Timed Discharge and Eco mode

Hey all

Got a weird thing - I'm trying to set my inverter to charge the battery overnight and discharge it during peak hours. So I turn on 'Timed Charge', turn on 'Timed Discharge' and turn off 'Eco'. But every time I turn off 'Eco' it also turns off 'Timed Discharge' and turns on 'Timed Export'. Any ideas why?

Ideally, I want to:

• Set a charge level on timed charge
• Have any excess PV power top up the battery during the day, or export if the battery is full.
• Timed discharge in evening hours (just meeting internal demand and importing anything over the discharge limit)

Is there something I'm missing?

"Eco" and "Timed Discharge" seem to be mutually incompatible. One or the other.

You could try extending the "charge" period to just before when you want to use it, then leave it in Eco. That would not accomplish objective #2, sadly.

Yeah, I'm happy with them being mutually exclusive. But if I turn off 'Eco' it also turns off 'Timed Discharge' and turns on 'Timed Export'...

Unless you want to start writing automation (see various other topics), or wait for GivEnergy to fix what sounds like a bug (could be a long wait), then

Just set it to Eco and a timed charge

Don't worry about when you discharge the battery, just use it when you need to use it.

Yes we get that some people want to be good to the grid and use less in the evening, but other than helping the grid does it matter?

(For any saving sessions, perhaps change your time charge and/or pause the battery as required).

TX200 If you're on Octopus Agile then yes it does matter when you use it - because peak times are more expensive. I think I will just set it to timed export for those times for now. I will still be in profit like that, it is just annoying is all.

MattWhitfield The alternative might be to ask Octopus to take control of the battery - so it charges when cheap and exports when demand is high.

Not sure if the GivEnergy agile tariff automation is still live (add a tariff card to the web portal dashboard for that), or if there's a way to do it from the Octopus side.

Maybe check out Octopus's developer forum. You have to ask Octopus for an invite to the forum (it's only for those on agile).

Is ECO turning off actually wrong, perhaps the understanding/use of ECO is the problem?

Timed Charge - Battery is charged to set level overnight according to time settings,.
During the day the house uses solar when available & battery when it isn't and charges battery if there is excess solar. (Effectively this is ECO mode)
Timed Export - Exports the the battery charge for the specified period.
After the Timed Export period battery is used 'til flat and grid is used for excess requirement until the Timed Charge Period starts..

On good days this isn't a problem, the Timed Export period can always be covered. However on bad days perhaps it can't be, therefore the Timed Charge level/period needs to be increased to ensure that the Times Export can be covered.

SilverArt it sounds like this could be achieved by running in Eco mode with a schedule on the % battery reserve to hold back a percentage for peak times. Easy to do externally via the API.

stevelewis I don't use the API, just the dashboard. I don't know whether that API "Discharge" (Timed Export?) option also switches off 'ECO' which was the 'problem'.

SilverArt the broader issue is that you're trying to use the system in a manner which wasn't considered in the use case or design. That's where automation and the API come into play.

stevelewis I totally agree with you, the world has moved on since that design was specified. All I've suggested is a possible way of achieving the result in a fairly acceptable manner using existing (outdated) tools.

To restate it - after turning on 'timed discharge', then switching off 'Eco' - 'timed discharge' is turned off and 'timed export' is activated.

And I think the reason for this is there isn't the concept of 'timed export' and 'timed discharge' in the actual inverter registers. There is just 'enable dc discharge' and 'eco'.

So I think 'enable dc discharge' on and Eco off = 'timed export' and 'enable dc discharge' on and Eco on = 'timed discharge'.

I have it set up that way now, so I will know what it does in the morning 😁

Ok, so in that configuration (register 'enable dc discharge' on and 'eco' on - so on the portal it says 'eco' and 'timed discharge') - it just starts discharging whenever it feels like it.

Which makes me think that actually, timed discharge really doesn't work at all.

MattWhitfield Need to see the design documentation, such as a state transition diagram, from GivEnergy to understand what the system should be doing... there appears to be a variety of settings in different operating modes which could conflict.

stevelewis Yeah... Or, really, any half decent technical documentation at all...

