I have an interesting project where a client will be using an ESS for the fairly standard use case of solar PV self-consumption and night-time charging for TOU pricing.
However, this client also has a low power factor and our ESS is capable of producing reactive power to compensate for this.
Is there any existing controller in OpenEMS which controls an inverter in order to manage the power factor within a particular range? (e.g >0.95). I.e, alongside doing the standard energy-related use cases (like peak-shaving etc), we can inject reactive power to mitigate the low power factor.
Of course this can be achieved by deploying capacitors / standard power factor correction (PFC) means as well, however it appears like there may be an opportunity for a 2-for-one if the ESS can handle it.
Does anyone have knowledge of such scenarios using OpenEMS?
I think these ones are not quite what I am looking for. As I understand it, these ones either inject reactive power to adjust the voltage depending on the voltage level, or operate the ESS with a fixed cos-phi.
What I have in mind is that the grid meter would measure the power factor at the POC and the ESS would inject/absorb reactive power to increase the power factor to an acceptable range.
I think it would be reasonably straightforward to implement such a controller.
Actually I think the Asymmetric Balancing Cos-Phi could work for this use case - I just noticed that it is balancing the Grid Meter at a fixed cos-phi as opposed to operating the ESS at a fixed cos-phi. Will experiment with this.