What I need is to set the discharge to meet home demand, and then have the option at peak times to do a full export. Does anyone know how to do this. Also, I don't understand the term "Dynamic" discharge mode. Can anyone tell me what this is please
Richard14 Dynamic in the app is the same as ECO on the portal. For full export you can use timed discharge BUT it does not revert to ECO afterwards so you need to do that yourself. If you want to kick off the full export manually use the Battery Minus option in the quick links on the app. Remember to resume ECO when you want it to stop full discharge. Note that if the battery is fully discharging you cannot dictate how much of it gets exported. The house load will take what it needs (over and above any generation that may be happening) and any left will be exported. Just to be clear - you cannot import and export at the same time. Sorry if that is obvious to you but we've had a few people who though otherwise.
Richard14 A quick search on this forum would readily answer your question; it's not your fault that you didn't get a decent handover from your installer.
The basics: you can control/monitor your system from the web portal and your phone app. The data is pretty much the same but the app can be used in "Home" mode which reduces update time from ten minutes to ten seconds.
In the portal, go to the inverter card - settings. Click on ECO and ensure it's enabled. All the timed settings should be disabled (unless you are planning to charge the battery off-peak). The battery options should be set to maximum charge and discharge with a reserve of 4% (unless you want it higher for any reason). With this setup, the inverter will supply house load from PV if available/sufficient, topped up from battery if necessary. If PV exceeds house load, the inverter will divert the surplus to charge the battery. ECO mode minimises grid import/export (unless the battery is fully charged and PV exceeds house load when it will export the surplus) and is probably the mode most people need most of the time.
In the app, battery charge mode will be solar if the portal is set to ECO, and solar + Grid if you have a timed charge set as well. Battery discharge mode is Dynamic when the inverter is in ECO mode and Scheduled if you have a timed discharge/export enabled.
If you are tempted to use timed discharge/export for any reason, don't do it until you have searched on this forum because it doesn't behave the way people expect it to. Just leave the inverter in ECO and it'll do its job.
Thanks Tim for your reply. I've followed all that and its very helpful. I will search on the forum because I certainly do want to discharge to the grid. You see with Octopus outgoing, the rate they are paying is quite decent between 5.30pm and 6.30pm. I have a full battery because its been a very bright day (despite what the met office said) and I want to export it for an hour and get paid for it. And then having done that I want it to revert to discharge meeting the home demand. Is this not a wise thing to do ?
Richard14 the rate they are paying is quite decent between 5.30pm and 6.30pm
I am seeing less than 24p at those times.
I personally will only export at prices over 50p unless in peak summer I just cant use it or stop it exporting.
You have to take into consideration the maximum cycles of the battery against its expected life, at least thats my view.
bear in mind I am adapt at being wrong.
Yes. I agree - just experimenting really. The problem I have now is that my setting seem to be being overwritten. This has happened twice now - I concluded the first time was because I hadn't hit the save button, but now I belive that was not teh case because it has happened a 2nd time. So in the app, Charge mode was set to Solar + grid, and discharge mode was set to scheduled. I changed it to Solar, and dynamic. I definitely hit save, and it confirmed settings were changed. What I wanted to do was to stop the battery charging overnight. But this morning, the battery had charged and the settings had reverted to the previous settings. Do I have a fault do you think ?
Richard14 Make sure you have all tariff automations off. Tariff automations will override any manual settings and can lead you into a position that you have to reset to defaults, etc. You can either control it yourself or use tarriff automations but both will clash. Ultimately, for the most flexibility many of us use either Home Assistant with givTCP or one of the stand alone programmes written by contributers to this forum. Search for 'python' for the latter. See https://www.speaktothegeek.co.uk/2022/12/givtcp-v2-givenergy-and-home-assistant-with-solar-forecast-automation/ for the Home Assitant solution (I use this). ``
Ah I see. Thanks soooo much for your advice. That explains it all. I'll certainly try out all this
Do you have a lap top or computer - if so I would start by making my settings on the portal rather than the app. First off reset everything. Go to my inverter tab - Settings and Reset to defaults. Then make sure ECO is set. Sometimes you need to press the submit button a couple of times for it to accept.
If you don't have the Home Assistant or Giv TCP etc then you have to make you timed export manually. When you activate timed export it will disable ECO so don't set it running too early. Enable timed export and put your times in, press submit.
