A quick and very important addition to this video that I didn’t mention. In default mode (with no relays setup), the AC-OUT-1 is where you must connect your essential (important) loads, as this will continue to be active, when the grid drops, and the inverter powers the loads in UPS mode. At the same time the AC-OUT-2 automatically disconnects, removing the AC-OUT-2 loads, which are your non-essential (heavy loads) such as air-con, geyser etc. HOWEVER - Once you setup and enable the two programmable relays on the AC-OUT-2, you are overriding this default. It will therefore no longer automatically disconnect, and continue to remain active just like AC-OUT-1. This is why you can use this setup to change its programming, to do whatever the relay tells it. In this case it will now only disconnect when the battery SoC reaches the “lower than” % value specified in the relay. For this reason, you will for example be able to power your geyser, as long as you have enough excess solar, even if the grid drops. This also answers the questions as to how this differs from an ESS setup. This can be used in an off-grid situation, whereas ESS always requires a grid tied system to work. Also note that there are no current sensors built into the AC-OUT-2, so it effectively never knows what loads are connected to it. The AC-OUT-2 is actually just a branch of AC-OUT-1, which operates on a switch basis, that can be programmed (as we doing in this video) Because it is a branch of AC-OUT-1, you must therefore make sure to not exceed the inverter’s total max output(W), as per your MultiPlus-II data sheet. Combined, both AC-OUT-1 and AC-OUT-2, must not exceed the limit You can find the MP-II data sheet here: www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet-MultiPlus-II-inverter-charger-EN.pdf For example with the 5kVA model, the max load at optimal 25°C is 4000W. Therefore your TOTAL load split between both AC-OUT 1 & 2 must not exceed 4000W when inverting. If you have the “inverter output voltage” set to 230V in the VEConfig “inverter settings” tab ruclips.net/video/7Z-O8NGAOfY/видео.html, then this will work out to: 4000W / 230V = 17.39A (across both AC-OUT 1 & 2) In passthrough mode (when not inverting and the loads are powered from the grid) this changes to 50A as per the “Max AC input current rating” on the spec sheet. (Obviously doesn’t apply to off-grid systems - unless using a generator): 50A x 230V = 11,500W
Great video, I configured mine to start at 96% but increased the “dead zone” to 80%. This is way better since the batteries can suddenly drop by 2% when handling a high load before the MPPT has analyzed the power requirement and adjusts the state from float to bulk charging. This will cause the relay to switch on and off far too many times as the SoC changes and this will cause excessive wear.
You're welcome, glad you enjoyed it. Yes that's a good way to go about it, especially for the MPPT as you mentioned. I did mention the wear and tear issue at 9:26
I came up with a nifty solution using a satellite battery. When my main 48V system fills up (56.8V) I have a bit of logic to turn on a DC-DC charger to transfer energy from the 48V system to a 24V battery (Just a DC-DC and a 100Ah 25.6V LiFePO4 battery). It turns it off if/when the 48V system drops to roughly 54V (the float). So it ends up cycling a bunch in the latter half of the day pushing the excess energy into the 24V battery. This way the solar just keeps pumping power out at full bore. I then dump essentially the entire energy content of the 24V battery daily, to whatever I want. I've tried dumping it to a cheap 120VAC micro-inverter to export it to the grid 4-9pm, I've tried having it run portable heat-pump (A/C or heating). I've tried a bunch of things. The advantage of having a satellite battery to hold excess energy is that you can dump the energy to the loads whenever you want... so for example it can run a small heater overnight if I want it to. I don't have to burn the energy on the spot (during the excess solar) which might not be the most opportune time to use that excess energy. -Matt
Matt! Can't than you enough for this comment. Fantastic use of this setup and DC-DC charging, and using a secondary battery bank to store the excess solar, allowing for more controlled later use is brilliant :D As I mentioned to @roblatour3511 below, my tutorial was more focused on the "how to" than the use cases, as there are many such as yours. Am busy with some Node RED experimentation and another use case is similar to yours, except that instead of a secondary battery, you could set up a secondary geyser in the pipeline. This secondary geyser would be connected to the AC-OUT-2 (allowing its water to be heated from excess solar) and installed before your main geyser. Then, the hot water from it, would supply and flow into the main geyser at night, thereby lower the amount of hot water the main one would need to heat from the grid if someone were to shower. A hot water reserve tank in a way. As you said, you "tried a bunch of things" before you came up with a polished working solution, which is simply part of this industry. As, while there are no real limits to what can be done, (other than what you can conceptualize and refine over time), it can be difficult to initially come up with a use case. So thanks again for sharing as I'm sure it will certainly help spark ideas in others, of what this could be used for. more we share the better we all become :)