MattWhitfield With one exception it actually does exactly what it is told by the look of it, The exception is that it re-enables ECO as part of the Timed Charge sequence. However, if the last thing that is done is Disable ECO it appears to stick.
I set up a sequence this morning to do:
1) a Timed Charge from 10:00 to 10:30
2) a Timed Discharge from 11:30 to 11:45
after setting it up I noticed that ECO had been enabled so I disabled it and hit Submit. The setting appear to hold.

Battery discharge for 15 mins and is currently holding its resultant charge, solar is either being used by the house or exported.

SilverArt After doing that, close the portal and reopen it. I suspect you'll find that 'Timed Discharge' is disabled and 'Timed Export' is selected.

MattWhitfield Sorry Matt I was in "Timed Export " mindset, however what it has proved is their logic.
1) ECO mode Enabled allows specified battery discharge period via Timed Discharge
2) ECO mode disabled allows battery export via Timed Export, however, Disabling ECO needs to be the last action.

SilverArt except when you are in the 1 state on - i.e. Eco mode on and timed discharge enabled, it just discharges whenever it feels like it and doesn't wait for the specified period.

@MattWhitfield appreciate this is an old post but did you ever get any solution to this? I'm in exactly the same situation as you. Its only temporary as i'll move to intelligent octopus as soon as they have set things up their side but i'm astonished its not possible to tell the system to charge overnight, discharge in the evening and around those times only use solar and grid and never discharge battery and and never export from battery. I would have expected this to be a very standard set up amongst customers on time based tariffs. Given i'm having the same issues i'm guessing its still not possible but wanted to reach out in case you had stumbled on a successful sequence of settings? Thanks!

bellpiero Yeah... I solved it - but it involved writing software to control the system... there really isn't a good way around it, because the inverters don't have enough config registers to really express what you want to do. Apparently it is better with the Gen3 inverters...

Thanks mate, appreciate the reply. I have a gen3 inverter so its stil an issue with those. Not sure i'm cut out for custom software etc so will see how it goes with IOF once i'm on that. Thanks again

I have same issue, I want to control when I use power for the evening and then let it charge through the day , but the system takes no notice of any settings I ask for, i request 50% reserve, it ignores that and will discharge to whatever it likes.
Battery gives to grid when told not to and requires charging .
Its as if the app is ignored.
I want the power and not feed the grid, and at least once a month it dumps a full load without being told, i do not have any Octopuss or fancy deals
I just want the power to be used as I see fit,
A clock timer and anologue switches would allow this , never mind failed software encoding

Octo R@D labs scheduler.
You will need to register and it can take 24hrs for all menu items to appear.
I could not get reset to Eco to work on my Gen1 after I went to 3013. It may be fixed now bit by then I had gone to HomeAssistant.
https://smart-energy.octopushome.net/sign-in

SteveCook
Very helpful, thanks. I too struggle to schedule discharges without the inverter dumping to the grid etc, much as has been described by others above.
I have registered with Octo R&D Labs a couple of days ago and my Octopus account details have been imported but I am struggling to know how to get my inverter in to the Octo scheduler, it doesn't appear anywhere. Do I need an API and if so could someone wiser than myself point me in the right direction?
Having spent thousands on my system I refuse to have to learn coding on a Raspberry Pi simply to get my inverter to do what Octopus said it would. So frustrating.
I do find this community very helpful.

KevinH
You have to get your Octo API from your main Octo portal page in personal settings.

bellpiero To do exactly what you want is easy. Set the 'Timed charge' to Start at the start of your overnight session and set the End Time to when you want to start using the battery. The battery will hold its charge all day. Only 'use' is normal system operating noise.

SteveCook
Thanks Steve. I didn’t make myself clear enough; it is when trying to add my inverter in the Octo R&D portal that I am asked for a GE API, but I cant find anything that looks right. All I can see in the GE portal is api:inverter. I am obviously missing something 🥴

KevinH
Kevin.
Sorry out all day and only have phone. I will reply when I get home tonight

I think you have to go to the GivEnergy portal, then Account Settings, then Manage Account Security, then Manage API tokens.
Note things have changed since I did mine and I kept a copy that it emailed to me and used that.
Mine is about 400 characters long and I just cut and pasted it into Octo account settings.
Same process with getting Octo API into R&D portal

Thanks Steve, done that but can’t see a long string, so I’ve emailed GE Support.
Many thanks for your help 👍

KevinH
UPDATE
It wasn't until I generated a new token with all boxes ticked that it generated and displayed. And Octopus R&D Labs accepted it. Woopee.

