Solis Inverter Overnight Charging
Lots of our customers who have a hybrid solar inverter or a home battery system also have access to a cheap time-of-use electricity tariff (for example Economy 7 or Octopus Go) that has a cheap rate overnight. It is then possible for them to charge up their battery on this cheap tariff to supplement charging from solar, particularly in the winter.
Here I will cover the process for setting this up on a Solis inverter; for other inverter makes visit our Support Questions page.
The instructions here are essentially the same for Solis hybrid solar inverters (e.g. RHI-(3-6)K-48ES-5G) and for Solis AC inverters (e.g. RAI-3K-48ES-5G). They are based on advice we have been given by Solis Support in the UK.
Preparation
This is recommended just to make sure your inverter is configured correctly before you start changing any settings (but this should have been done already by your installer).
1) Make sure you have the right battery selected on the inverter, via the following menu:
Advanced Settings (password 0010) -> Storage Energy Set -> Battery Select [hybrid]
Advanced Settings (password 0010) -> Battery Control -> Battery Select [AC inverter]
Set an Overdischarge SOC (state of charge) of 20% – this is the value down to which the inverter will discharge the battery.
Set a Forcecharge SOC for the battery of 15% – this is the value below which the inverter will start charging the battery from the grid.
2) Select the correct type of meter
Advanced Settings -> Storage Energy Set -> Meter Set -> Meter Select -> Single phase meter (Acrel) or Eastron single phase meter
3) Set Storage mode to self use mode
Advanced Settings -> Storage Energy Set -> Storage Mode Select -> Self Use -> ON
Make sure the other modes are disabled.
Setup
1) Enable charge from grid function (if available)
Advanced Settings -> Storage Energy Set -> Storage Mode Select -> Self Use -> Charge from grid -> Allow
2) Set time charging to ON
Advanced Settings -> Storage Energy Set -> Storage Mode Select -> Self Use -> ON -> Time of Use [-> Optimal Income] -> RUN
Select a charging time to include the current time to start force charging the battery.
Advanced Settings -> Storage Energy Set -> Storage Mode Select -> Self Use -> Time of Use -> RUN -> Charging time
In most cases, you don’t need to also select discharging times, just set these to 00:00-00:00 as the inverter will work in normal self-use mode outside the charging times.
3) Turn on a load and check the inverter’s behaviour is as expected.
Notes:
Setting the Time of Use to RUN or STOP is the means to control force charging of the battery. Hence, once the force charging feature is set up with required times, etc., as described above, set it to RUN or STOP to turn force charging on or off respectively, and this will keep the times previously set when it is next set to RUN.
After making the selection RUN or STOP, press ESC to confirm and then select SAVE & SEND from the menu before pressing the ENTER button to make the change. The screen should show DONE when completed.
This process is also shown in the following video:
