A Node-RED dashboard has been implemented.
It shows the four parts of the solar system in four separate panels. When viewed on a mobile phone, the panels are displayed above each other. This dashboard corrects the power consumption of the normal VRM dashboard, and removes the EV charging power and reports it separately.
The gauges indicate maximum and minimum levels where appropriate with red arrows and numerically just below the centre of the gauge. Additional data is displayed above the centre when appropriate. The gauges are green for low loads, orange for moderate loads and red for high loads.
The graphs report over a 24-hour period at 5-minute intervals. Spot point data can be highlighted using the mouse pointer.
The headings of each panel show the energy over the past 24 hours.
The grid consumption panel shows the total grid consumption. It also shows the power at the three points of connection for the Multiplus II inverter. The AC OUT2 is not used, and AC loads are connected at AC IN.
The solar power panel shows the two sets of solar panels, each with its own MPPT charge controller. A separate gauge shows the total, and it has a graph showing the total solar energy for the past 24 hours. The gauges have full scale at STD ratings of the solar panels. The names of the MPPTs follow the names set in the remote console. If an MPPT is throttled by the Cerbo when the batteries are full, the name of the MPPT is enclosed in square brackets, and the gauge colour changes from yellow to orange. The current weather is also displayed in this panel.
The consumption panel shows the AC loads and critical loads as well as a gauge for the total consumption and graphs over the past 24 hours showing AC loads, critical loads and total consumption. The power used to charge an Electric Vehicle (EV) is not included in this data.
The last panel shows the battery charging. The heading shows the capacity of the battery and the difference over the past 24 hours. The gauges at the top show the State of Charge (SoC) and power. The Min SoC can be selected by the user. The minimum state of charge is set between this Min SoC level and 100% depending on the load shedding stage as reported by Eskom-se-push. The SoC gauge also shows this minimum SoC that has been set in the Victron system and in square brackets the current setting. When battery optimisation has been set, these two values may differ. The battery temperature is also reported. The graph shows the battery SoC over the past 24 hours.
The EV charger section shows the current status in the heading. It allows for the setting of the EV charger - Auto/manual; manual start; and the maximum charge current. The graph shows the EV charger power over the past 24 hours.
Four fans have been installed to cool the inverter and the two solar charge controllers. They are controlled via MQQT calls. Temperature probes have been connected to the Cerbo GX and are used to control these fans. The fans can be manually switched on/off, but the temperature settings will overrule this, unless the temperature is within the hysteresis range.
This dashboard makes use of the @flowfuse/node-red-dashboard and the Classic gauges @colinl/node-red-dashboard-2-ui-gauge-classic. The weather information is obtained from node-red-node-openweathermap and the Eskom-se-push loadshedding level is obtained from node-red-contrib-eskomsepush. In order to restart the Node-RED and maintain the graphs, the data is stored in file memory so that it is not volatile.