Well done.
Perhaps you could describe the process on here with some screenshots for others to follow

SteveCook
OK, so, I wanted to set my Gen3.6 hybrid inverter to charge at the (I chose 8) cheapest Agile windows each night, saving me the hassle of looking them up every evening and resetting the times in the GE app/portal. And avoiding the need to get in to software writing.
As advised, I registered for R&D Labs access, input my Octopus api and after a few hours the Agile had been imported in the background.
I did exactly as advised, and obtained my GE api by way of the GivEnergy portal (Account Settings > Manage Account Security > Manage API tokens. Although apis were generated they would not work in the R&D Labs app until I finally twigged that it had to be all encompassing, so allowing full access, not limited to the inverter.
The GE api (no username or password, as erroneously suggested in other places online) was entered in the 'Devices' page of the L&D app, and was accepted.
From there a simple schedule allows me to do exactly what I wanted to achieve, with no need for Home Assistant, Raspberry Pi, etc. It's very intuitive.
I know to many on this forum that this is basic stuff, and it is, but finding out just this small bit of information feels like a breakthrough for me and has put a smile back on my face.

KevinH
Kevin
Fantastic new and thanks for the post.
I have Gen1 Hy5.0 and in my early days on Flux I used R&D scheduler for off peak import and peak export and it all worked fine and reset to Eco after timed export.
I then updated to 3013 and it would no longer reset to Eco after timed export, so I went to HA.
R&D may be fixed now on a Gen1 Hy5.0 but I have not tried

Glad to see other members are having similar problems as myself. I have tried over many months to set my system to charge the battery during my cheap tariff and discharge in the evening. No matter what combination of settings I made the GE software has a mind of its own. I set Eco - Off, Timed Charge - On, Timed Discharge - On and Timed Export - Off. When I check next day, or even later the night I set options I find that Eco has been enabled,-Timed Discharge disabled and sometimes Timed Export - On. This means that although the battery has charged it has also discharged and I have no battery power left for when I need it. Complete shambles. Have spoken with GE support for a solution with complete failure. I asked if at least they could disable Eco as this seems the main problem but this apparently is not possible.
Then Octopus introduced their R&D Labs portal and I hoped this would resolve matters. This portal is apparently meant to override the GE software. I setup everything and initially thought this is great, then the problems started. I used the scheduler to set my charge/discharge times, then edited these exactly as I wanted. The first problem is when I tried to setup the discharge, when entering through the scheduler it appeared to work but using the settings page something was not quite right and when you try to change you get an error message. However, the main frustration is that the R&D Portal does not over ride the GE software!!! Although setting the R&D to do what I want I find the Eco setting turned on and timed discharge changed to time export, it even changes some of my times. I then check the GE App and the settings are the same on it, so something is not right. I have contacted Octopus about the situation but have had no response. I have now disengaged Octopus from my battery settings until I get assurance that it works.
If any member has made the R&D Portal work as they expected I would be glad to hear.
As a side point, do any staff of GE read this Forum?

dmhome I share your frustrations, both with GE and Octopus support...so far neither have been of any real help to me when I 'reached out' (hate that term) although GE did at least reply. Not confident at all that either read this forum so it's very much a self help group, and I for one am grateful for it.
So...I can see what you are trying to do but I am not sure that it's actually doable in R&DLabs which is, after all, a work in progress itself. Please don't take this next thought as patronising, for I am very much a novice here, but maybe it is worth going back to basics and trying to ask the scheduler to do the first step of your desired automation, see if it works, then tweak it, see if it works, etc, until it falls over. At least then the problem, the clash of settings that is stopping you from getting your desired result should be clear, and maybe somebody on here with more nouse than me can advise? Just saying.
I can't help but think that almost everybody on here has experienced similar issues and resolved them in some way, and maybe a set of well crafted FAQs might be helpful. Anybody listening?

Have you tried Wonderwatt?

Seen a few people mention it on here. I’ve never used it.

dmhome charge the battery during my cheap tariff and discharge in the evening.

