admin So I am still confused. With ECO set on the AiO the AiO seems to select charging windows that I have not selected in the WW APP, so what value is the WW APP performing if ECO ‘does its own thing’? Surely the whole point of the WW APP is to be able to select the cheapest Agile windows for charging the battery? My understanding was that the WW APP would control the Agile windows for charging the battery (and not the ECO mode on the AiO).
Agile Charging Slots
Steve1 That is what is happening. WW will select the cheapest slots for you as long as you have an Agile charge window set up (and active) say 00:00-23:00, or you may split them up in multiple charge windows - it’s up to you, and then select number of half hour slots you want WW to select within that period.
Regardless of all that, Eco setting should be set to on by default on your Giv inverter if you want to service house load in between charge or export slots.
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Steve1 Your understanding is correct. By just setting charge windows, the Eco Mode will not be affected. If you use 'Hold' = On, then between charging slots, your AIO Eco Mode will be disabled, providing you have enabled that in the advanced settings page:
If you have not enabled 'Hold' then this can be ignored - either way, that won't cause your AIO to charge regardless of that setting.
If your AIO is charging outside of your selected slots as your Charge Windows settings on the Agile page dictate, then you must have some other influence at play. And it has nothing to do with 'Eco Mode'
Eco Mode is just to enable the house load to draw from the AIO when not actively 'charging'. Something must be controlling your AIO external to WW. Thus my suggestion is to reset everything.
Is it possible you have set anything else up, like Octopus R&D or some other automation, like the one in the GivEnergy portal?
A reset won't take these out of the equation
If you are able to paste a copy of your GivEnergy logs - maybe we could decipher what is driving your AIO to behave unusually.
KristianS thanks. It’s becoming clearer how the GivEnergy AiO on ECO and the timed Agile slots on WW work together. One further point of confusion I have is regarding SOC Target and SOC Less than settings on the WW APP. I assume that the SOC Target is the 100% of battery capacity to be achieved within a given window, but not sure exactly what the SOC Less setting relates to - I assume that the battery charging only happens within a given window if the battery capacity falls below this value in said window. Is my understanding correct? As I want the battery to be fully charged in my window between 12:00 and 16:00 hrs (so as to provide battery to home between 16:00 and 19:00 hrs) I assume in this window I need to set the SOC Target to 100% - but what value should the SOC Less setting be?
KristianS these are my current settings on the AiO and WW APP
First question - if I select the Eco Off Mode to On (as you suggest), I assume this would apply to all WW windows regardless of whether Hold charge is selected in a given window?
The logic of my WW windows is as follows;
Night - want the battery to be fully charged by 06:00
Morning - want to use battery or grid or solar (whichever is cheapest option?)
Afternoon - want the battery to be fully charged by 16:00 to provide energy to the home between 16:00 and 19:00
Evening - want to use any capacity still in the battery before using the grid. If battery gets deplenished don’t want to recharge it in this window (use the grid)
Please note that once the Agile rates are available on the WW APP I manually select the slots I want by editing them
Hope this makes sense - any comments appreciated
KristianS Hi Kristian, toggling the Eco off to ON seems to have done the trick - the AiO is now following my WW APP selected slots and whether to hold the battery between slots within a window (or not). Many thanks.
My only remaining uncertainty regards what the SOC less and target percentages mean and what they should be set at?
I believe the target is the % charge of the battery to try to be achieved - is this correct?
The SOC less value I believe is the minimum % charge remaining in the battery before it starts to recharge - is this correct?
Many thanks again for all your help, it is/was greatly appreciated
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Steve1 Hi Steve,
I see some real problems with your setup here, both in WW and in the GivEnergy portal.
In your second GivEnergy portal image, you have selected an automation that basically says - hold my battery until Peak Time. I don't know exactly what that does, but it sound like it won't allow your AIO to power the house except at the peak window - assuming 16:00 - 19:00 - so whilst you do want that in part, anything you set WW to do, will be overridden by this automation. You don't want any automation from GivEnergy - or anyone else for that matter.
Secondly, your slot selections are interesting... and very confusing tbh
SOC Less - is the value you do not want anything to happen at or higher than this value. So if you set it at 50% - the instruction will be ignored if your AIO is at 50% or higher SoC. Target is the SoC you want the charging process to take your AIO too.
