Tariff automations are empty

I switched yesterday to Octopus Agile (Import) tariff and on the Cloud portal (and in the app) I do not have any tariff automations showing. Should I have?

Mine has two options, 0030-0430 and stop automations.

Maybe Octopus doesn’t know what tariff you are on yet. 🤣

I guess it might take a few days to sort itself out?

I think there might be another alternative where you ask Octopus themselves to control it from their end. Would need to get your GE API details and enter that into an Octopus website. Not done that myself, so not entirely sure how or where.

https://www.givenergy.co.uk/octopus#introduction

I'm not on Agile - I'm on Go until at least July but saw your post and remembered seeing that GE is able to work with Agile....But looking around it's not clear how this automation actually works.

It will be interesting to hear how you get on over the next couple of days - does the automation update for example once your Octopus APs have had a change to refresh?

[unknown] Thanks, I have spotted that page but it doesn’t help that it talks about 3 steps yet two of them are exactly the same wording!

From what I can gather the automation should allow for it to manage best time to charge and discharge your battery, the problem is that I don’t have any automation options to try it out

It looks like I am going to need to call them when their offices open

[unknown] good luck with that one

The Agile integration used to be detailed in the old portal that has now been decommissioned, if I remember correctly it actually worked by letting Octopus control the battery charging. I think with was done via the Octopus R&D labs which you can sign up to here https://smart-energy.octopushome.net/sign-in
Good luck, let us know how it goes, here are some details from the help section, I’m not on Agile so haven’t tested.

Octopus Energy R&D labs is an ALPHA system we’re experimenting with - please use with caution and at your own risk. We will do everything we can to answer questions, solve issues and help but as a very new system please treat with caution.

Use these instructions to set up a GivEnergy system to track the Agile import and export rates.

Pre-requisites:
Agile import and Agile export tariff
GivEnergy system attached as a device to the Octopus Energy R&D labs system
1 Go to the Schedule menu option.
2 Start typing GivEnergy in the device box and select your inverter from the list.
3 Give your schedule a title.
4 Choose your start/end times.
5 Decide whether to run once (never repeat), or repeat daily, weekly or monthly.
6 Decide whether to use GivEnergy’s own Modes, or select the optimisation drop-down and select Octopus or Carbon.
7 If you have both import and export, you’ll be able to set both charge and discharge values.
8 If you’ve not got an export tariff, the discharge option will not be visible.
9 Set your preferences for the Agile import rate to charge below and the Agile export rate to discharge above. Also set the min and max SOC levels too.
10 Alternatively use the Half-hour to charge and discharge using the best number of half-hours in the period of the schedule. In this screenshot example, the lowest 6 half-hours of Agile import and the highest 3 half-hours of Agile export
11 Once done you’ll see schedules in the Calendar and history will start to populate below.

In my experience, letting Octopus control my batteries worked against me. It was always charging to 70% overnight, regardless of solar or the pricing... And then also regardless of pricing it was charging up before 4pm even though I didn't need extra charge as over night the prices would be low...

Pieszy What would you like it to do?

Reason I ask is I'm writing some software to control mine, and I have some ideas, but it would be good to hear what optimal looks like for you 👍

MattWhitfield
Ideally I'd like giv to set the battery to charge the amount it needs, at the cheapest tariffs, not necessarily at one go.
I.e. octopus agile often has a pattern of lower price for half an hour and then a hike followed by again low price... Why not only charging during the lowest? We know how much energy we normally use, we have the solar forecast give or take...
Also if the price at 2pm is 35p why would I want to charge to 100%? If there's not enough charge it won't change anything.
With the data giv collects it must be predictable how much charge we need to go through peak time

Pieszy I was thinking much the same. If we had the ability to set two or more charge periods we could pick out as many low cost / low carbon thirty minute slots as we needed. Clearly adding in Solar forecast plus Agile numbers and a dash of AI would be the ideal but simply giving me multiple charge slots would get most of the way there.

I have only had the gubbins for a few weeks by the way so my opinions are based winter performance only.

In summer it still charged my batteries to 100% over night - not so smart taking into consideration that im more than 6x covered by solar generation in summer... (oversizing was intentional)
I think the worst idea is to let the Octopus to control when you charge - we should only gather tarrif info and GIV should be in controll ultimatelly (or the user perse).

IanStuart
I'm very happy with Octopus R&D picking my charging slots. Honestly I think there has to be some manual input if you really want to optimise to the penny... While some AI might be able to factor in solcast data and predicted usage only I know that I was at home last weekend and did loads of washing but this weekend I'm going away...