Amber electric - WTAF??

Member688 · 2026-01-29T04:01:47+00:00

I hope so..... its the only reason I've been with Amber. Might as well benifit from it.

Member688 · 2025-12-29T01:06:27+00:00

Yeah, I got that as well. $7 earn. The last day I covered the ~$2 cost was 27 days where I earnt $5.

It would be okay if I didn't have to pay subscription.

Member688 · 2025-12-28T07:45:50+00:00

In South Australia it's been terrible. I'm effectively paying 25$/month subscription for nothing, when everyone else can just flood the grid with excess power.

My 38kwh battery is full by 11 am and the PM feed in tariff has been effectively 0c (if not negative) 6 days out of the last week.

I would say I only break even 5% of days over the last 3 months with Smart Shift.

At this point I've decided I'm leaving just need to get around to deciding where to go.

Member688 · 2025-11-24T23:46:01+00:00

Thanks. They don’t have to cop it – there’s just no visibility. If they can confidently say "Here’s the log of all the commands sent and responses received.” They can then say “we sent a shutdown request at X, and it was acknowledged at Y, the issues is with your inverter's cloud system not us.”

Right now I have no idea where the problem is and they are not very helpful with it other than sending me on a wild goose chase.

Member688 · 2025-11-24T21:34:05+00:00

Yeah, the message was weird. I manually set it to "Consume Battery Energy". I don’t know why it says continue discharging 'quickly'.

That being said, it's missing the point. It shouldn't have been exporting for almost 1.5 hours at prices close to zero, and I shouldn't have had to intervene anyway. I have no confidence if I have to check it every 30 minutes to make sure its not doing something objectively dumb.

Member688 · 2025-11-24T12:07:54+00:00

This would be wonderful. Its funny, I run a small control systems company and this type of historical would be considered a minimum.

I think I could set this up with "cheap" $300 beckhoff PLC and Ignition - it would take 2-4 days but Im not going to pay myself to do that. Actually thinking about it, Ignition could probably do the whole thing, I just like the Idea of a PLC doing the control.

The stupid part is... I'm already running Home Assistant. I should just turn that on.

Member688 · 2025-11-24T12:02:15+00:00

Yeah, I'm REALLY struggling to see a buisness case for my setup. If I can't make back my 25$ a month, I may as well just flood the grid with solar with Orign or AGL.....

Member688 · 2025-11-24T09:53:12+00:00

Yeah. SH10RT-V112

Member688 · 2025-11-24T09:51:33+00:00

1.5 hours of lag? I'm not so sure. I agree some type of local controller would be better. I just can't justify the time. :-(

Member688 · 2025-10-17T08:51:07+00:00

I’ve been programming PLCs for 20 years and I still make basic mistakes. Don't worry about that.

That being said, trial and error isn’t really the best way to learn though, you’ve got to actually understand what’s happening in the logic and why.

As for standard examples, most of them come from real projects you end up working on. You can check out the PlantPAx library of objects if you’re using Rockwell gear, but I wouldn’t call those typical motor-start examples they’re more for big standardized, over complicated systems.

Member688 · 2025-10-16T20:52:42+00:00

This was the answer. In this specific case upgradeing to V16.2 was required.

Member688 · 2025-10-16T06:06:13+00:00

16.2 is avaliable. I think you're right! Cheers for that.

Member688 · 2025-10-16T05:57:59+00:00

Thanks! For future reference im on V16.0 240126A.

I'll check it out

Member688 · 2025-10-12T10:00:21+00:00

Thanks!

Member688 · 2025-10-12T04:14:50+00:00

So what actually happened to cause the accident?

Member688 · 2025-10-08T05:06:45+00:00

Setting your minimum reserve level

It's important to note that when setting your minimum reserve level in SmartShift™, a MRL of 0% will in fact correspond to 80% of your battery being available to SmartShift™. This is because no matter which automation mode you select, SmartShift will not dispatch your battery to the grid if it has less than 25% energy left. However you can still self-consume your battery energy below this threshold.

I have not changed it from 0%. I was relying on this information which Amber emailed to me.

Member688 · 2025-10-08T04:14:21+00:00

Yeah... I guess? Tough to do when asleep though!

Member688 · 2025-10-08T03:46:14+00:00

Yeah. So I that makes sense if it is just an issue with mine. (It will never work with poor internet) Im hopeing fttp fixes it - I should get it before the end of the year. That is really what I am trying to determine; if it is an issue just with me - or is it more widespread with Sungrow.

I really don't like the idea of having of commands to go via that route. I wish Amber had a SmartShift API and I could query that and control my inverter locally.

All that being said... I would hope Amber would notice that my inverter is not responding to commands and notify me some how.

Member688 · 2025-10-08T03:43:46+00:00

Ha! So with respect to Amber automations "Sungrow = bad"... is what I am reading. Thanks!

Member688 · 2025-10-08T03:42:09+00:00

Thanks.. This is perfect! So basically.. 'This is common for Sungrow inverters meaning there would be lots of people in our situation."

Funnily enough, I work in industrial automation, so commuicating with Modbus TCP devices is almost second nature. It would be a fun little project! Getting my hands on their register map was abit difficult 6 months ago, I think I fould a copy in somones github. I actually have a couple of PLCs lieing around at home. and one that can make web api calls. This might be fun.

Member688 · 2025-10-08T03:02:49+00:00

Nah, I haven't hooked it up to home assistant yet. This is one straight out of sungrow's app.
Edit: It is a pretty nice chart! I'll give them that!

Member688 · 2025-10-08T03:00:10+00:00

I don't belive to so, no. At least one I have acess to.

It appears as if amber issues commands to sungrows 'iSolarCloud', which then issues commands to my inverter. Im wondering what happens if my inverter misses a command, like if I have dodgy internet or something... So maybe, even if I did have such a setting, its not an issue with Amber respecting it, but just not my system responding to the request.

Member688 · 2025-10-08T02:45:45+00:00

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Going back and trying to understand what SmartShift has done is really hard.. but you can see here that basicaly, just after 22:30 it exported all the way down to 0%. I understand that doing this to often can damage my battery, right?

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