Excessive trickle import?

[appman999]

I've noticed that despite running our house off the battery which is generally recharged from our solar we have a trickle import of around 1kWh every day (around 40W load?)

Although small it still amounts to £75-£100 a year.

I'm aware that a small trickle import is required but this seems excessive and is measured both from CT clamps and Octopus billing.

Are there any settings to reduce this or other advice?

[Dave Foster]

If you keep the inverter running in Self Use mode it’s quite normal for it to use that amount of power depending on what house load is typically.

If you place the inverter in feed-in mode overnight it will use a little but less, but a new feature was added to the KH and Gen 2 H1 inverters that allows a positive bias ‘grid compensation’ to be set.

This effectively changes the inverter bias point and knowing what your typical trickle is you can compensate for this - it obviously uses power from your batteries, but it will reduce as far as possible the grid import trickle.

You can find more details in this post https://foxesscommunity.com/viewtopic.php?t=1637

[appman999]

Thanks Dave,
I had seen that post but unfortunately I don't have that inverter.

I can accept a few watts trickle but 40 watts seems a lot.

Over the 10 year life of the battery it comes to about 20% of the installed cost of the battery!

[appman999]

I tried your suggestion to try feed-in mode overnight which may help.

However in the app I can't set say 18:00 to 06:00, the app says data invalid.

I have to set 18:00 to 23:59 and then 00:00 to 06:00.

Is that how it works or am I missing something?

If I set feed-in overnight does it default to self-use during the day if not specified?

[Will]

Hi,

Good news, If you have a AC1-5.0-E1-G2 as your sig suggests, then you have an inverter capable of doing grid push back.
Your installer needs to update the inverter firmware and then set the grid push setting as shown in my video.

[Dave Foster]

I tried your suggestion to try feed-in mode overnight which may help.

However in the app I can't set say 18:00 to 06:00, the app says data invalid.

I have to set 18:00 to 23:59 and then 00:00 to 06:00.

Is that how it works or am I missing something?

If I set feed-in overnight does it default to self-use during the day if not specified?

Yes you can’t set a time that spans midnight so you have to set it as you have with 2 schedules 18:00 to 23:59 and 00:00 to 06:00

[appman999]

Thanks to both of you for your help.

[Vesolc]

Hi,
new user on this forum here ... nice to see that we have good support.

I have the same issue with tiny not needed import.
Just wondering if my inverter support grid push back option?

[Will]

Yes, a H3 on the latest firmware support grid compensation "push back" but it's an installer only option.

Hi,
new user on this forum here ... nice to see that we have good support.

I have the same issue with tiny not needed import.
Just wondering if my inverter support grid push back option?

[appman999]

Hi,

Good news, If you have a AC1-5.0-E1-G2 as your sig suggests, then you have an inverter capable of doing grid push back.
Your installer needs to update the inverter firmware and then set the grid push setting as shown in my video.

Will
Could you please advise the latest inverter fimware or point where I could find it.

My master, slave and ARM versions are currently 1.35, 1.02 and 1.53 respectively. Are these relevant to firmware?
Trevor

[Vesolc]

Yes, a H3 on the latest firmware support grid compensation "push back" but it's an installer only option.

Great. I'll contact my installer.
Tnx for reply.

[appman999]

Managed to get Fox support to update my inverter firmware but I'm unable to find the 'Advanced Settings' to make use of the grid compensation.

I see in Will's video it's in the Remote Setting tab for the inverter but I don't have that tab. Is that an installer only option?

[Dave Foster]

Managed to get Fox support to update my inverter firmware but I'm unable to find the 'Advanced Settings' to make use of the grid compensation.

I see in Will's video it's in the Remote Setting tab for the inverter but I don't have that tab. Is that an installer only option?

Try on the V2 website as per this post viewtopic.php?p=8549#p8549

[appman999]

Thanks Dave, that solved it.

[fatfairy]

As my installer has access to remote support I asked him about setting up the grid push so as to avoid trickle import. He stated that this trickle import was associated with the warming of the batteries (Fox E11x2) and best left alone. Be grateful if anyone can confirm or refute this argument. Thanks. Incidentally the link to V2 (beta) mentioned above https://www.foxesscloud.com/v2/login now appears to mean the need to ask installers for remote help is a thing of the past.

[appman999]

I have been experimenting with low levels of negative grid compensation for a week now and have seen no apparent impact on battery temperature.

[Dave Foster]

I can see there may be something in their logic, the battery heater will increase the house load and so may consume a little more but essentially it’s a distraction as the whole idea of grid compensation is you set a ‘happy’ limit that helps reduce the amount of grid consumption - it can never be zero but close to that should be possible with the correct setting.

[appman999]

Did I misunderstand, is your installer saying the trickle charge helps warm the batteries?

Does this operate even when the battery warmup is disabled (and at current quite warm temps)?

[fatfairy]

"Did I misunderstand, is your installer saying the trickle charge helps warm the batteries?"

That is the impression I got.

"Does this operate even when the battery warmup is disabled (and at current quite warm temps)?"

Don't know as I as yet haven't identified if my warm-up is switched on. However, import trickle occurs for other reasons as well as discussed on the site.

[fatfairy]

This is a silly question but never the less - if you have set up "push-back" in the inverter settings, does this have any impact on the actual import of energy when set for night time download?