To do exactly what you have asked for:

Have you tried: https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/3211-timing-is-everything/14

The only things I would possibly add is to do a 'RESET TO DEFAULTS' then wait 10 minutes after a positive acknowledgement to set it up. Plus if your peak period can be covered by say a 70% battery charge set the 'Charge to %' to maybe 75%,.

Hook I've used Wonderwatt but am waiting further developments to make it really useful to me. What it does it does well however you'd still need to set it up in exactly the same way as you need to set up Giv. to achieve the required end result.

SilverArt I am a newbie here with a recently installed GE 8.2kWh battery system with a GIV-AC3.0 inverter (not sure what Gen but purchased Mar 23) and I want to try to optimise its use with my Octopus Flux ideally by charging 0200-0500hr then using solar (8.25kW array) and grid mainly during the day and then to make use of the 1600-1900hr peak window by running off only solar & battery, and exporting any extra by forced discharge. I've only just discovered the Remote Control page in my GE Dashboard but don't know where to start. Any help to get safely started welcome? I don't support there's a Manual for the GE Remote Control stuff?

johnsherman probably ought to make a new thread for this. Not sure what you mean by "mainly" solar and grid - I suppose limiting the battery discharge power might achieve that
I have a hybrid rather than AC, so not sure what settings you have available, but I could for example configure the battery to pause discharge from 5am to 4pm, or just configure timed export from 4pm to 7pm which will hold the battery for the rest of the time.
(It will be several weeks before you see solar after 4pm...)

johnsherman Please, read and try:: https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/3211-timing-is-everything/14
Also why 'Forced discharge? Don't over think what you are trying to achieve, in simple terms (Giv. is not good at complicated unfortunately)
In short: Charge battery during cheap period starting at 02:00 and set the finish time to 16:00. Your battery can only charge to 100% and that should be achievable in that cheap period time slot, if it did overrun for any reason it would be peanuts. Battery then holds and gets used from 16:00... Simples...

SilverArt Simples...

... except for the bit about "exporting any extra by forced discharge" ?

SilverArt Thanks for your idea. I did read your post when you posted it. However, found it did not work, the software changed to Eco during the day and discharged most of my battery leaving nothing for when I needed it. I found on a number of occasions it changed to Full Export.
It is frustrating that people are pointing out all these problems but no work appears to be happening on resolving them.

DD I never mentioned 'forced discharge' other than questioning why? I see absolutely no reason for wanting to do it as a standard other than if there is a Saver session and that is then handled on a session by session basis.

SilverArt Sure, but I quoted directly from johnsherman

Flux tariff pays a premium for export during the peak period - seems a perfectly plausible reason for wishing to force discharge then. (That said, in my region it only matches the import price for the rest of the day, so I can't see any particular benefit, but I don't know their circumstances - their system, their choice.)

dmhome In which case something else has affected it so: Start from scratch:
In the portal : 'My Inverter' > 'SETTINGS' > 'RESET TO DEFAULTS' > SUBMIT - Make sure you get a positive acknowledgement. - Wait 10 minutes....then
Check 'ECO' is 'ENABLED'
'TIMED CHARGE' - 'ENABLED' - Set Start Time to the start time of the cheap period and set the Stop Time to when you want to start using the battery (NOT the End time of your Cheap period)
If you cannot fully charge your battery in the Cheap Rate period then you could set the 'Charge to %' to the level that matches what you can achieve.
Click 'SUBMIT' and make sure that you get a positive acknowledgement.
'TIMED DISCHARGE' should be 'Disabled'
'BATTERY OPTIONS' should be at the defaults
NOTE ECO WILL be Enabled

If this does not hold something else really is messing it up

johnsherman Thanks for the replies. Much appreciated. Happy to start a new thread if that's appropriate but just to clarify some things here....

1. "mainly" solar and grid means I want to keep the battery to draw from mainly for the peak 4-7pm slot, running off solar but topped up from the grid when needed during the day (obviously less grid in summer/on sunny days)
2. I did read the timing is everything post but wasn't super-sure on it. Hence asking my specifics here.
3. On 'forced discharge' - I have been under the impression that it is possible to switch a GE battery to discharge to the grid during peak time/cost. i.e having charged it during the cheap night period, discharge it during peak and profit from the difference (if I don't need that to run the house at that time of course)
4. What is the Eco setting that's referred to? Mine looks to be set to that but nowhere can I see what that actually does/means?
5. I've followed your instructions SilverArt SilverArt Thanks. Couple of things - I've set Charge to 100% since this should be doable in the 3hr night-time slot, Also Timed Export is Disabled (not sure what that is), my Battery Options are both 3000W - all OK? That said - it's charging at 2.81kW from the Grid now (3pm) rather than waiting until 2am as I had hoped....
6. Can all this be done via the GE App? If so, I can't see how.
   Thanks again all.

johnsherman Always better to start a new thread for a specific query, otherwise replies get all mixed up with whatever other conversation is happening at the same time.

