Fast forward into 2024

April not quite over yet, but still looking good......

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A new strategy, a new approach to automation

As I explained before, I was very wary of automating my system beyond what the inverter could do natively. As a retired elecronics and software engineer there is too much danger that such an endeavour would become a slippery slope. Well, I now have one foot on that slope! What prompted this change of heart? Well, during the last month we had some periods with VERY low Agile prices and it got me thinking about how I use my generated solar power. One way of looking at it is to look at the "opportunity cost" of the solar power generated. The incoming solar power, thanks to the sunk cost of the system, comes in at 0p/kWh. However, I can sell any excess back to Octopus at 15p/kWh. That means that, effectively, any solar that I use is costing me 15p/kWh - inasmuch as I could sell it if I want to. This way of thinking leads me to consider a different strategy: What if I were to charge my batteries on a cheap rate at night and, during the day, export most or all of my solar at 15...
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Is "set and forget" a realistic possibility?

I have said elsewhere that my aim is to set up my inverter so that it does not require continuous tweaking. I know that this may be naive, but how does it look so far? Well, I think that the Octopus Cosy tariff makes all the difference. Without the afternoon cheap rate period, I don't think that it would be possible to adjust the inverter in such a way that it would work well on sunny and overcast days alike. Reading the forums, it looks like some people have set up quite elaborate automation to take advantage of weather reports, published tariff changes, etc. This is not something that I particularly want to get into. The Octopus Cosy tariff seems to work very well for me. On sunny days, despite setting "Priority Load", my batteries are reasonably full by the time 1pm rolls around. This means that the automatic charge from the grid is minimal. I am experimenting with splitting the 1pm-4pm cheap rate period into two (or even three) segments with different SoC targets. ...
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Solar Assistant: Local "Remote" Monitoring

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The sunsynk.org Website and Sunsynk Connect app give me access to my inverter statistics and configuration. Unfortunately, this access goes via a remote server which seems to go down quite frequently. Additionally, the updates to the figures only happen every five minutes. One way to solve this problem is a product called "Solar Assistant" . Solar Assistant is software which runs on a Raspberry Pi which is connected permanently to the RS-485 port on the inverter. The software monitors the inverter continuously and compiles statistics which you can view locally on a built-in web server that runs on the Pi. The Pi connects to your WiFI network.You can also make configuration changes via this web server or access it remotely when you are not at home on you home WiFi. You can buy the Solar Assistant software and run it on your own Raspberry Pi, or you can buy a pre configured Pi from Solar Assistance in South Africa. They will also sell you pre-made RS-485 cables and a 48V pow...
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