Nice video. I did the same a few month ago for my easysolar and was looking for a video like this at the time. I have noticed that the BMS is often severely limiting the charge rate by the time batteries are up to 95 percent. My max mppt point is around 150V and I often see around 170V when up at 95 percent battery. So in order to avoid this potential waste I would tend to turn the hot water circuit on earlier, maybe 80 percent before the bms starts limiting the mppt charge current to the battery. I run it between 80 and 70 percent to save relay wear. My hot water is predominantly diesel boiler fueled with an auxiliary electric element which I use to save diesel. On the subject of turning stuff on and off, I have the diesel boiler on a timer and it only comes on (if needed) for half and hour after dark. The boiler man commented it was the cleanest he’s seen which I’d attribute to the boiler running only once, getting hot and switching off as opposed to doing lots of on off cycles. Like short trips in a car I guess. Anyhow. Thanks for the vid Sean
Hey Sean, thanks for the great feedback and info, sure many other will benefit from it (including myself). The BMS possibly becoming a limiting factor at 95% isn't something I considered, so thanks for that as well! "The boiler man" - lols 😂
I'm was interested to see your video because I am looking into ways to back feed power from my inverter to my home wiring so that no excess solar is lost. So far I have been looking at ESS. But I don't get this approach - lets say I use this to power a load from acout2 when there is excess solar power. Fine. But when there is no excess solar power what is powering that load? Well I assume nothing if the load is powered only by the output from acout2. Would you not need the load on some sort of separate Automatic Transfers switch which can switch between power sources (for example acout2 and the grid) to keep the it running? Why not use the ESS to power your home with the excess solar? If you do a video on that I would be very interested, esp. if you can discuss feeding excess solar into your home only (but not into the grid).
It definitely overlaps with features provided by ESS, so guess you have to choose what works best for you and your setup. I created the video because another subscriber asked how he could activate his AC-OUT-2 based on SOC, and thought it would be a helpful video to make. However, I haven't tried and tested this against ESS, or any alternatives like Node RED setups. So basically done more of the "how to" and less of the "why to", if that makes sense :)
Great video for specialists! I didn't quite understand. If there's excess solar power through the MC4 controller, the battery charge is set, does the AC2 port switch and power this line? And does the AC port remain connected and then disconnect?
AC-OUT-2 is very configurable, and will follow any instruction programmed to it. As a factory default, its programmed to disconnect loads connected to it, when the loads exceed the capacity of the inverter. However, what we are doing it setting our own programmed instructions. In this case its to connect and disconnect based on SOC and not load. But there are many things you can program to it. This is just one example.
ok.. new subscriber here. I'm a Victron fan\user. 2 arrays: 1160 ground mount and tilted and 1200w on a dual axis tracker. 300Ah lithium 8' away from 12v 3000 MPII, CERBO with display, Lynx dist 1000, bmv 712smart. Batteries were in float and I manually turned on breaker for water heater.. I know how to setup the assistants for L2.. but how do I wire up from the MPII to the breaker panel to power it automatically..? I'm guess some romex 5' away. Just not sure how to tie into the breaker..?
How will this interact with a normal ESS system, when there are loads and exporting of excess DC solar using the AC-In of a Multiplus II 230v unit ? I'd assume one would need to disable exporting excess DC solar, and that the AC-in ESS loads would be treated the same as the AC-Out 1 critical loads......? But I'd like to confirm this. I'm using the Victron Energy Meter ET-112 with it's current clamp on the grid input if that is a factor also.
Have yet to test it, but yes this will very likely conflict with ESS exporting, as they both try to make use of excess solar, but in different ways. This is more designed for a system that doesn't export or is completely off-grid, allowing for a quick way to power some extra loads when you have an abundance of power.
Good question! Haven't had time to properly dig into Dynamic ESS so unfortunately can't give an answer at this time. Hopefully other users who have used it more extensively will be able to provide more info from their experience :)
![Victron VEConfig - General Settings Tab Tutorial [UPDATED 2024]](/img/1.gif)
A quick and very important addition to this video that I didn’t mention.
In default mode (with no relays setup), the AC-OUT-1 is where you must connect your essential (important) loads, as this will continue to be active, when the grid drops, and the inverter powers the loads in UPS mode.