Sorry, I know I'm being pedantic. I understand that you want to preserve the battery until the peak period. Running entirely from solar and grid makes sense, but mainly suggests that maybe sometimes it will also use battery, or something.

You can't really tell the battery to discharge to the grid. You can tell it to discharge at a fixed rate: if that rate is greater than the house demand, then the excess will be exported to the grid; if that rate is less than the house demand, then additional power will still be imported from the grid. You can't tell it to discharge the battery to the grid independently of the rest of the house load.

"Eco" mode (aka "dynamic" in the app) is the default operating mode - the inverter automatically controls the battery discharge rate to exactly cover the house load, requiring neither import from, nor export to, the grid. Any power from your solar will, of course, reduce the need for battery discharge, and if there's excess solar, the inverter should use it to charge the battery if there's space, otherwise it will get exported.

Assuming you've set the charge window to be 2am to 4pm, then charging now will be a one-time thing, since the battery is not currently at 100%. On subsequent days, it will start charging at 2am, and once it has reached 100%, it will hold there until the end of the charging time. However, at this point, unless you have configured a timed discharge, eco mode will just match the house load, without dumping any extra to the grid, which is what SilverArt recommends, but isn't what you originally asked for.

You can configure most things on the app. The web portal has a few additional control features (possibly multiple charge/discharge slots, pausing charging/discharging, etc) that are not available on the app. See the 'remote control' section in the inverter part of the web portal.

To query your requirements: in my region, the daytime import price is the same as the peak-time export price. So there doesn't seem to be any financial benefit in importing to cover daytime use, then exporting to the grid during peak time. But obviously if your battery doesn't have enough capacity to cover house usage before 4pm, it does make sense to save it for peak time. But if your battery has enough to get you through to 7pm, then I'd have thought it simpler just to use Eco mode throughout the day, even if you end up having to import at day rate after 7pm.

johnsherman t's charging at 2.81kW from the Grid now (3pm) rather than waiting until 2am as I had hoped....

Ah, sorry, perhaps I should have said only enable it after the End Time, apologies. Once you've then been through an overnight session it should be ok.
Battery options are fine although you could possibly reduce the charge rate, divide the battery kWh by the number of hours charge time you want, it just means that the inverter and the batteries may run slightly cooler

Hook
Never heard of Wonderwatt but I'll google it tonight, many thanks for the pointer. 👍

johnsherman
You kick started a really useful discussion in this thread, I have learned a lot, many thanks.
One thing puzzles me though: when you say 'remote control' where do I locate this? Do you mean the cog at top left of the inverter tab in the GE portal, by any chance?
Ta very much.

KevinH Do you mean the cog at top left of the inverter tab in the GE portal, by any chance?

Yes, that's the one, next to the power icon ("restart inverter")

Note that it if you have any kind of local control in place, such as using home assistant, the web portal may not have the up to date values for these registers. You can force it to reload the data from the inverter. But that probably shouldn't be necessary. (Updates via the app are sent via the cloud, so they will update the portal. Indeed you should see them in the log at the bottom of the remote-control page.)

DD Thanks very much for this response. I feel a bit guilty coming back with more rather than with a new thread but fear losing the 'connection'...
I have had a Eureka moment (I think) over the feedback from you on timed discharge - to set the discharge to max during peak rate slots or even better for Octopus Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) events and minimise house usage too and see what happens. They were paying £4 per kWh during the last one...
Just a bit worried that the battery will discharge after the 2-5am cheap window (with little sunlight) before the 4-7pm peak slot happens - have to wait and see.
Thanks again!

