growatt system battery charging

[Mark Time]

Piggy back on this thread. In a similar position, just switched to Octopus Agile and wanting to make the most of it - eg setting my SPH3000 to force charge at 3am and to force discharge at 6pm. I understand how to set the System controls via the shine server and the growatt-reversedate password. However every command gets the message "Set Parameter Failure". In touch with service.uk via email trying to get a fix, but I wonder is there something simple I am missing?

Thread split. hi-jacking (Piggy back) causes confusion

 

[johnb2713]

Piggy back on this thread. In a similar position, just switched to Octopus Agile and wanting to make the most of it - eg setting my SPH3000 to force charge at 3am and to force discharge at 6pm. I understand how to set the System controls via the shine server and the growatt-reversedate password. However every command gets the message "Set Parameter Failure". In touch with service.uk via email trying to get a fix, but I wonder is there something simple I am missing

I suspect if the display on the settings is anything like mine that you cant see all of the characters.


Make sure when you click in one of the boxes use the cursor keys to go fully to right and then backspace to delete the figures followed by entering the figures you want.

Just to confirm the backwards date is 20230215 NOT 32022051 as some people would interpret it.

 

[Mark Time]

Still struggling with this and service.uk has gone quiet. I don't have your compressed screen problem. Just once I have managed to execute a command over shine server successfully, but that was just to confirm the UPS was Off (not present). Every attempt to set a schedule or to change priority gets "Set Parameter Failure".

If I climbed up in to the attic to try and programme the control interface manually I would only get one time slot opportunity. I am now live on Agile. What should I choose going in to Summer ... a force charge 3-5am or a force discharge 4.30-6.30pm ... the first would top up the battery in time for morning to make sure I was exporting surplus throughout a sunny day but only weakly at peak price evening time, the second would export strongly and drain the battery at peak price evening time but leave me empty and importing overnight until there is some solar pv the next day.

 

[johnb2713]

Still struggling with this and service.uk has gone quiet. I don't have your compressed screen problem. Just once I have managed to execute a command over shine server successfully, but that was just to confirm the UPS was Off (not present). Every attempt to set a schedule or to change priority gets "Set Parameter Failure".

If I climbed up in to the attic to try and programme the control interface manually I would only get one time slot opportunity. I am now live on Agile. What should I choose going in to Summer ... a force charge 3-5am or a force discharge 4.30-6.30pm ... the first would top up the battery in time for morning to make sure I was exporting surplus throughout a sunny day but only weakly at peak price evening time, the second would export strongly and drain the battery at peak price evening time but leave me empty and importing overnight until there is some solar pv the next day.

If you access settings but change nothing, do you still get the same error if you try and save the existing settings?

 

[Mark Time]

Extraordinary! It always responds with "Set Parameter Failure" unless the cursor is on the EPS Set button before hitting Save. Just running a test Battery First to see if it is now "successful" accepting commands

 

[johnb2713]

Extraordinary! It always responds with "Set Parameter Failure" unless the cursor is on the EPS Set button before hitting Save. Just running a test Battery First to see if it is now "successful" accepting commands

Progress !

Well done that man.

 

[Mark Time]

Curiouser and curiouser. This evening I opened shine server (rather than the shinephone app) on android instead of using my laptop, and it was accepting commands to charge and discharge as "successful". So I have set my battery to charge 3am-5am. If that works and there is enough solar during the day to keep the battery topped up then I will set discharge for an hour at 5.30pm.

That seems to be the ideal pattern to arbitrage import/export on Agile. I'm also hoping with storm Otto on the way electricity import prices will be rock bottom overnight for the next couple of days, and that there will still be a demand peak with high export prices in the evening.

A bit of persistence and I think I've cracked this, finger crossed, thanks for your patience while I've been griping on.

 

[shaunuk]

how did you get on, did the charge start ? ive set up quite a few of these now and once they are locked in, they seem reliable.
I always use the web interface on chrome for the best chance of success

 

[johnb2713]

I always use the web interface on chrome for the best chance of success

Edge and Safari both work without issue for me.