You can see if it has worked by monitoring on the app, as this registers the export quicker than the portal, but don't mix instructions between the two for one timed charge/export as I've found it gets confused (and so did I!!)At the end of the period go back to the portal, disable timed export, submit and re-enable ECO. If you forget to do this you will continue to use power from the grid to satisfy house demand. I set a alarm on my phone to remind me, as if you're on Economy 7 it can be an expensive omission. I do this all the time to offset the cost of imported electricity. When you've got the hang of it on the portal, the I would move to trying it on the app following Tim's instructions. Do NOT use timed Discharge on the portal.
Thank you Karen. All good advice. I'll work through this steadily and get things sorted. I have a laptop so I can get in the portal, as well as the app on the phone. It's a learning curve !!
Richard14 I would agree with Karen, that the portal is the best way to manage the system (unless something has changed in last 6 months). Whenever I have used the app to change settings it seems to mess up other settings. Don't forget you can always use portal via a Web browser on a phone if you have to access your system away from a PC/Laptop.
The other thing I would recommend is to work out battery use overnight, as if I was to export at this time of the year my battery would not last overnight, then I would be using mains electricity at higher rate than exported. I always err on the side of under exporting as getting it wrong and having to use grid electric is much more expensive than missing out on a bit of export.
You can also reduce export by ensuring that you use energy intensive appliances (washer, dishwasher etc) when the sun is shining. We very rarely use the washer or dishwasher on grid electricity. Self consumption is generally the way to get most financial benefit except when there are very high export rates on Octopus Agile Outgoing.
Thanks Martyn. Things are going much better now. I agree that the portal is much better than the App, but I am managing to do what I want with both of them. I can also see by changing something in the App, the effect it has on the inverter settings in the portal. the app has a very poor update rate when away, and not that great when at home, but now I know that I can work with it. I know my usage overnight is almost spot on 1kWh, so if the sun hasn't shone previously to charge my batteries then I am doing that overnight at cheap rate. As well as being on Octopus Agile for import, I am on Agile outgoing for export. I am beginning to feel that for export I may be better off with the fixed 15p tariff because in bright sunlight the batteries charge up quickly and then there is no choice apart from exporting the excess immediately. I am happy with the system now as I can make it do what I want. BTW I have 7kwp dual aspect limited to 5kW by SolarEdge inverter. I then have 2x 5.2kWh GE batteries together with he GE 3kW inverter.
Don't forget yo can switch Octopus smart tariffs every 30 days. So in winter you could run on the variable rate doing a timed export at peak periods and taking the hit on the relatively small amount of excess solar you generate. But you could then swap to fixed as the days get longer and you are sending much more to the grid
Old thread I know but it seems like a hole in the system that Eco mode can't be timed in the same way as charge/discharge. Has anyone heard that his will come in a future release?
I'm trying to manage this through Home assistant and GivTCP - having some issues so scrolling through this forum which I how I came across this post.
Cheers all
Lmcde3 Hmmm, I have always considered ECO as a 'default' mode. My system is in ECO unless I want it to do something else but it should return to ECO once it's done it. Not come across a situation where this doesn't work for me. I believe GE are working on a much more flexible automation tool but I don't think it's a priority as complex automations can be handled using other tools (HA, givTCP, R&D labs, Palm, etc) and their working hard squishing bugs in almost everything. If you have a specific profile in mind why not post it here and maybe there's someone here that's got it down.
Lmcde3 Eco mode can't be timed
I think you have a HY5 but don't know which generation. All the HYs "overlay" timed charge on top of ECO (ie outside timed charge ECO is the default mode). AFAIK Timed discharge/export, on the gen 1 disables ECO mode completely, but the gen 2 and gen 3 behave in a way that you would expect: timed discharge holds the battery (ECO mode is never enabled and house runs on grid) until the discharge period, when it meets house load, and timed export runs in ECO mode until the timed period when it discharges at full rate.
@hoggy this is my understanding which could be tabulated for the wiki.
Health Check - This is only my understanding and if it is not correct, then please will owners of other inverters correct me?
cluelesscris Me too, I think of Eco as the default you’d leave the inverter in all the time, trying to meet house demand from battery storage; then with timed activities round the ends of the day such as overnight cheap rate forced charging and peak evening discharging to take advantage of flux discharge prices for example.