At the same time the AC-OUT-2 automatically disconnects, removing the AC-OUT-2 loads, which are your non-essential (heavy loads) such as air-con, geyser etc.
HOWEVER - Once you setup and enable the two programmable relays on the AC-OUT-2, you are overriding this default. It will therefore no longer automatically disconnect, and continue to remain active just like AC-OUT-1.
This is why you can use this setup to change its programming, to do whatever the relay tells it. In this case it will now only disconnect when the battery SoC reaches the “lower than” % value specified in the relay.
For this reason, you will for example be able to power your geyser, as long as you have enough excess solar, even if the grid drops.
This also answers the questions as to how this differs from an ESS setup. This can be used in an off-grid situation, whereas ESS always requires a grid tied system to work.
Also note that there are no current sensors built into the AC-OUT-2, so it effectively never knows what loads are connected to it.
The AC-OUT-2 is actually just a branch of AC-OUT-1, which operates on a switch basis, that can be programmed (as we doing in this video)
Because it is a branch of AC-OUT-1, you must therefore make sure to not exceed the inverter’s total max output(W), as per your MultiPlus-II data sheet. Combined, both AC-OUT-1 and AC-OUT-2, must not exceed the limit
You can find the MP-II data sheet here: www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Datasheet-MultiPlus-II-inverter-charger-EN.pdf
For example with the 5kVA model, the max load at optimal 25°C is 4000W. Therefore your TOTAL load split between both AC-OUT 1 & 2 must not exceed 4000W when inverting.
If you have the “inverter output voltage” set to 230V in the VEConfig “inverter settings” tab ruclips.net/video/7Z-O8NGAOfY/видео.html, then this will work out to:
4000W / 230V = 17.39A (across both AC-OUT 1 & 2)
In passthrough mode (when not inverting and the loads are powered from the grid) this changes to 50A as per the “Max AC input current rating” on the spec sheet. (Obviously doesn’t apply to off-grid systems - unless using a generator):
50A x 230V = 11,500W
Thanks to your video I could setup my multiplus to use the AC OUT 2 as I wish !
Great additionnal use to m'y solar setup ! 👌
Amazing! :) Very glad the video helped
Great video, I configured mine to start at 96% but increased the “dead zone” to 80%. This is way better since the batteries can suddenly drop by 2% when handling a high load before the MPPT has analyzed the power requirement and adjusts the state from float to bulk charging. This will cause the relay to switch on and off far too many times as the SoC changes and this will cause excessive wear.
You're welcome, glad you enjoyed it. Yes that's a good way to go about it, especially for the MPPT as you mentioned. I did mention the wear and tear issue at 9:26
@@BluePowerPro great analysis! I missed that bit
@@0900McShizzle haha no worries :)
I came up with a nifty solution using a satellite battery. When my main 48V system fills up (56.8V) I have a bit of logic to turn on a DC-DC charger to transfer energy from the 48V system to a 24V battery (Just a DC-DC and a 100Ah 25.6V LiFePO4 battery). It turns it off if/when the 48V system drops to roughly 54V (the float). So it ends up cycling a bunch in the latter half of the day pushing the excess energy into the 24V battery. This way the solar just keeps pumping power out at full bore.
I then dump essentially the entire energy content of the 24V battery daily, to whatever I want. I've tried dumping it to a cheap 120VAC micro-inverter to export it to the grid 4-9pm, I've tried having it run portable heat-pump (A/C or heating). I've tried a bunch of things.
The advantage of having a satellite battery to hold excess energy is that you can dump the energy to the loads whenever you want... so for example it can run a small heater overnight if I want it to. I don't have to burn the energy on the spot (during the excess solar) which might not be the most opportune time to use that excess energy.
-Matt
Matt! Can't than you enough for this comment. Fantastic use of this setup and DC-DC charging, and using a secondary battery bank to store the excess solar, allowing for more controlled later use is brilliant :D
As I mentioned to @roblatour3511 below, my tutorial was more focused on the "how to" than the use cases, as there are many such as yours.
Am busy with some Node RED experimentation and another use case is similar to yours, except that instead of a secondary battery, you could set up a secondary geyser in the pipeline. This secondary geyser would be connected to the AC-OUT-2 (allowing its water to be heated from excess solar) and installed before your main geyser. Then, the hot water from it, would supply and flow into the main geyser at night, thereby lower the amount of hot water the main one would need to heat from the grid if someone were to shower. A hot water reserve tank in a way.
