givTCP and Home Assistant

Hi, I have a new installation with an ac3.0 inverter and a 9.5 battery (and solar panels on their own inverter). It has been suggested that I use givTCP and Home Assistant to automate a charging process. So, what are they, where do I get them from, and what do I need to run them please. I have some experience with running Unix on a Raspberry Pi if that is what is required, although I have a spare Windows 10 laptop and if that would make a better platform then its a more convenient computer to use.
Thanks for your help.
Tim

666tim666 https://m.youtube.com/c/SpeaktotheGeekTech.

There's an excellent video on this channel.

666tim666 if you don't want the hassle of installing HA, I've written some Python code to tweak charging, etc. www.github.com/salewis38/palm

I personally use Home Assistant as a virtual machine on a pc that I used to use that was sittin around. The pc runs unraid as a server with dockers and the Virtual machine for Home Assistant. It will also run just fine on a PI. Home assistant will open up another world of options for you. It depends on what your aims are. If you want to play and find some level of automation to your home in general as well as your Givenergy inverter I would say Home Assistant is a good option

I've got a pretty new setup too and not tried givtcp or integrating with my home assistant yet. One thing I'm finding though during this winter period is that I have to keep manually tweaking how much to charge the battery during off peak hours (I'm on octopus go) depending on whether it's going to be a sunny day or not, to avoid charging up too much when it's going to be charged for free by the Sun. So with home assistant, is it possible to automatic the timed charge percentage based on weather forecast?

Doggl3s others have configured HA to do this. I vary my system's overnight charge based on the Solcast forecast using stand-alone Python code. The first question is whether it's even worth you thinking about this as the benefits vary hugely depending on the tariff you're on and the amount you get paid for exports.

anthony Yes, it most certainly is. There's several examples of people doing this. Check outthe link I gave to th initial post - it's exactly what you are looking for.

A900 Hardware lying around is a good option - though can be expensive to run (laptop probably isn't too bad) - other than that a rasberry pi is an easy option or something like a NUC - I bought one 2nd hand off ebay and installed Proxmox ob it (Its effectively a hypervisor environment) and then have a VM which is installed HASSIO, a vm running ubuntu with docket and GIVTcp another vm with docker and my network supervisor and a third runing debian and cloudflare tunnel service.

stevelewis

Octopus have a new tariff that makes it worth doing. I.e x2 cheap periods

cluelesscris Thanks for your reply, and also thanks to you stevelewis. I will look at the links and consider what to do next. As I start, can I take it that Home Assistant and givTCP are free to download code which run in a Unix environment? And should I assume that givTCP is aimed specifically at managing givenergy products whereas Home Assistant manages items from other companies (or DIY devices)?

666tim666 GivTCP is a library that connects to the inverter locally. Home Assistant is a full-up home automation environment. I don't use either... the 5-minute data from the GivEnergy API is sufficient for most purposes. GivTCP gives 10-second updates, load balancing across multiple inverters and accessing nuts-and-bolts battery data.

Doggl3s I'll be comparing Cosy Octopus with Go when my current deal is up at the end of March. Not sure if it's as cheap as Go if there's both an EV and ASHP involved, but I like the fact that it doubles the usefulness of the battery in the winter months.

stevelewis

I've no ev and have just moved to octopus for cosy. I've looked back at my historical usage and compared to just being on a standard variable tariff, I think it will work out better for me.