One option where Eco default wouldn’t work is if your batteries aren’t sufficient for the day’s house demand and you want to keep the battery storage to avoid peak period imports. In the winter with my ASHP my daily load will be greater than the battery capacity. Might get a bit of solar charging during the day, but not always. If the batteries are charged overnight at cheap rate and then used during the day I will run out say by evening time, meaning any grid draw could well be at a peak rate.
What I’d want to do is to “save” the batteries for the peak period and accept that I am going to have grid draw during the day. Default Eco mode wouldn’t do this.
One way to meet the requirement is to leave the battery in Eco mode but set the battery discharge rate to zero/low during the day and then increase it when you want to allow the batteries to meet house demand in the peak period.
Tim AFAIK Timed discharge/export, on the gen 1 disables ECO mode completely
I too understand that gen 1 hybrids the behaviour of Timed discharge/export is different from gen 2 and 3 but I wouldn’t say that Eco mode is “completely disabled”. Eco mode seeks to meet house demand from solar then battery then grid in that order. If you are doing a timed discharge/export then you’ll still get that same Eco behaviour happening; any house demand is firstly met by solar, then the discharging battery, and its only any excess that then gets exported. How and whether Eco mode operates either side of the timed discharge period is what’s different with gen 1 and 2/3
geoffreycoan If you are doing a timed discharge/export then you’ll still get that same Eco behaviour happening
That's not my understanding of how the gen1 operates. I agree that during timed discharge/export, the gen 1 uses any solar to meet house load and charge battery with any surplus, or export if the energy can't utilised in-house. During these timed discharge/export periods, the inverter meets house load from solar or battery (Timed Discharge) or exports at full rate from solar and battery (Timed Export). Outside the timed Discharge/Export periods, in the absence of any solar, house load is met from grid. But, if this is wrong, I'm happy to be corrected.
I think of ECO mode as minimising grid import/export by supplying house load from solar/battery or diverting surplus solar to charge the battery.
Tim I think we are agreeing with each other !
Tim Outside the timed Discharge/Export periods, in the absence of any solar, house load is met from grid
Thanks all.
You're right, I have a Gen1.
The behavior I see is as follows:
Eco Enabled and Timed Charge Enabled - when the timed charge is inactive the solar/battery covers the house load, then when the timed charge period starts, energy is pulled from the grid (this is overnight off peak charging when there is no solar available)
The timed charge works as i'd expect however the below happens for timed discharge:
Eco Enabled and Timed Discharge Enabled - Eco takes priority and there is no 'above home load' discharge from the battery even during the timed period.
Eco Disabled and Timed Discharge Enabled - house load covered by the grid and battery held until timed discharge (which happens at full power per my discharge rate settings).
Really I just need the discharge behaviour to work in the same way for discharge as it does above for charge. Eco until timed discharge, then rerun to Eco after times discharge.
It seems strange to me that it doesn't do this - and I'd have thought it was only a software update needed?
For clarity. Would a Gen2/3 work in the way I desire...if so...I may upgrade.
(I'm also trying to get my home assistant to control the inverter in the above way but so far not luck...that's for another thread once I've finished reading the history)
Thanks. Liam
geoffreycoan any house demand is firstly met by solar, then the discharging battery, and its only any excess that then gets exported.
If only this happened on gen1
I have a Gen 3, an 8.2 and 9.5 battery, and am also on Flux. These are my settings and it works perfectly, the way you describe you want yours to work.
Overnight charge 2-5am to as full as the battery can get in 3 hours (we can charge at 3.6kwH so that's more than you can fill on Gen 1). Topped up by solar during the day and during the summer we're at 100% before 4pm and exporting the excess. If it's a bad day and solar is not covering house load, batteries kick in to make up the difference. Export starts at 4pm (Timed Discharge) while also covering the house load and ends at 7pm. After that the battery covers our needs. Over summer we've usually had at least enough left to see us through to 2am again.
As the days get shorter we'll need to tweak this as eventually we won't have enough to export for the full 3 hours and still cover our own needs until 2pm but that's a problem for another day.
We used to have a Gen 1 and the Gen 3 works much better for us.