Hook
Hi again.
Just checked out Wonder Watt but it doesn't support Agile...yet. Apparently they are working on it so watch this / that space. It looks very promising to me.

also https://www.solarbatteryscheduler.com/ - free trial. Been working nicely for charge and discharge for me. Just leave it to it. Can see what's happened via GivEnergy app.

SilverArt Thanks. Battery charged fully 2-5am (Timed Charge) and is remaining at 100% so we are running off solar (c.500W) and top up from the grid. Intend to switch to battery (Timed Discharge?) from 4pm when peak rate Flux starts then switch to fully discharge (Timed Export?) to grid over the Octopus DFS session 5:30-6:30pm at £2.25 export payment per kW.....

johnsherman You shouldn't need to switch at 16:00, ECO should automatically take over based on your 'Timed Charge' setting and take care of 'normal' usage until you trigger 'Timed Export' at 17.30. The only thing I would suggest that you do after the DFS session is check that: ECO is Enabled - 'Timed charge' hasn't changed and is Enabled, - that 'Timed Export' is Disabled.. If any are in the incorrect state correct them. NOTE: Do not rush it if any need to be changed, it is better to give it 5 minutes or so between changes, especially as the servers could be busy..

johnsherman As has been suggested, if you charge from 2am all the way to 4pm, it will have a net effect of charging to 100% by 5am, then holding charge until 4pm.
You probably don't want Timed Discharge at 4pm - that will start dumping the battery to grid. Though perhaps you do. On my system, timed discharge and timed export are much the same, the only difference is what they do outside of the time period: timed discharge runs the house in eco mode (discharging from the battery exactly what is needed to run the house), whereas timed export turns off eco mode, ie turns off the battery discharge completely.

DD Thanks DD.
Correct, during the daily Flux Peak rate (at 36.68p/kWh import) I wanted to run the house from the battery starting at 100% at 4pm, and not export any at all (at 27.51p/kWh export) and then during the DFS hour I want to export as much as possible (at £2.25/kWh today 5:30-6:30pm) from the battery, but I still have to cover house demand which is sitting stubbornly at around 2kW. I guess this means the max I can export during the DFS hour is 3kWh (max battery discharge rate @ 3kW) less house demand of c. 2kWh = 1kWh so only £2.25.
Any thoughts on this approach very welcome....

johnsherman Switch off whatever is using 1700W of your 3kW if possible. That way you'll be 'saving' <> 4.7kWh compared to normal

SilverArt Thanks SilverArt
Yes, I have turned off as much as I can think of (list below) less fridges & freezers, sewage treatment plant some LED lights. Down to about 1.25kW.... Our 'normal' demand between 5:30-6:30pm is c. 4-6kW :-)
Hot tub
Steam room
Heat pump
Oven & Warm drawer 1
Oven & Warm drawer 2
Induction Hob
Boiling tap
Washing machine
Tumble dryer
Dishwasher
Water treatment plant
MVHR downstairs
MVHR upstairs
Fridge 1 - Kitchen
Fridge/Freezer - Utility
Freezer - Garage upright
Freezer - Garage chest
Microwave
Towel rails
Electric underfloor heating

johnsherman For my system, it's relatively painless: I just configured 'timed discharge' with a window of 17:30 to 18:30 as soon as I signed up for the savings session. It will run in eco mode until 5:30, export for an hour, then back to eco mode for the rest of the day. (Though not sure I'll have much left in the battery by then - not a great day for solar, and I used slightly more than usual during the day before finding out about the savings session.)

Note that most of this thread is about this not working correctly, eco mode and timed export not behaving as people expect/want. So it's possible your AC system isn't as co-operative.

johnsherman Your result is going to be interesting!

On my Gen1 Hy 5.0 I could not get Eco to kick back in after a timed export or timed discharge - plenty of posts about this.
I went to Home Assistant

SilverArt
All worked fine I think. It switched to Eco at 4pm from Timed Charge. I Triggered Timed Export 5:30-6:30 and it returned to Eco on its own accord at 6:30. Timed Charge is still set for 2am-4pm. Was exporting 1.5-2.0kW for the DFS hour. Battery ended up around 30% and has since gone to zero since the heat pump, cooking etc has kicked back in.
Thanks for your help

DD You can't really tell the battery to discharge to the grid. You can tell it to discharge at a fixed rate: if that rate is greater than the house demand, then the excess will be exported to the grid; if that rate is less than the house demand, then additional power will still be imported from the grid. You can't tell it to discharge the battery to the grid independently of the rest of the house load.

