Avoiding charging the car from the battery and actually charging the battery while charging the car are just two sides of the same coin, if you can do one you can most likely choose to do the other.

For me HA automations are working great with IO to handle my Tesla Powerwall and IO.

 

Avoiding charging the car from the battery and actually charging the battery while charging the car are just two sides of the same coin, if you can do one you can most likely choose to do the other.

Not necessarily - I can't achieve the latter (no HA support for my inverter, at least not without additional hardware and a lot more effort than I'm willing to put in) but I achieved the former by having my Ohme wired in splitting the tails in such a way that it can never deplete the battery. Perhaps the same result might have been possible by positioning the hybrid inverter's CT clamp correctly, but I had the EVSE installed first and I didn't want to risk it.

 

Hello All, I hope someone can help me with a problem about Intelligent octopus flux.
I've got 17 panels on the roof and a 8kw battery. I don't have an EV. My problem is my battery is being drained between 1600hrs and 1900hrs most days. Then after 1900hrs it's importing from the grid. Most times it doesn't charge my home battery.
It's also very temperamental with charging and discharging.
I've emailed and phoned Most days about this problem and get phobed off. Latest was an email from a manager who says the tariff team has said I must be using some large electrical items at those peak times. I'm definitely not. As I'm writing this sitting in the dark whilst on peak rates.
Any help would be appreciated.
Andrew Carr.9

 

Hello All, I hope someone can help me with a problem about Intelligent octopus flux.
I've got 17 panels on the roof and a 8kw battery. I don't have an EV. My problem is my battery is being drained between 1600hrs and 1900hrs most days. Then after 1900hrs it's importing from the grid. Most times it doesn't charge my home battery.
It's also very temperamental with charging and discharging.
I've emailed and phoned Most days about this problem and get phobed off. Latest was an email from a manager who says the tariff team has said I must be using some large electrical items at those peak times. I'm definitely not. As I'm writing this sitting in the dark whilst on peak rates.
Any help would be appreciated.
Andrew Carr.9

1) The number of panels is irrelevant. What size is your solar array in kWp?
2) How big is your battery (in kWh)?
3) What electricity tariff are you on?
4) Who are you calling / emailing?
5) Don’t expect much solar this time of year!

 

Hi, yes it's all with octopus. 6kw array. 17 panels @ 355wats = 6.3 kw
The battery is 8.2 kWh
The tariff is intelligent octopus flux
Hope this helps

 

Hi, yes it's all with octopus. 6kw array. 17 panels @ 355wats = 6.3 kw
The battery is 8.2 kWh
The tariff is intelligent octopus flux
Hope this helps

I would probably expect the battery to be drained during the day as solar is poor at this time of year. You say it doesn't always charge. Are you talking about charging from the grid overnight or from solar?

 

OK thanks, so I think I might need an ev for that tariff. How does it work. Does it run through your ev charger?

 

IOG gives you 6hrs a day of 7.5p/kWh electric. Additionally you extra cheap slots when you need them.

It is an electric vehicle tariff (remember this is an electric vehicle forum!).

 

Slightly off topic but could someone advise which model smart meter Octopus are fitting for "Economy 7" type tariff in the UK (Surrey)? Do the meters still have the low current relay terminals which close during the cheaper rate? I am looking at integrating it with a basic EV charger and Hybrid inverter / battery setup. Any photographs would be helpful.

 

Why?

 

I have now found the info I require on another forum..

 

I have Tesla Model 3 Long Range. I've been using intelligent since it's Inception with the car as the driver of charging. It's good but I'm in a crappy mobile signal area so sometimes the charge fails. To beat this I just bought a WallBox Pulsar Max.

Interestingly it seems that although Octopus have the Tesla key for my account they don't know or care about the car SoC. They just give me enough time to charge the car from 0-100% at the low rate - 2230-0700! (eg tonight the car is above the charge target but I'm still getting those 8½h) Luckily I use Home Assistant (HA) to follow the Intelligent Dispatching periods and this means I now get cheap rate for 8h30m rather than 6h. Without HA I'd be stuck with forcing the car in to scheduled charging and no better off.

This seems mad to me but I guess easier for them. I imagine standards will eventually update so the car has to tell the charger the SoC?

I have found I can put the car in charge of charging again and get the battery to follow the more granular and interesting charging schedule, but this means HA is in charge of the car charging AND the random 0-10 minute delay on responding to charge start/stop to avoid swamping the network is problematic if there are 30 minute slots. That's a challenge to get 6h low rate charging (with some later in the day on rare occasions) though it's probably greener.

 

Can’t you get a wifi extender so you car can connect to Octopus via your home WiFi rather than relying on LTE signal?

 

See reply above

 

I worked this out.

When the CAR controls I tell the Octopus App to get the car to X% SoC.

When the CHARGER controls the app changes to how much % I need to add to the car.

So my app was set to 75% - a long charge outside the slots. I could leave it there but that is morally wrong. I wonder how Octopus will work out people who are cheating the system to get 8h of cheap rates each night...

Most days the car drops by max 30% so I can set 35% in the app and the car will stop charging at the SoC target set on the car and my conscience will be clear.

 

So my app was set to 75% - a long charge outside the slots. I could leave it there but that is morally wrong. I wonder how Octopus will work out people who are cheating the system to get 8h of cheap rates each night...

It is easy to spot from their end as they get data from the Wallbox which confirms how much and when the car is actually being charged...

One of their other integration partners has mentioned that Octopus are in the process of tightening up some of the aspects that people are gaming, so watch this space...

 

My next problem will be when they work out how to separate the car charge from the house load. At the moment as soon as the Intelligent Dispatching goes to ON I switch the battery to AC Charge with HA to avoid it being emptied by the car.

But I suspect that's way down the road and if octopus want me to charge at 11am they won't really mind my charging the battery because it will be their cheapest time.

Now I understand the Intelligent-Pulsar charging I'll have a happy time writing an automation to set the perfect top up percentage each night 😁.

I'm quiet new too HA and it's amazing.

 

Not used to this BB and always reply in the wrong place 🤪

 

However you use IOG I think the most important thing is to request a bill every month to stay on top of any issues.