Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

swmspam

Does there exist the possibility to control the XW6048 with a customer controller?

For example, the necessary communication messages to invoke peak shaving mode and control the battery utilization and inverter power output in real-time as conditions change? Envision a microcontroller that monitors system currents and battery capacity and makes power management decisions that the XW obeys.

To continue this example, the operation guide suggests it is possible to control the inverter's export function by altering the battery voltage limit (i.e. it exports power when battery voltage exceeds certain a threshold). Therefore, by moving the battery voltage limit, it appears one could force the XW in and out of export mode, depending on where the limit is set. If done automatically (using a microcontroller), the XW could be used to throttle power based on custom algorithms implemented in a microcontroller. This is only possible if external communication is accepted by the XW.

offgrid me

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

My understanding is that the XW uses its own proprietary communication system. I have never heard of anyone cracking it to use outside controller interfaces. Good luck it would be great if you could.
Ned

BB.

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

The XW electrical comm bus is something like CAN (or similar)--So you could, in theory, attach a dongle+computer and log the transactions, then decode the bus traffic (assuming it is not encrypted).

Obviously, this is probably a warranty terminating event (if you start trying to control the devices directly). Also, the traffic can be pretty heavy (if you have multiple devices) and can (if I remember correctly) even cause headaches (bus bandwidth issues) for Xantrex/Schneider.

-Bill "looking from the outside" B.

swmspam

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

Would the Outback units be easier to control using this methodology?


Note: to answer some questions posed on another thread: I have extensive experience in the alternative energy sector, having designed, built, or managed over a dozen EV and HEV programs, some of them global automotive OEMs. I have served in both national and international chairman positions for various energy-related councils and government policy committees. Most of my work focuses on designing OEM electronics (mostly automotive). This particular interest of using a Xantrex or Outback unit is one of the few times to mess with electronics that have already been designed and packaged.

stephendv

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

For what it's worth, talking to any SMA inverters is quite easy. The comms spec is open and they've released a portable open source library to do the comms: http://www.sma.de/en/products/monitoring-systems/yasdi.html#Downloads-9356

EDIT: Just be aware that you can't change some parameters without stopping the inverter first. E.g. frequency, voltage etc.
Battery management parameters can be changed without stopping it.

TheBackRoads

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

Perhaps RandomJoe will chime in as I PM'd him quite some time ago about his monitoring setup (similar idea but just listening in this regard)

"I just noticed you list a Xantrex XW in your sig, one note there: A *major* reason I chose Outback over Xantrex was that Outback actually publishes the communication protocol for the Mate serial interface. At the time I was looking, Xantrex's protocol was proprietary and not (readily) available. Not sure if that's still the case, it's been a few years." - RandomJoe PM

All I know, hope that helps.

swmspam

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

XW uses its own proprietary communication system

SMA inverters ... the comms spec is open and they've released a portable open source library

Outback actually publishes the communication protocol

Well this is getting interesting! This is the primary basis of my purchase selection (from NAW&S of course). Does SMA have a model that uses a battery (preferably 48V) that does grid-export? I couldn't find one. Same for Fronius.

Otherwise, the Outback 8kW 48 Volt Radian GT hybrid inverter seems to be the remaining candidate, although I haven't done the research to confirm the communication bus is accessible for high-level control functions. Also, I've head the Radian is a bit buggy, being a new product.

stephendv

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

swmspam wrote: »

Well this is getting interesting! This is the primary basis of my purchase selection (from NAW&S of course). Does SMA have a model that uses a battery (preferably 48V) that does grid-export? I couldn't find one. Same for Fronius.

The Sunny Island does that: http://www.sma-america.com/en_US/products/off-grid-and-back-up-solutions/sunny-island-4548-us-6048-us.html it's a bit hard to recommend it in the US for small systems, because it's expensive and 110V only, so you'll need another one for split phase or an auto-transformer. A single XW is 75% of the cost and gives you split phase out the box.

Fronius don't make battery based inverters.

swmspam

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

stephendv wrote: »

The Sunny Island does that: http://www.sma-america.com/en_US/products/off-grid-and-back-up-solutions/sunny-island-4548-us-6048-us.html it's a bit hard to recommend it in the US for small systems, because it's expensive and 110V only, so you'll need another one for split phase or an auto-transformer. A single XW is 75% of the cost and gives you split phase out the box.

Thanks for pointing that out. I looked at the SMA literature, but it wasn't clear in the promo literature that the Island operates in export mode. The biggest weakness of this configuration (apart from the higher cost) is the additional complexity of two units to achieve split-phase operation. That means two units to control.

Regarding the Outback Radian GS8048 system, is anything known about communicating digitally with the unit to change operating modes? I'm also posting a query on their forum. It takes a LOT of reading to dig down through operating modes and firmware settings to comprehend usage scenarios.

inetdog

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

swmspam wrote: »

The biggest weakness of this configuration (apart from the higher cost) is the additional complexity of two units to achieve split-phase operation. That means two units to control.

That is why the other alternative is to use an autotransformer to convert the 120 output to 240. It is somewhat less efficient if you have a varying balance of single phase loads. But as long as one inverter meets your power needs, it can avoid both the cost and the complexity you describe.
An autotransformer will cost a lot less than a second inverter!

swmspam

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

inetdog wrote: »

An autotransformer will cost a lot less than a second inverter!

Not necessarily. If you look at the internal diagram of the Outback GS8048, there are two large rectangular sub-enclosures, presumably dual inverters for the split phase. So it delivers $4400 / 8000W = $550/kW. Now, I don't want the habit of comparing $/W, but we can use it as a baseline.

