Victron Venus integration for SolarEdge Inverters

This service is meant to be run on a raspberry Pi with Venus OS from Victron or a for example a Cerbo GX device.

The Python script cyclically reads data from the SolarEdge Inverter via Sunspec Modbus and publishes information on the dbus, using the services com.victronenergy.grid, com.victronenergy.pvinverter.pv0, com.victronenergy.temperature, com.victronenergy.digitalinput. This makes the Venus OS work as if you had a physical Victron Grid Meter installed and gives all information about PV Intervter load, temperature and if the inverter is in limit mode.

Caution: There must be no other Modbus connection to the SolarEdge inverter. If the inverter is already connected in Venus OS with the Modbus functionality provided by Victron, this must be terminated beforehand! The SolarEdge supports only one TCP connection for Modbus and the data would also be redundant as the Python script also passes the data for the inverter to the Venus OS. But now you also get the gridmeter, which is not supported by Victron.

You need to modify the settings in the dbus-solaredge.py as needed:

SERVER_HOST = "192.168.178.80"

SERVER_PORT = 502

UNIT = 2 # From SolarEdge Setapp in Communication -> RS481 -> Protocol -> SunSpec (Non-SE Logger) -> Device ID

1. You need root access to your GX Device (https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:root_access)

2. Copy the files to the /data folder on your venus:

   • /data/dbus-solaredge/dbus-solaredge.py
   • /data/dbus-solaredge/kill_me.sh
   • /data/dbus-solaredge/service/run
   • /data/dbus-solaredge/service/log/run

3. Set permissions for files:

chmod 755 /data/dbus-solaredge/service/run

chmod 755 /data/dbus-solaredge/service/log/run

chmod 744 /data/dbus-solaredge/kill_me.sh

4. Add a symlink to for auto starting:

   ln -s /data/dbus-solaredge/service/ /opt/victronenergy/service/dbus-solaredge

   The supervisor should automatically start this service within seconds, if not simply reboot your system.

5. If the gridmeter does not show up in the console, please ensure you have configured AC-In as "Grid" see (https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/82440/multiplus-vrm-system-overview-ac-input-not-availab.html)

If you are upgrading your Venus OS you will have to re-add the symlink for autostarting the python script (Repeat step 4 from the above installation instructions).

You can check the status of the service with svstat:

svstat /service/dbus-solaredge

It will show something like this:

/service/dbus-solaredge: up (pid 8179) 746 seconds

If the number of seconds is always 0 or 1 or any other small number, it means that the service crashes and gets restarted all the time.

You could also take a look at the log-file:

tail -f /var/log/dbus-solaredge/current

and see if there are any error messages.

When you think that the script crashes, start it directly from the command line:

python /data/dbus-solaredge/dbus-solaredge.py

and see if it throws any error messages.

If the script stops with the message

dbus.exceptions.NameExistsException: Bus name already exists: com.victronenergy.grid"

it means that the service is still running or another service is using that bus name.

If you see something like:

2022-06-05 10:39:04,238 - DbusSolarEdge - INFO - Startup, trying connection to Modbus-Server: ModbusTCP 192.168.178.80:502, UNIT 2

2022-06-05 10:39:04,247 - pymodbus.client.sync - ERROR - Connection to (192.168.178.80, 502) failed: [Errno 111] Connection refused

2022-06-05 10:39:04,249 - DbusSolarEdge - ERROR - unable to connect to 192.168.178.80:502

Then you are not able to connect to your Inverter via Modbus. This can be a misconfiguration or another client is already connected. The inverter will accept only one concurrent client connected, if you need more than one client connection you may use a modbus proxy like https://pypi.org/project/modbus-proxy/

If you want to restart the script, for example after changing it, just run the following command:

/data/dbus-solaredge/kill_me.sh

The supervisor will restart the scriptwithin a few seconds.

In my installation at home, I am using the following Hardware:

• SolarEdge SE16K
• SolarEdge Modbus Meter
• 3x Victron MultiPlus-II - Battery Inverter (three phase)
• Cerbo GX (tested Firmware version: v2.87 and v2.92)
• DIY Battery 32x 280AH Lifepo EVE Cells with BMS from Batrium

I have shamelessly copied and adapted the code from https://github.com/RalfZim/venus.dbus-fronius-smartmeter and the readme as well as the code from Paul1974 https://www.photovoltaikforum.com/thread/161496-solaredge-smartmeter-mit-victron/?pageNo=1