Your 'Night' window, out of the 12 half-hour slots, you want WW to choose 6 of them if your SoC is anything less than 100% and you want it to charge to 100% using 6 of the cheapest half hour slots and hold the battery in-between times.
Your 'Morning' you want it to charge for 12 out of the 12 half-hour slots only if below 50% - but only charge to 50%
Afternoon, you want it to charge for 8 out of the 8 half-hour slots but only if it is below 60% SoC and charge to 100% and hold on the other slots - there are no other slots to be held on, because you are asking to charge on them all
Evening - charge for 2 of the 8 available slots but only if less that 10% SoC but only charge to 10% and hold on the rest.
Do you concur? Is this really what you are trying to get your AIO to do - it seem massively overcomplicated to me.
One question. What is your daily consumption of electricity. Ignoring what the AIO is doing - or not doing - what is your approximate daily kWh consumed by your house?
Also, please note - even on Hold - your AIO will consume about 300W - 600W with Eco Mode set to on. It is just a GivEnergy thing...
KristianS Thanks Kristian. We have an ASHP and have just bought our first EV. We also have solar panels alongside the GivEnergy AiO.
We have only been in the house a year and installed the AiO and Solar Panels in March this year. Before the EV our usage in the colder month was around 40Kwh/day (this is likely to increase to an average of 60 - 70 Kwh/day with the EV).
The timer on the ASHP is off between 16:00 hrs and 19:00 hrs. It is set to on for all other times
In the summer months we found that we were largely self sufficient and had little demand from the Grid. Our export tariff is Octopus Fixed at 15p/Kwh
So, ideally what I am looking to achieve is;
- To have the battery fully charged by 16:00 hrs
- Run the house using the battery only from 16:00 hrs to 19:00 hrs
- At all other times to maximise savings by charging (at lower prices) and discharging (when prices are higher) the battery.
Please could you advise on your recommended settings to achieve this.
Many thanks
Steve1 Thanks for the explanation, Steve. Your settings now make a lot more sense, albeit, maybe still a little too complicated.
Firstly, I am not a specialist, and I do not have any qualifications to support any responses. I am but a mere interested technologist. And so this is purely an opinion.
Ignoring the EV for now, because that should only be charged from the grid, at your worst point in the year, you will need slightly more than 3x the capacity in the AIO to furnish your house load.
Theoretically, your AIO can only supply about 7 hours worth of daily house load. [approx]
My immediate thought is you need a multi-AIO setup [currently only in beta] and that is not a cheap add-on to your setup.
Secondly, rather than Agile, have you considered Intelligent Octopus Go as a tariff, instead?
While Agile pricing can be lower than £0.07 it can also go much higher than the £0.25 peak rate.
So this brings another question. At what rate can you charge your EV - i.e. do you have an 11kW or even a 22kW EV charge point on the house? I ask, because of needing 30ish kWh for the car, will that be satisfied only during the nightly 23:30 - 05:30 IOG window, or would there be instances during the day where the car would be plugged in wanting a charge? The benefit of IOG is that any slots outside of the standard window would also be liable for the lower rate at £0.07.
You mentioned you turned off your ASHP between 16:00 - 19:00 - is this because it doesn't have a store of hot water it can use to cover the expensive period?
Another question. How do you produce hot water for the house? I am just trying to get a full top-down view of your situation - apologies for all the questions - but your requirements for energy are quite large :D
Also.... which edition of the AIO do you have, the 6kW or the 3.6?
KristianS Hi Kristian, many thanks again for your detailed reply. Taking each point in turn;
- Considering a 2nd AiO - but not immediately
- Also considering a different tariff to Agile now we have the EV (most likely Intelligent Octopus Go). However, I like the (theoretical?) control that Agile and WW together can provide.
- The EV can be charged at 7kW. Currently I am charging from the Grid overnight. I can select the EV charge window on the GivEnergy AiO. We don’t need to charge the EV every night so looking to take advantage when Agile tariff is lowest (looks promising for early tomorrow - 1st December). Hopefully we wont need to charge the EV in the day.
