PLC / Datalogger / Gateway as a slave
The Sofar EMS supports adding a PLC, Datalogger, Gateway or hub as a slave device through the Sofar EMS protocol. This function is provided for when there is a hub that has to receive control signals itself from the Sofar EMS.
When your device has implemented the protocol, you can add your device through the device wizard, choosing "Solar Inverter", "Generic", "Ethernet TCP" and "PLC (Generic protocol)".
Protocol implementation
You have two options when implementing the protocol on the hub:
- Or you only implement the data and control registers for the totals of all PV, storage etc. They are added in the Sofar EMS as one big aggregated device (or one EV charger, one energy meter, one hybrid inverter if applicable).
- Or you implement the data and control registers for each individual device. Each individual device is added in the Sofar EMS separately.
Warning
Adding devices that are controlled by the PLC directly to the EMS Do NOT add a device that is controlled by the PLC directly to the EMS. This could lead to conflicting control signals and doubly counted power values.
Warning
Aggregate device & groups In case your hub only implements the totals, the Sofar EMS will treat this as one big controllable aggregated device. You can still put the aggregated device in any group, just like any other device. However, there are a few things to keep in mind if the individual devices that form up the aggregated device are in reality spread among different groups: