came to choose the solax? These are hybrid machines that use high-voltage batteries. I'd be interested to know your reasoning.
Concerning the possible dialogue with a solax, there are already many integrations in HAOS. I'm an absolute fan of node red, but when combined with home assistant, it really sparks things up. I wrote myself a module in node red which I then integrated as an add-on.
I hope I've made myself clear, I'm just giving you some feedback and I'm not saying that one is better than the other.
In my opinion, if you want to unravel the 150 or so parameters yourself, node red is simpler. But if you want to be able to use them directly, HAOS integrations are the way to go. You can even fork them from github to make your own home-made software
Battery management and balancing of individual cells, which will extend the batteries life.
High charge and discharge efficiency of solax battery system.
Scalability of the battery system.
High charge and discharge rate.
Ease of intergration.
EPS/offgrid capability of the system
As to HA i have seen a couple of integrations on github, and will be taking a look to reverse engineer the communication.
I do like to have all my integrations in one area, over the years I have slowly moved most of my home to node-red and am slowly removing the multiple servers/devices/cloud that i started with years ago.
I had a quick look at this github, and I see that the code to manage the inverter is in python.
Which could be relatively easy to use via NR.
It would be interesting to make a VM direct HAOS and install this module and connect your Solax, just to quickly see the data displayed.
And then transport the python to your NR home automation system, since you'll know if the code already works.
I've looked at the modbus protocol documentation, it's all very clear and not too old.
Concerning cell balancing, recent BMSs manage it very well, for example, on 16 cells mine uses active balancing and we easily and quickly find ourselves with less than 0.005 V difference between each cell. In my contacts, only one person uses a Solax connected to pylontech HV. This has been working successfully for 3 years. We mainly use LV. This allows us to work on them without going through a company. Above 48V, a private person is officially not allowed (in my country) to do DIY.
I have yet to purchase the system i am at the quote stage from wholesalers. I plan to install this late spring early summer.
Once installed i will be working to communicate with the system.
I will also be looking at taking the whole house off grid, due to ever increasing UK prices and daily standing charge (sick of paying for the governments experiment into netzero). The Solax system can take a generator and be set to charge battery from/to configurable levels, which makes the use of generator more efficient (thinking of low sun winter months). i will possibly add more battery and slave / mini-grid inverters (just read the solax x1 can power on grid inverters from the eps output) to system, as i try to find an offgrid balance .
I will also be looking at moving to whole house electric heating and removing the gas supply.
I must add that I am not the up with modbus so this will be a new protocol to learn about.
The Solax units are solid - (and i am only speaking from Australian experience) but are at the lower end of the system spectrum and have dubious support.
Whilst the IDEA of being off grid is a good one - instead think of the grid as a battery that you are paying the daily connection fee for - in that case does a large battery system stack up - particularly in the UK where glimpses of the Sun can be fleeting ?
I personally would not buy the Solax system (or any of the other similar units such as the Sofar, DEYE etc etc.
I am in Sydney and have just signed the contract for a GoodWe ET 29.9Kw inverter - the reasoning behind this is that it is one of the well supported units that will work with Salvaged EV batteries using the code and systems designed by Dala the great on YT and Github.
This inverter has two battery ports - both at 50amps - so it can support different types of batteries on each port - in my case i will get the stadnard GoodWe batteries when the unit is commissioned and they will be connected on the first port. On the 2nd port i will get at least one (if not two) Salvaged EV batteries (probably BYD ATTO3 blade batteries) - which we can regularly find here at auctions for the $4500 mark for a 50Kwh unit
The modbus for the Goodwe is well documented - and i already have a number of the smaller GoodWe inverters running over Modbus in our current house (the new system is for a new house we are moving into)
[EDIT]
I should also add that if you want to charge batteries from the grid at cheap rates - there are much better value combinations than the Solax - dependant on whether you are single or 3 phase. The Goodwe SBP units are about $1000 and go up to 6KW and can be paired with cheap 48v batteries
With standing charge total running at approx 80p a day for dual energy (ÂŁ250 a year approx) and electricity charges 30p day and 13p night (7 hours) per kw, whilst the best feed in unit price is 15p per kwh, the lowest are 5p. I wonder if this is a good as Australian prices.
AS to sun, April has been very good sun wise and despite the stereotypes of Uk the summers are pretty good. I do live in one of the sunnier areas of the UK, which often gets the most sun compare to average UK levels.
eg
As i mentioned before this is a learning exercise and once installed i will have real figures to work with and the decision to go fully of grid may not be the best choice at that point.
