sales pitch

Venus is short for Victron Unix like distro with a linux kernel. The Venus OS runs on the Color Control GX and the Venus GX. It is also available for several variants of the Beaglebone- and also the RaspberryPi families and Allwinner and i.MX6 platforms.

Proven & backed

• Venus OS runs on 50.000+ devices, with 2000+ being added every month.
• The CCGX and the Venus GX are crucial products to Victron: we'll keep maintaining and improving Venus. When we switch to a newer hardware platform, we'll keep the Venus OS software. See the GX product customer document.
• Venus is based on the Yocto Project, an Intel backed Embedded Linux creation platform.

Robust for unattended setups

Many of our systems run in remote locations. Think first a helicopter followed by a few hours of walking. example.

Related features:

• standard watchdog
• run watchdog around connman (the networking manager) & dbus-daemon (the messaging bus)
• keep watchdog enabled during a reboot: ensure a reboot in case something gets stuck during the Linux shutdown procedure

Reliable & automatic updates

• Venus can be updated from the internet. One of four feeds can be configured on the device, ranging from untested to fully tested and released: develop, testing, candidate and release
• Update from an sdcard or usb-stick
• By using a dual-rootfs system, system integrity is always ensured. See more info here.

Energy Storage System control

• Control of grid power. Whenever possible the power taken from the grid will be kept at 0W. Optionally another grid power setpoint can by supplied on the D-Bus.
• Battery life & minimum SoC level: battery discharging will be stopped at low SoC to keep the battery healthy.
• Demand response mode: direct charge/discharge power control.
• PV power throttle to prevent feedback to grid. Works only with Fronius Inverters.

See ESS manual for details.

Upstream protocols

Communication protocols used to communicate to the outside world

• HTTP / HTTPS is used to send data to the database behind the VRM Portal
• ModbusTCP
• MQTT For example very suitable for Energy Arbritage, combining many residential storage systems into one large one. Read more in the dbus-mqtt/README.md

Device protocols

• VE.Bus: Inverters/Multis/Quattros
• VE.Direct: MPPT Solar Chargers, Small inverters, BMV Battery Monitors, Peak Power Packs and more
• VE.Can: MPPT Solar Chargers, Skylla-i, Lynx Shunt and more
• Canbus BMS: LG Resu, Sony, Pylon, BMZ, Freedomwon and more brands of lithium batteries
• Fronius MQTT/ModbusTCP: Fronius PV Inverters
• NMEA0183 for USB-GPS
• Redflow batteries
• ... more

More features

• Remote Console: users love it. And speeds up adding feature too: add a feature to the gui, and it is immediately available remotely as well. No need to also add it into some website for example.
• Generator start/stop
• Remote Support

Companies that adopted Venus

• Smartflower
  • Modified the GUI to their own colors; and added windspeed meter and a few more devices.
• Oceanvolt electric drive systems
  • Modified various things

Community

• mailing list
• community testing and reporting issues
• community is adding things (Raspberrypi2 image & Morningstar ModbusTCP for example)