Intelligent Octopus Go - limited beta
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danvoner it should be fairly self-explanatory, hopefully.
Once you put your Octo account number and API key in, we pick up any OIG slots assigned to your EV by Octopus, and the instruction settings for your inverter can be set to hold or charge during those extra slots.
Let us know if you have any other specific questions.
admin - Thank you. I was curious though about what takes precedence. Is it the intelligent charge slots (which will "hold" the battery) or the normal discharge / charge scheduled sessions?
For example I have a 20:00 - 23:00 discharge set for each night, but I can see there is 20:30 - 05:30 intelligent charge slot.
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danvoner Good point, they will clash basically, so your discharge will kick in, and then your charge slot.
Basically, there will be odd side effects and we'd recommend not having clashing instructions.
In a similar way to how people on Agile manage their discharge schedules in between charge blocks.
danvoner yeah sure, we could automatically disable discharge schedules if they’re set up and clashing.
Question is if that’s the right thing to do all the time. Some people might want to prioritise their export over import.
What works for you may not work for everyone, that’s where it becomes tricky.
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danvoner
If I tell you what I'm doing, it may provide some insight into what may work for you.
My setup is;
Solar, 5kW gen2 hybrid, 2x9.5 batteries, Zappi, ASHP.
I can't "hide" the Zappi from the inverter/batteries, for reasons I won't bore you with.
The objectives are:
Minimise day rate import, maximise export, not empty batteries into EV.
Basically, I charge the batteries to full every night (slightly less in summer, if we have one, to manage clipping), export all solar, empty any spare from the batteries in the evening. I use the pause charge option in the Giv portal, so that no solar goes to the batteries (ASHP is new, so I may need to tweak this in winter).
The charging bit is dead simple...
Setting up the discharge schedules took a bit of fiddling (and some maths). We don't want to end up with the batteries paused or empty, otherwise you're using day rate.
To achieve this, I've set up multiple, sequential discharge schedules...
I'm sure you can figure out what the other two are.
The thing here is, they only run if there's sufficient capacity available, so I'll never get caught short. Equally, I'm ensuring they run as much as possible.
Here's the activity log from yesterday, where the first two didn't run because we had higher than normal use in the day and some weather 
...
Running it as one long schedule would mean you get all or nothing, whereas splitting it always gives the opportunity for some to run. Also, it gives things a chance to cool down. Three hours at full chat and things get quite toasty.
Regarding priorities, since I've been doing this, I've found smart charging always takes precedence.
Here's an example from the other night, hopefully you can see it cut short the last scheduled discharge...
I appreciate that's a lot to take on board, but equally it may give you some confidence to play about and see what suits you.
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MrMessy - that's so useful, thank you for sharing that.
I have a similar setup:
- 3.6kW Inverter
- 2 x 9.5kWh Batteries
- 4kW Solar
- ASHP
- EV
Just a couple of quick questions if you don't mind:
- Tell me more about "I use the pause charge option in the Giv portal, so that no solar goes to the batteries" - I was under the impression we couldn't stop the solar going to the batteries. Can you share what the settings look like in the GivEnergy portal
- What did you mean by 'clipping'? "Basically, I charge the batteries to full every night (slightly less in summer, if we have one, to manage clipping)"
- Can I be cheeky and ask what the SOC start / stop settings are for your other two scheduled sessions
Thank you again, you may have provided a complete solution for me.
danvoner
No problem.
If your inverter is a gen2 hybrid or newer, you should have this setting in the web portal, inverter, settings..
As I said, depending on how we go with the ASHP, I may change this when it gets properly cold.We've got 7.8kWp EW solar, but a 5kW grid export limit, so potentially, mostly late spring when it's sunny and cool (by the time we get to summer when you think you'd have maximum output, the panels overheat so capacity is reduced), there's some solar I need to either use or store.
Leaving a little space in the battery gives me the opportunity to mop this up, otherwise it's wasted.
I wouldn't have thought you've got this issue with your setup, or not enough to make it worth chasing.
3.Sure, here's the other two..
In the "schedules", you can see I've got them all in sequence to make it easy to see what's going on and because they've all got calculated SoC queries, there's no need to change anything throughout the year.
I've worked out 1hr discharges 21% of the battery capacity, hence I have them set to 85, 65, 45 and 25%
You can see if I was at 85% when the first one started, the second one wouldn't run. Conversely, if I'm at 84%, the first won't run but all the others probably will.
If I'm at 25% just as the last one started, I'd hit 4% at the end before the charging starts again shortly after, so worst case 10mins of grid draw.
Hope that helps.
Anything else, just shout.
danvoner
I've picked only "pause charge". You don't want "pause discharge" or "pause both" as that would stop the battery covering the house load. That's the sort of thing someone with a small battery on Agile might do to save the battery for the peak period.
Solar and battery will still cover (as much as it can) house load.
Whether you actually want to do this may depend on you normal daily consumption.
Without the heatpump, we're currently using maybe 6-8kWh. Even on a rubbish day that's pretty much covered by solar.
The times I've got set are a combination of maximising solar export, but also to suit our EV charging requirements.
If you regularly have smart charging slots during the day from Octopus and want your giv batteries to charge, you might not want to use this option.
As I said before, I may switch this off for winter as some bonus slots from Octopus may come in useful.
If we look at this partial trace from yesterday, which was particularly rubbish for solar, we can see the house load is entirely covered by solar and battery apart from a few spikes late on.
The lack of trace below the line is because precisely zero solar has gone to the battery, but equally virtually nothing has come from the grid either.
Can I go onto the Intelligent GO beta? I have been using this tariff for a few weeks and when the car charges past the usual off-peak time, it drains the battery LOL.
disastrous-chapter
Gazzagreen All done for you, cheers!