The SMA Sunny Island runs $4100 / 5000W = $820/kW. Add the cost of the autoformer, and figure somewhere around $900/kW.

So if I have $4.5k to spend, seems to me that the 8kW split-phase Outback is a better deal than the 5kW single-phase SMA with autoformer, especially if those extra 3kW were needed.

EDIT: Yowza! The SMA Smartformer is $2125. That's a lot of scratch. A split-phase configuration with one Sunny Island and autoformer costs ($4100 + $2125) / 5kW = $1,245/kW!

inetdog

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

swmspam wrote: »

Not necessarily. If you look at the internal diagram of the Outback GS8048, there are two large rectangular sub-enclosures, presumably dual inverters for the split phase. So it delivers $4400 / 8000W = $550/kW. Now, I don't want the habit of comparing $/W, but we can use it as a baseline.

The SMA Sunny Island runs $4100 / 5000W = $820/kW. Add the cost of the autoformer, and figure somewhere around $900/kW.

So if I have $4.5k to spend, seems to me that the 8kW split-phase Outback is a better deal than the 5kW single-phase SMA with autoformer, especially if those extra 3kW were needed.

Correct. I was comparing getting two separate inverters (e.g. two Sunny Islands) to using an autotransformer with one of them. An inverter with built-in 120/240 compatibility is a different ball game.
Also important is that only inverters which coordinate their MPPT function can share the same PV array as their power source. With the Outback, you do not need to worry about that.

swmspam

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

swmspam wrote: »

Regarding the Outback Radian GS8048 system, is anything known about communicating digitally with the unit to change operating modes?

Back to the OP. Sort of. It seems I've totally ditched the Xantrex XW6048 in favor of the Outback GS8048. But the original intent of this thread was to find a battery-based grid-intertie inverter that can accept commands from a non-proprietary controller. Examples would be a microcontroller capable of communicating over UART, CAN, Ethernet, etc.

I googled "Outback communications protocol" and landed a Mate document dated in 09/05 2012 that specifies the protocol is only applicable to FX-series inverters. There are also press releases related to "OutBack Power’s AXS Port Modbus/TCP Interface", but it doesn't say if users can actually command operation mode from non-proprietary devices.

I've posted a new thread on the Outback forum specifically about this question. Doing some searches at Outback show several forum topics about communication protocols, but trying to decode my answer from old forum posts is a risky proposition. The Outback forum isn't nearly as active as this one, either. So if anyone has some suggestions on where to look at Outback for a communications protocol that can command the GS8048, I'm all ears.

Cariboocoot

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

Try looking for "MATE III" (3) - the Radian can only be controlled by that unit, not the previous models.

swmspam

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

Cariboocoot wrote: »

Try looking for "MATE III" (3) - the Radian can only be controlled by that unit, not the previous models.

I called OutBack and talked to an exceptionally knowledgeable technician. He talked the language of microcontrollers, UART, RS-485, etc. The ability to talk directly to knowledgeable support alone is worth considering OutBack!

Presently, the OutBack Radian GS8048 digitally communicates to external (non-Outback) devices in data output only to log and monitor the inverter. The Radian does not presently receive commands from external devices.

In the "near-term future", the Radian is expected to communicate bi-directionally to external devices through the AXS Port using the SunSpec Alliance Open Information Standards for Renewable Energy. The present version of the AXS firmware does not support Radian messages - it's too new. The next version of the AXS firmware is expected to support Radian commands.

stephendv

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

swmspam wrote: »

To continue this example, the operation guide suggests it is possible to control the inverter's export function by altering the battery voltage limit (i.e. it exports power when battery voltage exceeds certain a threshold). Therefore, by moving the battery voltage limit, it appears one could force the XW in and out of export mode, depending on where the limit is set. If done automatically (using a microcontroller), the XW could be used to throttle power based on custom algorithms implemented in a microcontroller. This is only possible if external communication is accepted by the XW.

Out of interest, SMA is working on something like: http://www.sma.de/en/solutions/medium-power-solutions/sma-smart-home.html don't think it's commercially available yet.

From what I understand the Xantrex XW has 2 AC inputs, one for grid and one for gen. So presumably it will only ever try to sell through grid and not gen... if that's the case then maybe you could achieve what you want by inserting an external relay into each of the inputs and controlling those with your microcontroller. Then configure the XW to almost always sell if grid is connected, and to always charge if gen is connected. By controlling those two relays you can then prioritise selling, or self-use or charging.
I'm not really familiar with the XW so not sure what it does if gen and/or grid suddenly appear and disappear.

Vic

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

BTW, from reading the Radian topic on the OB Forum, the radian is a young product. As would be expected, there seems to be some teething issues with the Radian. Have read elsewhere that the Radian is a pair of 3648 inverters in a common enclosure with new microcontroller and FW. FWIW.

This must be a difficult decision. The XW seems to be very capable hardware, but the FirmWare does not seem to fit a number of GT situations. And Schneider appears to be very reluctant to address the customer's concerns.

When one of my SW+ inverrters bites the dust, there may be no real other alternative than XW. I sure hope that this is not the case. Am hoping that MidNite, or perhaps Magnum will have a better alternative to the XW when that need rears its head.
Good Luck. Vic

inetdog

Re: Controlling the Xantrex XW6048 with customer controller

stephendv wrote: »

Out of interest, SMA is working on something like: http://www.sma.de/en/solutions/medium-power-solutions/sma-smart-home.html don't think it's commercially available yet.

The SunnyBackup product appears to be available, but without UL approval it not for the US market yet.