New feature request

ChrisR

Any possibility of adding a Timed Pause Charge option please?
I don’t have this option with my GE AC3 inverter and it would be handy to be able to not charge from Solar to maximise export on a sunny day.
Thanks

admin

ChrisR Yeah we can take a look at that, but need to work out how well (if at all) this translates to other inverters. For example, this is not possible on Growatt or AlphaESS.

And in terms of the difference between the Giv gens. Can the pause register (that's used on Gen1) be used on newer gen or does it require the timefrom/time to?

johalareewi

This could be handy for me too. There have been situations recently where it has been nice and sunny with lots of solar and plunge pricing coming up. What I want to do is export the solar and leave the battery empty for the plunge. The new export feature on the agile scheduler has helped because I can queue up export slots but a Pause Charge feature would be useful for when export is not available or suitable.
Maybe on the home page as a command option with Charge and Export for xxx minutes?

johalareewi

admin Can the pause register (that's used on Gen1) be used on newer gen

I only have GE gen1 inverter. Hopefully others can help with the other gens and AIO.

ChrisR

admin On my AC inverter there’s just a basic pause charge option, but no facility for entering times.

MrMessy

admin Gen2, Gen3 and AIO all have the "pause" function afaik. AC3 definitely doesn't.

Potentially, this is the register you need to manipulate...

admin

MrMessy Right yeah, this is just charge power reduction, which they all have. The only caveat is that even setting that to 0 may not be truly 0 for some of the gens? Or is this only a discrepancy for discharge power?

MrMessy

admin I'll test tomorrow and post results.

MrMessy

I've given this a brief test this morning and the sequence ran as follows:

1) 05:30 "Pause Battery" set to "Pause Charge", which I always have set, appreciate this is not available to everyone
2) 09:17 "Pause Battery" set to "Not Paused", set "Inverter Charge Power Percentage" to 1% (0 not allowed)
3) 09:27 "Battery Charge Power" set to 0W
4) 10:07 "Inverter Charge Power Percentage" re-set to 100%
5) 10:25 resumed "Pause Charge"

6) 11:24 remembered to re-set "Battery Charge Power" to 3600W (max)

As you can see "Inverter Charge Power Percentage" had zero effect, which leads me to believe it works only on AC charge rather than DC (not tested yet), so no help here.
"Battery Charge Power" set to 0W doesn't actually do what it says. I was dragging through approx 500W. Again, not great.

I have done a little more digging though. For AC3 inverters (and possibly gen1 hybrid), if your AC coupled inverter is still on old firmware (535-535) it won't have a pause register, but if it's on new firmware (20x-20x) it will. So, you will see this but, without the start/end times...

Effectively, you have manual control only over this register, so this presumably can be manipulated remotely.

admin

MrMessy Right, yeah that's register 96, and is available on AC3 too (with relevant firmware).

        {
            "id": 96,
            "name": "Pause Battery",
            "validation": "Value must be one of: 0, 1, 2, 3 (Not Paused, Pause Charge, Pause Discharge, Pause Charge & Discharge)",
            "validation_rules": [
                "in:0,1,2,3"
            ]
        }

The only question is, on inverters with the time period on, could you effectively keep time from and to on 00:00 and set a pause until you unpause it again?

I suppose it won't let you?

Which means we need to identify the user's Giv inverter settings on whether this is available.

MrMessy

@admin is this any help?

MrMessy

admin The only question is, on inverters with the time period on, could you effectively keep time from and to on 00:00 and set a pause until you unpause it again?

I suppose it won't let you?

You can .....

... but, it doesn't work...

MrMessy

@admin I'm being a bit thick.🫨
For inverters that do have the time registers, the user could set the times 00:00-23:59, and then WW toggle the "not paused"/"pause charge" when required without having to set any times.

Any reason why that wouldn't work?

admin

MrMessy Yeah, that's a good shout, but ideally WW should handle it, rather than rely on some additional settings on the Giv portal/app.

MrMessy

admin I'm happy to be the fall guy, as usual, if/when you've got something ready to go.

I'm sure @johalareewi and @ChrisR would be interested too. That way we have most GE variations covered.

admin

MrMessy Should this just be an 'additional' schedule? Or a quick setting from the homepage?

ChrisR

MrMessy More than happy to be a guinea pig, but bear in mind I’m a complete amateur! I just think it would be handy to have a simple setting to prevent battery charge during the day to maximise export, and I’m too thick/old to use HA!!

MrMessy

admin good question. I would think it's classed as a schedule, rather than an ad-hoc/quick setting. Also, the intention was to maximise solar export so, it's an all day/daylight kind of thing. In that case, schedules page makes sense to me.

admin

MrMessy Perhaps it could also be conditional then, based on kWh solar yield estimate.

If expected yield for the day > x kWh, pause charge battery between 11:00-16:00 or such.

MrMessy

admin I'm probably not best placed to answer that. I only have a passing interest in the solar estimate as a) I'm on IOG, b) my solar peak is only a gnat's fart over my inverter power and c) my G99 means export isn't a problem either.😁

johalareewi

Been doing some tests on my GE HY3.6 Gen1 2229 vintage inverter.
Have got excess solar going to battery...
Turn ECO off = nothing changes. excess still goes to battery..
Set battery charge power to 0W = excess goes to grid nothing to battery (ECO back on).

I usually need a pause charge when battery exporting has been too good and the battery is empty ready for recharging at the next scheduled charge slot.

A separate scheduler would not be good - have only just got rid of export scheduler!

I don't use the solar prediction because I haven't needed to. With the way Agile is working with cheaper slots in the day, I have a full battery by 4pm and that keeps the house going overnight until the sun comes up.

A quick option to pasue battery charge until next scheduled export or charge slot would be useful.

Maybe an option to pause (or limit) battery charge power between slots.
Bit like Agile window HOLD battery discharge between charges feature?