Greetings. I've been a subscriber for a few months now and had hoped it would allow me to boost income over the summer months. Looking at my latest Octopus Flux bill I'm still only achieving break even at best. I have a GivEnergy Inverter and a battery with 9.5kWh. I also have an Eddi diverter. I'm finding the whole thing overwhelming and confusing and would be grateful for any assistance/ help as to where I'm going wrong. ManyThanks

@"gwaring"#p8427 Flux is a slightly unusual tariff, because your cheapest grid import rate is always more expensive than your daytime export rate. Your objectives should be: 1) minimise grid import, ideally none during the peak period 2) maximise self consumption 3) maximise export during the peak period Check you have all the settings on this page correct, the daily use at the bottom of the page is important to you, as you'll be using this to help minimise grid import. https://app.wonderwatt.com/settings You want your batteries to charge from solar as much as you, rather than grid, and any xs will get used by the house or exported. Make sure in your Giv settings you have Eco ON. Next, you want to create a peak export schedule. This is how you're going to maximise returns, something like this: [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/EvBx5Q9.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/EvBx5Q9h.png[/IMG][/URL] You may want to adjust these settings, depending on your evening consumption. It's import to leave enough in your batteries to last at least until 2am. I would suggest running washing machine, dishwasher etc either during the day when it's sunny, or during your cheap(ish) period. Hope that helps a little. If you're still struggling, it would help if you could tell us your inverter size/type and some info about your solar set up.

Evening Mr Messy. Thanks for the advice. All of my Wonder Watt settings look correct. I set up the schedule as suggested but when I checked on Friday I still had 100% battery after 7pm. Thinking I'd done something wrong I checked it today at 6.30pm and it failed to export again and my battery was at 100% so I did a quick schedule discharge for 30 mins. I checked on my GivEnergy app and the quick schedule details were in the timed export & the Eco setting was turned off. Again no export. After the 30 mins the Eco is back to enabled and there is now nothing in timed export. Not sure what's going wrong? Could the Eddi be preventing the export? For info my inverter is a GIV-HY3.6. Hoping you can assist further.

@"gwaring"#p8443 so, from what you're saying, WW is definitely talking to your inverter, because the quick schedule times were at least sent.🤔 They're reset to 00:00 at the end of each instruction. Could you get screengrabs, for the relevant period from: https://app.wonderwatt.com/log the graph from the MyEnergi app and the Giv inverter log Check on this page that all the toggles are off/grey: https://app.wonderwatt.com/pause It's possible all the xs energy went to the Eddi, but that would presume you cylinder was quite cold, which I suspect is unlikely during the recent weather. Also, from the screenshot I previously posted, the "one off" toggle should be off, my error.😳

Hi All toggles are off. Screengrabs below for 16 Aug. [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/OIs913P.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/OIs913Ph.png[/IMG][/URL] [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/SB4QFWe.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/SB4QFWeh.png[/IMG][/URL] [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/ttU8l10.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/ttU8l10h.png[/IMG][/URL] [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/4LqcxUs.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/4LqcxUsh.png[/IMG][/URL]

@"gwaring"#p8449 OK. So WW is sending instructions to your inverter, otherwise you'd get an error message in the log. There's something happening at 6pm but, it doesn't look like exporting. Can you post "Remote Control History" for the relevant period from the Giv inverter page (cog, top right, then scroll to the bottom)? It'll look like this... [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/bpri9Jd.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/bpri9Jdh.png[/IMG][/URL] As an aside, I also see you have a message in Notifications (bell icon), and Givback (£). Didi you sign up to the Axel Demand Flexibility Scheme?

Hi I don't recall signing up to any scheme. Screengrabs below: [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/HX6zniy.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/HX6zniyh.png[/IMG][/URL] [URL=https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/G9zzJ1X.png][IMG]https://imgapi.wonderwatt.com/i/G9zzJ1Xh.png[/IMG][/URL]

Newbie Help

gwaring

I don't recall signing up to any scheme.

Screengrabs below:

MrMessy

gwaring well, all the instructions I would expect to see are there.

I was about to say it's a complete blooming mystery but, I've just spotted the times on your inverter and Eddi are an hour out of sync.

Check on the Eddi (going to assume it's the same/similar to a Zappi), video here:
https://youtu.be/qznaASNfYMU?si=eednqyiRQUvJyGWv

For the inverter, check the date and time are correct on the web portal ( top LH corner of the menu bar). If not, go to Account Settings, Time zone should be GMT London (UTC+01:00). Sometimes if it's lost where it is, changing to something else, save, then back again will fix it. Or try Sync Inverter Time.

gwaring

Eddi was ok but inverter was set at GMT + 00:00. I've changed this to +01:00 and done a sync inverter. 🤞

gwaring

So after changing the time on the inverter the timed charge and export appear to be working OK. Inverter isn't exporting as much as I thought because the Eddi is taking this to heat the HW cylinder. I'm playing around with the export margin on the Eddi to try and come to a happy medium. Thanks for the help in getting this far.
Couple of other questions if I may:

Will i need to change the time on the inverter & Eddi when the clocks go back?
What would the best electric tariff be for winter based on my set up - I have a worcester gas boiler for heating and hot water.
Ta.