I will take a look at th Goodwe inverter, the g2 series looks comparable spec wise. Will not hurt to get a price comparison.
I did phone Solax UK support, while it was a typical support not in UK, he did spend at least 15mins running around to get answers he did not know himself.
Yep there tech support is generally acknowledged as being non-existent.
Lots of people in Australia get outraged by the daily connection fees to the grid, but at the end of the day it becomes cheap insurance.
In our new house we will have 30Kw+ of Solar and probably end up with 100Kwh of battery (there are some very big incentives on offer for batteries here in Australia at the moment) - even so and with our generally better climate i would not think of cutting off the grid.
I am with a wholesale retail provider (similar to your Octopus) and with our system on this house we arbitraged the grid to enable us to payback our solar and battery systems in just on 4 years.
In the new house i am projecting closer to a 3 year payback - BUT being a new house to us i have no idea of how much power i will use at this point - but it has a huge AC and lots of open plan space so probably going to be an energy hog
Our daily connection fee is $1.20 and the monthly fee to our retailer for access to the wholesale rates is $30 (so close enough to $2.20 a day in connection fee) - i would not entertain the idea of having to maintain a generator and everything that goes with it for that amount of money.
What are the wholesale rates and usage rates? so we can can make some sort of comparison.
Solar installations in UK take 10 - 15 years (closer to 15 for most) to pay for solar installation, as the feed in tariffs are so bad. I am lucky as I can install myself and saving thousands off the cost., I estimate 5 - 6 years.
I have not decided if off grid will happen, but is is being considered. If i decide to the decision will be a logical one taking into account all factors.
It's very difficult to go off-grid in winter.
Even with lots of batteries and PV, it's almost impossible.
All it takes is 2-3 days and you have to call on the grid.
Yes, it's true that if you consume very little, around 300 w/h, it might work, but otherwise I don't see how it's possible.
I'm basing my findings on my contacts in France.
Personally, I generally go off-grid around the end of February, beginning of March.
Under our latitude, it's complicated to go off-grid all year round.
(and I apologize for the English that comes out of a translator)
Agreed with out a generator in winter would be near impossible due to heating needs. Currently my home uses 4 Kw per day max, that does not include Gas hob and hot water.
Its hard to say what our wholesale rates are - unlike Europe - ours is a bidding market that varies every 5 minutes (i.e. they hold an online computerised auction every 5 minutes stating that they need X amount of power) and the computers bid into it.
On average my wholesale rate during the summer months is about 6c/Kwh and in winter probably around 18c/kwh - but this is with my system carefully choosing when to charge the grid from the battery and also making choices about when to selectively dispatch based on available prices (our max price per Kwh can go to $19.90) during a price spike.
To complicate it further we also have a Demand Tarriff for 8 months of the year. Where we get charged 2 x Average of the highest 30 minute block during demand window x number of days in the month
The demand window is 3-9PM - so this is usually my big window to stay away from any grid usage at all
The Poles and wires charges varies dependant on who your Distributor is and whether you are on a flat charge, Time of Use or Demand Tarriff !
Our normal pay back on solar is around 7 years if you can timeshift your heavier loads - dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, swimming pool, hot water heating etc
We both run our own businesses from home so get some attractive tax breaks with installing solar and batteries and (of course) have moved all of our discretionary loads to during the day
Hi
I'm using the Goodwe GW10KN-ET.
The best solution I've found is the inegration in Home Assistant (Official GoodWe Integration, Build-in).
All the parameters I need can be sent to node-red via mqtt.
HA offers several integrations like Power Flow:
For my solar system I looked at my time as having some value and chose to just buy https://solar-assistant.io/ (My other main hobby I don't value my time).
It made getting every part of the system up and running (talking) so much less painful that having to write all the protocol level stuff by hand from scratch.
The nice thing is that it has MQTT, so I simply used all that to make my Node-RED dashboards and data logging ect.
So I guess it just depends on if you want to get running smoothly or you actually want to learn the communication methods as part of building the system.
The GoodWe inverter is integrated in Home Assistant, so you don't have to deal with protocols.
Also MODBUS (originally developed by Modicon, a PLC manufacturer) is a fairly old protocol. I remember having to implement it using the C programming language almost 40 years ago.
Whenever possible, I use MQTT. Actually, some inverters support MQTT.
Just need to be careful as the GoodWe integration is a bit behind for some of the new features for the G2 ET series and for the higher end ET hybrids (such as not supporting dual battery ports and different battery types on each port)