If this is the case why have Timed Export, you can just set Timed Discharge and the system should do as you say - meet home demand and export any surplus. Also, why in the App if you set discharge to Dynamic you get the choice of Full Export or Home Demand? Eco is the elephant in this system, why did they not just leave the system so that the consumer can set when they wish the battery to charge and discharge. This would have eliminated all the problems others and myself are having with the setup.

dmhome The names are awful and in no way helpful. AFAIK, these modes describe combinations of settings, rather than the underlying settings.
The underlying settings are

• eco flag (whether battery covers house load, outside of any timed periods)
• timed discharge period.
  (In fact, on the portal, I can now set multiple discharge periods, rather than just one. Probably depends on hardware and firmware versions.)

The modes (on the portal) are then the combinations:

• "eco mode" means eco on, no timed discharge
• timed discharge "mode" means eco on, timed discharge
• timed export "mode" means eco off, timed discharge.
  (No way to enable the other combination? Eco off, no timed discharge, ie battery discharge paused.)

Turning on timed export turns off the eco flag, though (for me) the portal doesn't reflect that until you reload the page (IIRC). The description of 'timed discharge' is just wrong. Timed export does correctly say that it will hold the battery charge (ie disable eco flag) outside of time period.

On the app, they are presented differently:
discharge mode is either 'dynamic' (eco mode), or 'scheduled'
scheduled is then either 'cover house load' (which isn't what it does), or 'full export'. These are really just distinguishing whether the eco flag is on or off.

There may be one other difference: timed discharge honours the discharge power you set, whereas I've not yet experimented whether timed export does that. The docs implies that it ignores the power setting and discharges at full power, but I've had no particular reason to test that yet - timed discharge works exactly as I want it to.

[Note that this is how my hybrid A305 system appears to behave. We have no documentation for the intended behaviour, and no information about how close different firmware releases come to implementing the intended behaviour. I guess it's possible that 'timed discharge' was intended to pause discharge outside of the timed period, and cover house load during the timed period.]

I tried with the wiki to put something together that explains all the mode settings (or more correctly @Tim tried to) BUT there seems to be that many variations depending on Gen & Firmware versions within each gen (and i only have Gen1 installed as a yardstick) I just got fed up trying to make a page that speaks the one truth.
Should anyone fancy another stab at it then I'm all ears!

hoggy Wonder if it would be useful to start a new thread along the lines of 'timed discharge - survey' and collect the observed behaviour on different hardware and firmware revisions ? I can try to find some time to compose a suitable opening post / submission form, unless someone else beats me to it.

I see some earlier discussion of this in a thread called 'discharge settings'
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/1677-discharge-settings

DD
This is a really helpful clarification of the confusion that exists within the terms used by GE, thanks for taking the time to share it (accepting of course that it is gleaned from your own experiences).

DD There may be one other difference: timed discharge honours the discharge power you set, whereas I've not yet experimented whether timed export does that. The docs implies that it ignores the power setting and discharges at full power, but I've had no particular reason to test that yet - timed discharge works exactly as I want it to.

Okay, I did that experiment at the start of the latest savings session... for my system, "full export" does not discharge at maximum power: like timed discharge, it does honour the max discharge rate setting (I had set it to 2kW). So the only difference appears to be whether the eco flag is on ("timed discharge" / "scheduled + home demand") or off ("timed export" / "scheduled + full export")

KevinH Ah... an interesting post from GivEnergy in https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/3633-octopus-agile-ge-smart-tariff-unscheduled-export/10 - they seem to be confirming that Gen-3 behaves differently from Gen-1/Gen-2. [I have Gen-3.]

Inference is that G1 and G2 are (supposed to) implement what is described in the app -- 'timed discharge' should cover home demand only during the timed window -- and G3 is implemented incorrectly 🙁

DD A well laid out explanation highlighting the problems in trying to automate the GE inverter and battery. The options on both the webpage and App. need a complete rethink so that the options provided do what they say ( or even better change the titles once the problems with options is resolved). It is annoying that there is no option to turn Eco off in the App. I find you have to use webpage to do this. If you select Full Export in the App. still have to go to webpage to ensure Eco is off.