OpenSolar provides the ability for our users to make their own battery control schemes in Control > Design & Hardware > Battery Control Schemes. This means that you can now model precisely how an installed battery will behave to better capture additional savings and benefits provided from smart battery controls. We believe that this will allow our users to accurately model how a battery might operate when a customer opts into a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) or Energy Aggregator provider.

IMPORTANT: make sure you read and understand the important rules that apply when creating a battery control scheme.

Creating a Custom Battery Control Scheme

1. Adding a New Battery Strategy

OpenSolar provides you the flexibility to create multiple different battery strategies that apply at a specified time-period. You can click on the "add another" button to create more than 1 strategy. 

2. Customising the Battery Strategy Logic

There are four battery control logic that you can apply given by the four check boxes. These control whether the battery is allowed to:

1. Charge from the system (i.e. charging from solar energy generated by the PV system)
2. Charge from the electricity grid
3. Discharge to the load (i.e. household or building load of your project)
4. Discharge to the electricity grid

You can also apply different combinations of these four control logic to create some more advanced behaviours. Please go to Battery Control Logic section to read more on this.

The two other fields set constraints on what the battery can do:

3. Assigning a Time-Period to a Battery Strategy

To assign a time-period to a battery strategy please edit the "Applicable Time-Period" column. By default all new strategies created will be assigned to all time-periods. If the time-period in which a battery strategy applies to changes throughout the year/month/week, you can add multiple applicable time-periods to a strategy by clicking on the "add another time" button. If there is no strategy applying to particular time-period, then the battery will do nothing (i.e. does not charge or discharge).

When you edit an applicable time-period, you will open up a time-scheduler dialog shown below. The time-scheduler allows you to select:

1. A start and end date in which the battery strategy applies
2. The applicable days highlighted in green
3. The applicable hours highlighted in green

For example, the Scheduler below would set the applicable time-period of the battery strategy to apply between 1st Jan to 1st May, Monday to Friday between 4-9pm.

4. Apply your custom Battery Control Schemes to your system designs

If you added a battery to one of your system designs, you can either select one of our default battery control schemes or a custom battery control scheme you created in the Design Page of your project. The name that you give to your custom battery control scheme will be shown in the dropdown selection.

Battery Control Logic

OpenSolar supports the following battery control logic combinations that can be set by the four tick boxes when creating a new battery strategy.

Note: the maximum charge/discharge rate of the battery is limited by lesser of the "Max Continuous Power" of the battery given by the battery specification (view in Control > Design & Hardware > Batteries), or the Maximum Charge/Discharge Rate set by the assigned battery strategy settings.

Important rules

1. ONLY one battery strategy can apply at any given time-period. If more than 1 strategy applies to the same time-period, the strategy created nearest to the bottom of the list is used.
2. If NO battery strategy is assigned to a particular time-period, then by default the battery will do nothing during that time-period.