MrMessy

gwaring Will i need to change the time on the inverter & Eddi when the clocks go back?

Should be automatic. I've never had to change the time on my Zappi.
For the Giv inverter, it seems quite common for installers to get the wrong time zone when commissioning. I had to correct mine but, it's been fine since.

gwaring What would the best electric tariff be for winter based on my set up - I have a worcester gas boiler for heating and hot water.

Yeah, tricky one. Octopus, or any other supplier for that matter, don't seem to have a great battery tariff for winter.
So, it depends on your attitude to risk. Agile is the obvious candidate with WW, as there's plenty of support on here.

Alternatively (and switch off your moral compass for this bit), Octopus Go, standard version not Intelligent.
The T&Cs are a bit ambiguous, and if you sign up online, it's just some boxes to tick.
Besides, how is charging a home battery at 3kW different to charging a PHEV at 3.5kW?

WindyMiller

gwaring Whether to heat the water by electric or gas depends on the unit rates and the efficiencies.

As the electric heater element is immersed in the water you can assume that the efficiency is nearly 100%. But with gas there are losses in the pipework and the boiler may only be running at 85% efficiency (even a condensing boiler would not be condensing if heating water to above about 55oC). My boiler is in the loft with 10m of pipework to the tank all of which might be cold when it fires up so I've assumed a system efficiency of 50% for gas water heating.

So if your gas units cost you 6p say then if your electric units are below 12p then use electric otherwise use gas to heat the hot water. I'm on the Octopus Agile tariff and use electric to heat the water when slots are below 12p. On the Octopus Go tariff the cheap rate is 8.5p so I would heat the water with that. The next best is Octopus Cosy but as the cheap rate is above 12p (12.76p) I would still use gas. If you are being paid more than 12p a unit for electric exports from your solar panels then I would not use electric at all and use the gas even during the day.

Edit: Just to add that in the winter Agile slots are rarely below 12p so I don't do much electric water heating in the winter but in some months almost half my water heating is by electric. In May for example I used 50 kWh of electric heating the water (I usually use 4 units a day for this).

KevinD

MrMessy Alternatively (and switch off your moral compass for this bit), Octopus Go, standard version not Intelligent.
The T&Cs are a bit ambiguous, and if you sign up online, it's just some boxes to tick.
Besides, how is charging a home battery at 3kW different to charging a PHEV at 3.5kW?

Exactly this. We have an ASHP / Solar / PV but no electric vehicle. Our daughter is visiting from Leeds and has a VW ID3 electric. I had no qualms is switching from my long term Agile tariff to Octopus Go and will remain on it while she is staying with us. The switch was just a matter of ticking a few boxes, and was backdated to midnight of the day I switched. She brought her " Granny Charger " with her, it's restriced to 2.2kW. I have it plugged in to a Shelly plug that is programmed to come on between 00:30 and 05:30. I'm using WW to schedule the home battery to discharge between 21:30 and 23:55, and to charge up the battery during the " Go " period. We're also making use of the time delays built in to our Dishwasher and Washing machine so they come one during the same period, and running the ASHP hot water cycle too. It's working really well, with the Shelly plug keeping track of the car consumption and a separate Shelly current clamp monitoring the ASHP.
I will switch back to Agile once our daughter has gone home, and have a think about what might be the best tariff for winter now that we have a Heat Pump.

johalareewi

Be interesting to see if the Shelly plug is happy with the EV granny charger. Although the plug is rated at 13A, that is for resistive loads. I have used a Tapo P100 with a granny charger for a couple of weeks and it worked fine at 8A (my car can be programmed to charge at 8A YMMV).

KevinD

johalareewi
Isn't the " Granny Charger " a box of electronics to convert the AC mains to DC to feed the car battery? I know that they are restricted to a little over 10A to protect the domestic 13A socket from any potential damage from drawing a continuous 13A. I'm impressed with the amount of data that the Shelly plug / App make available, and its versatility, the one I am using was previously monitoring the besn to cup coffee machine.

johalareewi

KevinD A lot of smart plug come with a disclaimer saying that they are not rated for use with EV chargers even though The EV charger is below the plug rating. Something to do with heavy start up currents? I have used my granny charger with mechanical timers and smart chargers and so far not had any problems. But there are others on the web with different stories.

KevinD

Having read the bumph the granny charger performs a " handshake " with the car which then soft starts up to the 10.2 amp limit. I nust did a search and found that there are EV rated single sockets available:
" 13A EV Sockets Compliant with BS 1363-2 EV " these cost around £4.50.

johalareewi

KevinD 13A EV Sockets Compliant with BS 1363-2 EV

Thats interesting. I just plug the granny charger into any 13A socket. Been doing it for years.

KevinD

johalareewi Yes, as long as it is an established quality UK socket such as MK it will be fine, it's probably the cheapie Amazon or Ebay alphabetti spaghetti named sockets that I wouldn't trust.
The blurb says:
The IET Wiring Regulations (722.55.101.0.201.1i) specify that 13A UK sockets which are installed to charge an EV must comply with BS 1363-2 and be marked ‘EV’ on the back of the plate. The marking on the back is required to demonstrate that it meets the more demanding British Standard, including a cyclical load test. Please note that EV compliant sockets are only manufactured as a single gang; double sockets are not available.