 

[Mark Time]

Yes it worked well, it took about 70 minutes charging my battery to full up from 3am. So I started out this morning with a full charge and now there is just enough solar coming through the cloud to keep it topped up. On a sunny day I would be shipping the surplus solar. The plan now to set discharge at 50% rate from 4.30-6.30pm, but to stop at 20% SOC to leave enough to get through the rest of the evening.

An email from growatt service to say they updated my inverter firmware remotely and reset my clock, so maybe that was the problem rather my persistence trying different things. Anyway, things now seem to be in control and behaving correctly.

I also discovered this resource put together by some bright sparks at something called energy-stats.uk (bravo 10/10) which tells you neatly, one day ahead of time, what the next day Agile unit price profile is going to be. It confirmed my instinct of a very cheap import last night and still full export price this evening.

AgileUnitPrices

The trick is to keep a broad pattern of overnight import and evening discharge, but to watch out for events to skew things in case it is worth adjusting the schedule.

No idea what all this effort is worth, I figure I might net around £1-2 per day. Nor do I know if this is better than all the other options. Not enough to persuade me to spend £1,800 on a second battery but I will be watching for a drop in price.

It feels about right though, harvesting surplus wind power overnight which could otherwise be curtailed and supporting the grid through the evening. I suspect as more offshore wind gets rolled out we will increasingly see very low or negative overnight prices. So arbitrage is good for the pocket and good for the planet.

 

[johnb2713]

Yes it worked well, it took about 70 minutes charging my battery to full up from 3am. So I started out this morning with a full charge and now there is just enough solar coming through the cloud to keep it topped up. On a sunny day I would be shipping the surplus solar. The plan now to set discharge at 50% rate from 4.30-6.30pm, but to stop at 20% SOC to leave enough to get through the rest of the evening.

An email from growatt service to say they updated my inverter firmware remotely and reset my clock, so maybe that was the problem rather my persistence trying different things. Anyway, things now seem to be in control and behaving correctly.

I also discovered this resource put together by some bright sparks at something called energy-stats.uk (bravo 10/10) which tells you neatly, one day ahead of time, what the next day Agile unit price profile is going to be. It confirmed my instinct of a very cheap import last night and still full export price this evening.

AgileUnitPrices

The trick is to keep a broad pattern of overnight import and evening discharge, but to watch out for events to skew things in case it is worth adjusting the schedule.

No idea what all this effort is worth, I figure I might net around £1-2 per day. Nor do I know if this is better than all the other options. Not enough to persuade me to spend £1,800 on a second battery but I will be watching for a drop in price.

It feels about right though, harvesting surplus wind power overnight which could otherwise be curtailed and supporting the grid through the evening. I suspect as more offshore wind gets rolled out we will increasingly see very low or negative overnight prices. So arbitrage is good for the pocket and good for the planet.

Have a look at home assistant, it's free software that can communicate and control anything. It has Growatt libraries in there and I'm sure someone has written a library for Octopus Agile, you should be able to link the two together automatically with your criteria programmed in. I've done a link to mine with predicted sunlight linking to SOC overnight.

 

[Mark Time]

Thanks, wow at home assistant, there are some jolly clever people and tools out there in internet land, amazing what can be done these days. Too much for my small brain.

Very happy now with my set up. From 4.30pm just concluded 95 minutes discharging the battery at 35p/kWh, which correctly reverted to Load First when it hit the 20% SOC bumpstop. Set to recharge overnight 3.30-5.30am at 12-15p/kWh. I will leave it at that for now while I get used to things. Thanks for all the help.

 

[johnb2713]

Thanks, wow at home assistant, there are some jolly clever people and tools out there in internet land, amazing what can be done these days. Too much for my small brain.

It looks intimidating but the software is free and there's loads of YouTube videos covering just about anything you want to do. It's well worth a look especially for what you have in mind.