Lux ac battery controller

newbuilder

Heedtheadvice said:

@newbuilder

Your voltage, as measured, is overall on the low side. Inform your DNO to investigate and correct. You might look at a second concurrent set of readings to give an indication it is not a property issue first such as your Zappi and the lux for the same time period....

only seems to be on large pulls as it is over 240v just now

chainreaction

newbuilder said:

Heedtheadvice said:

@newbuilder

Your voltage, as measured, is overall on the low side. Inform your DNO to investigate and correct. You might look at a second concurrent set of readings to give an indication it is not a property issue first such as your Zappi and the lux for the same time period....

only seems to be on large pulls as it is over 240v just now

Newbuilder, i had exactly the same issue as you have. My volts would run at 240 ish before my EDF GO tariff kicked in, then in the winter I run my dishwasher, washing machine, charge my batteries (approx 3 hours at 3.5kw), and sometimes charge my EV (5 hours at 7.2kw). All this caused my voltage to dip below the statutory minimum 230V -6% and +10% or 216.2 to 253. I contacted my DNO (Northernpowergrid), they sent someone out within a couple of days to put a voltage data reader at the house. After a week of monitoring, they came back and said there was no issue, their software looks for 95% of the time over the monitoring being inside the voltage limits, and I think I only put everything on for an hour to cause the voltage to dip. I asked the engineer reviewing the info to look at a specific hour and convinced him that this was representative of the 5 hour low tariff window. Result was within a week Northernpowergrid came out to the property and fitted a new transformer that feeds our property. The new transformer they fitted has 5 taps (so they can adjust the voltage up/down), they initially set the volts at high 230's, I asked them to set it higher and so they set it on its highest tap to run at 243-245V during the day, the voltage still drops if I use everything but remains above the min at about 220V.   

newbuilder

chainreaction said:

newbuilder said:

Heedtheadvice said:

@newbuilder

Your voltage, as measured, is overall on the low side. Inform your DNO to investigate and correct. You might look at a second concurrent set of readings to give an indication it is not a property issue first such as your Zappi and the lux for the same time period....

only seems to be on large pulls as it is over 240v just now

Newbuilder, i had exactly the same issue as you have. My volts would run at 240 ish before my EDF GO tariff kicked in, then in the winter I run my dishwasher, washing machine, charge my batteries (approx 3 hours at 3.5kw), and sometimes charge my EV (5 hours at 7.2kw). All this caused my voltage to dip below the statutory minimum 230V -6% and +10% or 216.2 to 253. I contacted my DNO (Northernpowergrid), they sent someone out within a couple of days to put a voltage data reader at the house. After a week of monitoring, they came back and said there was no issue, their software looks for 95% of the time over the monitoring being inside the voltage limits, and I think I only put everything on for an hour to cause the voltage to dip. I asked the engineer reviewing the info to look at a specific hour and convinced him that this was representative of the 5 hour low tariff window. Result was within a week Northernpowergrid came out to the property and fitted a new transformer that feeds our property. The new transformer they fitted has 5 taps (so they can adjust the voltage up/down), they initially set the volts at high 230's, I asked them to set it higher and so they set it on its highest tap to run at 243-245V during the day, the voltage still drops if I use everything but remains above the min at about 220V.   

So basically SSE came out, told me I was using too much power and that 100amp supply does not mean you can use up to that. He also says that he has never seen a property with two chargers, as a rural property I will have disadvantage of overhead wires and above ground transformers. He will report that the transformers may not be up to scratch but I may have to pay for a new one if it is my problem c£26000! Oh and advice for me, only use one ev charger 

Tir3d

Hi @Starfrog I've commented on your points (yours in italics) and deleted my original text to try and control the length!

Starfrog said:

Is the lux 5kw inverter good due to it being able to take more solar power from the array ? My 3.6 lux hybrid always clips at 3.5kw but I have 5.42kw solar array. It would be good to maximise my ability to charge my batteries quicker but it seems that is restricted to around 3.6kw so maybe no benefit for me other than I should have good overcapacity during a 25year period 

So we basically have the same system except that you're capped at 3.6kw to AC wheres mine is 5kw. On the Lux you can charge at 3.6kw AND send to AC 3.6kw (not all hybrid inverters can) so it's largly a mute point for your system except where you have draw on the house greater than 3.6kw yours will always use grid for the extra. Not a big deal at all. I have found capping charge rate is a good idea in the summer months so you end up exporting more evenly throughout the day and in your case it will stop yours capping production when your batteries are full by lunchtime. 

I’m with octopus and currently on fixed loyalty at rate of 26.61/kWH and standing charge of 26.09. Which I usually just calculate as im paying around 31p per kWh all in. That is fixed till March then I’ll need to see what the best tariff to go on is. On my very best days of production the most i have had in the two years is 34kW of solar production for the day on average i guess in summer days it’s around the 20 and above (the Far northern highlands isn’t the best for solar but its good enough to save me money)

Yeh that's a good import tariff but you will still be much better off switching to GO in winter especially if you get rid of those electric showers. How much load will you be able to shift to offpeak?
That's great peak production, better than mine even down here in the South.

My preference would be to always use all my solar production which obviously would maximise any additional cost coming from the grid. That is best option but as we both know not the most practical due to batteries either being full due to good solar the previous day or power not being used. I think having a Sunamp installed will help take any excess solar (would i need an Eddi for that ?) to heat my hot water without having to get it from the grid at prime time rates (i would use either the solar or the battery or cheap rate go/night rate etc). Currently all showers in the house are via an electric shower which pulls just under 9kWh so even with maximum solar production and full batteries I still draw from the grid to provide the energy for the shower. Sunamp will allow me to just use a normal hot water shower and mixer thus reducing the need to use the grid at all for the showers. 