As you said, you "tried a bunch of things" before you came up with a polished working solution, which is simply part of this industry. As, while there are no real limits to what can be done, (other than what you can conceptualize and refine over time), it can be difficult to initially come up with a use case.
So thanks again for sharing as I'm sure it will certainly help spark ideas in others, of what this could be used for. more we share the better we all become :)
Nice video. I did the same a few month ago for my easysolar and was looking for a video like this at the time.
I have noticed that the BMS is often severely limiting the charge rate by the time batteries are up to 95 percent. My max mppt point is around 150V and I often see around 170V when up at 95 percent battery.
So in order to avoid this potential waste I would tend to turn the hot water circuit on earlier, maybe 80 percent before the bms starts limiting the mppt charge current to the battery.
I run it between 80 and 70 percent to save relay wear.
My hot water is predominantly diesel boiler fueled with an auxiliary electric element which I use to save diesel.
On the subject of turning stuff on and off, I have the diesel boiler on a timer and it only comes on (if needed) for half and hour after dark. The boiler man commented it was the cleanest he’s seen which I’d attribute to the boiler running only once, getting hot and switching off as opposed to doing lots of on off cycles.
Like short trips in a car I guess.
Anyhow. Thanks for the vid
Sean
Hey Sean, thanks for the great feedback and info, sure many other will benefit from it (including myself).
The BMS possibly becoming a limiting factor at 95% isn't something I considered, so thanks for that as well!
"The boiler man" - lols 😂
I'm was interested to see your video because I am looking into ways to back feed power from my inverter to my home wiring so that no excess solar is lost. So far I have been looking at ESS. But I don't get this approach - lets say I use this to power a load from acout2 when there is excess solar power. Fine. But when there is no excess solar power what is powering that load? Well I assume nothing if the load is powered only by the output from acout2. Would you not need the load on some sort of separate Automatic Transfers switch which can switch between power sources (for example acout2 and the grid) to keep the it running? Why not use the ESS to power your home with the excess solar? If you do a video on that I would be very interested, esp. if you can discuss feeding excess solar into your home only (but not into the grid).
It definitely overlaps with features provided by ESS, so guess you have to choose what works best for you and your setup. I created the video because another subscriber asked how he could activate his AC-OUT-2 based on SOC, and thought it would be a helpful video to make. However, I haven't tried and tested this against ESS, or any alternatives like Node RED setups. So basically done more of the "how to" and less of the "why to", if that makes sense :)
Great video for specialists! I didn't quite understand. If there's excess solar power through the MC4 controller, the battery charge is set, does the AC2 port switch and power this line? And does the AC port remain connected and then disconnect?
AC-OUT-2 is very configurable, and will follow any instruction programmed to it.
As a factory default, its programmed to disconnect loads connected to it, when the loads exceed the capacity of the inverter.
However, what we are doing it setting our own programmed instructions. In this case its to connect and disconnect based on SOC and not load. But there are many things you can program to it. This is just one example.
ok.. new subscriber here. I'm a Victron fan\user. 2 arrays: 1160 ground mount and tilted and 1200w on a dual axis tracker. 300Ah lithium 8' away from 12v 3000 MPII, CERBO with display, Lynx dist 1000, bmv 712smart. Batteries were in float and I manually turned on breaker for water heater.. I know how to setup the assistants for L2.. but how do I wire up from the MPII to the breaker panel to power it automatically..? I'm guess some romex 5' away. Just not sure how to tie into the breaker..?
How will this interact with a normal ESS system, when there are loads and exporting of excess DC solar using the AC-In of a Multiplus II 230v unit ? I'd assume one would need to disable exporting excess DC solar, and that the AC-in ESS loads would be treated the same as the AC-Out 1 critical loads......? But I'd like to confirm this. I'm using the Victron Energy Meter ET-112 with it's current clamp on the grid input if that is a factor also.
Have yet to test it, but yes this will very likely conflict with ESS exporting, as they both try to make use of excess solar, but in different ways. This is more designed for a system that doesn't export or is completely off-grid, allowing for a quick way to power some extra loads when you have an abundance of power.
@@BluePowerPro Yes, I'd espect to disable "Export Excess DC Solar" but can you please follow up how the loads are prioritized ? Cheers :)
Does this also work with a non Victron battery(getting the SOC from the smartshunt)?
Yes definitely. As long as the inverter gets the SOC info from somewhere it can do it.
Will this work with dess?
Good question! Haven't had time to properly dig into Dynamic ESS so unfortunately can't give an answer at this time. Hopefully other users who have used it more extensively will be able to provide more info from their experience :)