- As the ASHP can demand up to 8.5 kW I thought if it was running between 16:00 and 19:00 hrs it could deplete the battery quite quickly. There is hot water storage so heat can still be supplied to the house. I can experiment with turning the ASHP back on for this window if you think that would be sensible.
- The ASHP also provides the HW.
So in summary, we recognise that the 13.5 kW battery storage in the AiO is insufficient to meet our energy requirements. In the short/medium term (before purchase of a 2nd AiO) we accept that we need to juggle the Agile tariff as best we can (or switch to Intelligent Octopus Go - or similar). That is why I wish to charge the battery using the cheapest Agile slots (via WW) and use the battery between 16:00 and 19:00 hrs for the house demand when Agile prices are highest. Outside of 16:00 hrs to 19:00 hrs we are ‘happy’ to accept the Agile pricing for both house demand and for EV charging (as said this would be in the early hours to take advantage of the lowest Agile slots).
As stated in a separate reply we have the 6 kW AiO
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Steve1 Hi Steve, thanks for the reply. This is even better than chess!
To complete my understanding, each point in turn:
Understood, and they are quite a commitment financially and you need the space as they don't stack. I too am considering a second one once they come off Beta as there are still some issues with the firmware for multiples that GivEnergy are working through and will in time no doubt solve.
I understand why you would want to stick to Agile, as I did, until I got my EV - But that 6 hours of daily at £0.07 cannot be ignored! I charge my AIO [exactly the same as yours] using WW and the IOG - Intelligent page - as well as my three Eco-Flow batteries using that rate every night, whether my car needs charging or not. That is the beauty of that tariff. If you need to charge your car at random times then, if there is capacity on the grid, and you need your BEV at a certain SoC then Octopus will allocate you additional slots outside of the standard overnight window. The benefits are, that all your houseload - inc your ASHP would be using this tariff at the lower rate.
Your BEV can be charged in approx 10 hours [when required] but as you say you don't need to charge every day
At that rate your ASHP will draw more than the AIO can deliver. So, even if it were to pull from the AIO it is still going to draw from the grid at the same time, just at a lower rate - again, this lends itself to making sure it doesn't pull during the most expensive part of the day on Agile. This would be less of a concern on IOG - at a max rate of £0.25 peak
Some ASHP have backup / top-up emersion heater so that the ASHP doesn't have to work so hard to get the HW up to temperature needed by HW rather than heating, which again could be done overnight with IOG.
I think it is fair to say, unless you plan to swap to IOG and 'charge' the house with heat overnight and then tune down during the peak period and then use the AIO and any solar to help you get to the next window starting at 23:30, then you have somewhat a challenge on your hands with Agile.
It is fair to say, that typically Peak is 16:00 to 19:00 ish, with another peak from 06:30 - 09:30 with a lull during the early afternoon and obviously much less overnight.
As a potential alternative. you could limit the output from your AIO to be 1kW when discharging. That way, it would last longer per day, use less cycles and then cover you longer for those days when you get sun, overall bringing down the potentially costly days to a more manageable level. Just a thought.
KristianS Again, many thanks Kristian.
Glad you are enjoying the chess.
Taking all things into consideration, I am now very tempted to move from Agile to IOG.
As you say, we can keep the EV fully charged overnight (at 7p/kWh) and also max out the AiO battery (to 13.5 kW). We can also time-shift some other appliances (which we do try to do with Agile) W/M, TD and Dishwasher to use the overnight rate.
Even looking at tonight’s Agile slots, the lowest is still above 11p/kWh.
We can then also run the ASHP 24/7 and not have to have it timed out between 16:00 and 19:00 hrs.
I think my only question is how does WW and IOG work together? You say that you use the ‘intelligent page’ - I assume this is within the WW APP?
On another (hopefully interesting) topic. The EV we have just bought is the KIA EV3 - which I believe is capable of V2G/V2H (but not yet enabled in the UK). Our EV home charger is currently the GivEnergy one, but I believe Zappi will be bringing out a bi-directional A/C EV charger later next year. The thought being that the battery in the EV3 (approx 80 kW) could act as a second source of power to the home via V2H and may mitigate the need for a 2nd AiO.