Yes some sort of hot water tank charged using excess solar and/or during the offpeak rate would make a lot of sense. I don't know about the Sunamp route, I have a regular HW cylinder ("indorect and vented") with an immersion which works well and is inexpensive. Electric showers will undo some of that advantage of switching to offpeak. Also you get a better shower with a tank imo!

I think i might get one more pylontech 5kWh battery which will give me 17kWh of storage that should allow me to meet virtually all my requirements on normal days and minimise grid draw. Obviously in winter getting a good cheap rate option like go or something similar would help the period when solar production is rubbish. 

Agreed just beware that you won't be able to fully charge them during the off-peak rate so may not be worth the expense, especially if you are able to reduce your daily load by switching the electric showers to a HW tank. Also you will of course only be charging the capacity that the solar didn't fill during the day. I saw that Huawei are working on firmware for their inverter than will consider the next days solar expectation based on the weather and charge accordingly. Really good idea that hopefully Lux or someone will develop as an option in future for us.
I think I would do the HW tank before any additional batteries but you can do the maths.

I think the Sunamp takes about 7`kWh for a 210 ltr tank of hot water ? I would charge with excess solar and or in evening at a cheap rate tariff. I think a Sunamp is good for keeping the heat available until its called for so if i only use one shower I potentially only need to feed enough to cover that portion unlike traditional water tanks that you more or less have to heat the entire thing and then keep boosting it to keep the heat 

I don't know mich about this but I believe there are a number of brands that do this, effectively the cold water is in a very long tube inside the tank keeping it hot at one and end cold at the other rather than mixing in the middle. I suspect you'll want to top up with electricity at cheap rate anyway as running out of HW sucks! 

I have a 60amp fuse but I intend to upgrade all the electrics in the house at somepoint. I have someone coming round to fit my Smart meter next Wednesday (after a two year wait and asking virtually every day for one !) I maybe should ask them if they could just swap the fuse out to a larger capacity 100amp maybe ? Is it that easy to just swap the main fuse out like that ? Im not an electrician and pretty sure there are lots of things to consider. 

You can ask; will probably need to be the DNO unless you're lucky enough to have a 60amp fuse inside a 100amp header and then the meter guy might do it. You will need this done so I would get a quote (hopefully free) asap. https://www.speakev.com/threads/cost-of-upgrading-main-fuse-80a-100a.142253/ 

I dont have an EV and to be honest wont get one until the next change of car so that could be 4 years at least in my mind (my car is fully paid for so its just maintenance cost now so dont want to start with a new car cost). The other issue is where i live is so remote that even using a hybrid with 30 miles on it would mean id only get to the next slightly larger town and still need to charge it again to get back (74 miles return journey) and then if i wanted to go to the next larger town its really is a 200 mile return trip to Inverness. So timings and finding suitable chargers are something id need to keep considering. 

Yes so just beware GO may not be available to you then, but there are other cheap overnight rates out there without the EV requirement.

Hope this helps, just my views but happy to be a sounding board for you.

chainreaction

Newbuilder - sounds like SSE are not very helpful, sorry to say. For myself in the north east of england (with northernpowergrid) I had to inform them that I was having an EV charger installed, via the EV installer before installation. Northernpowergrid quickly got back to me to accept the addition to their system. It made it easier when I contacted them to say I was having problems. ena (Energy association networks which SSE are part of) have guidance for all UK saying that EV chargers and heat pump installation require notification and if new max demand is >60A & < 100A the DNO needs to pre approve before installation. If you let SSE know about your EV chargers prior to install, then you may have a get out, if not you may have problems getting SSE to do anything, by your words it sounds like the latter. There may be something in the regulations which you might get SSE on, but would need a trawl through.

newbuilder

So have learned quite a bit from the way the charger fitters work. They basically can’t be bothered seeking permission as they can fit and inform if below 60 amps so what they do is throttle the two chargers and as a result it is not worthwhile having 2. 

I am going to reduce line slightly and have the appliances on first with one charger, getting the second Charger to kick in one hour later. I will also reduce the 100 amp property limit to 80 on all pulls to see how that does. 

Tir3d

Has anyone worked out an automated way of exporting to grid when the Outgoing Agile price reaches a set threshold?

I have the Lux "Octopus Charge" settings page which was enabled by Infinity Innovations but it doesn't work properly when setting a 'discharge price'. I suspect that it only checks import prices which are capped (and also usually higher than export prices) so setting an export price of (say) 60p plus never triggers despite export rates hitting 65p 17:30 - 19:00 today. I've queried with Jake but not got a response.

gradgrind

I didn't get the EPS output wired up at install time, has anyone done this post-install? Did you go back to your original installer, or get a local sparky? What did you connect the output to? 

ianatkin

gradgrind said:

I didn't get the EPS output wired up at install time, has anyone done this post-install? Did you go back to your original installer, or get a local sparky? What did you connect the output to? 

I'll be interested in this too as I'm in exactly the same situation... I'm guessing we're not the only ones given the threat of rolling blackouts this winter!

EVandPV

I just hooked ours up to a 3 socket extension lead myself. 
No more difficult than wiring a plug.
Of course, we'll only be able to plug stuff into the sockets, it won't power the lights or anything else wired to the CU.
But any decent spark should be able to wire it to the CU if that's what your after.