Battery charging ECO mode ignores forced charging limits

I have Octopus GO, with 4 hours overnight of cheap electric.
Therefore, I set the forced charging mode to 4 hours to match the cheap rate - this works great

However, with ECO mode managing the charge / discharge I find it ignores limits to the battery charging.

For example, when I know it is going to be sunny, I dont want the battery to 100% overnight, and set the forced charge limit to say 75%

I guess because of ECO mode, this is ignored and I wake up to a full battery. Then with the solar generation it just gets dumped into the grid.

Ideally I want the charge percentage to adjust based on solar estimates for the next day. Failing that, I at least want to be able to limit the energy from the grid manually - but it seems not to work.

I have searched these forums and cannot seem to see a solution.

Am I missing something? A setting or a way round this?

Thanks

markgw have you added your details under the smart tariff card? If so, this overrides your settings and automatically charges to 100%. Or do you have Home Assistant running GivTCP? If so, disable SmartTarget in the configuration.

markgw This is exactly what I do and it works fine for me. Check you havent got any tariff automations set. If in doubt go back to base and reset to defaults, set eco, set charge period.

Cdent I think is is the tariff info - I will have a look at the settings.
I briefly thought about Home Assistant and left it in the "sometime in the future" box.
Thanks

cluelesscris I do have the tariff info added - I will try deleting that or if necessary reset everything.

Thanks

I'm looking at changing energy provider. So, if i opt for one where they offer reduced rates from midnight through until 05:00 and i want to use that lecky to charge my battery (more in the winter months) then would i just leave the eco setting on and set the charge window between those cheap times (ensuing that as above i don't have any smart tarrif details configured) ? And presumably this would be something i would need to manually change each night depending on whether the forecast was showing good solar conditions the next day. Also, currently in the phone app i have the charge option set just to solar. Would i need to change that to solar + grid ? Is this setting shown anywhere in the settings visible in the portal ?

I am on Octopus flux so I charge the battery to 100% in the cheap 2am to 5am slot. That runs my house until the sun comes up and then it replenishes the battery to 100% and then exports. Since the export rate is close to the cheap import rate I get the units I put in in the cheap slot back, so it doesn't really matter if it is a sunny day. I have just borrowed the cheap units and pay them back with a tiny bit of interest. If it is a dull day then I have maximised the chance of the battery having enough charge to get me past the expensive slot.

Maxwell

Yes. You can do it in the phone app.
Select

settings
“system modes”
“Battery charge settings”
“Charge mode”
Solar and grid
Enter the start and end times and the charge up to % (change this as required)

DON’T FORGET TO SAVE and check back it saved ok.

Yes you can do it in the portal as well. It’s in inverter settings “Timed charge”.

Changing one should change the other.

nophead if you are still getting good solar enough to charge the battery up during the day, it’s probably better to only part charge the battery. Yes the cheap rate import is very similar to the daytime export rate but by the time you factor in energy losses on the conversions, you’re probably loosing money slightly. It’s only pence but they all add up!

Most days we get enough sun to export more that we import so it covers the losses and price difference. I prefer that to trying to predict the weather and gambling. Weather almost never matches the forecast. If we loose the gamble we would have to charge before the expensive period and pay for units at the normal rate. We haven't had to do that yet since we got the export tariff.

nophead fair enough, it’s impossible to predict with 100% certainty.
I’m using home assistant and batpred to manage my charging; it generally gets it right and I have enough charge to do a peak rate discharge and run me through to the flux cheap rate period, then a small top up keeps me through to the next days solar.
Sometimes I do run out around midnight or 1am so occasionally have daytime grid draw, but so far every day in the last month bar one I’ve received more export income than paid for grid imports.
Can’t see this positive situation lasting forever though!

Very dull here at the moment and currently flat lined at 60%, which I estimate will only run to about 8pm this evening and then we will have to buy some units at the normal price. Yesterday we still had 20% at 2pm when we start charging.

Fortunately we go to Tenerife in a weeks time and live there for most of the time the UK is on GMT, so it should power the house 100% when we are not there and probably make a profit in the spring as our base load is about 100W, shame the inverter adds another 50W.

Our roof is at 25°, so not great in the winter but should be good in summer when we are around.

Has anyone complained to Givenergy about their default settings. To me it seems stupid having the ability to set Time Charge and Timed Discharge when their default is Eco. This means that the system will always default back to Eco. Getting tired of having to continually go into settings and disabling Eco and reset my requirements. I want the battery to charge during my cheap period and discharge when my home needs the extra power. Would be interested if any has found a way around this and how the did it. If others are having a similar problem, if more complain to Givenergy they may change their defaults

. I want the battery to charge during my cheap period and discharge when my home needs the extra power.

Isn't that what ECO does? I have a timed charged during the cheap period and the rest of the time it is in ECO mode. The solar runs the house, any excess charges the battery and when it is full it exports. If there is not enough sun the battery runs the house.

dmhome timed export doesn't go back into eco as far as I'm aware (might differ on some systems).

I'm not sure there's much difference between timed discharge and timed export.

Both will discharge at the rate that is specified in battery options for the duration that is set in the timed discharge times (start and end times).

Both will power the house if needed and the surplus goes to grid.

If you're interested in automation, to save doing things manually, the most popular option is home assistant (see videos on YouTube by speak to the geek), there's other options too like WonderWatt, powershell, python etc. all using either GivTCP or the API access to the GE portal.

nophead personally I'd say yes, although everyone has different ideas.

My idea is to use as much of the battery every day and it doesn't normally matter when the battery runs out.

The exception to that is if you have a super peak tariff like 4-7pm is very expensive. Then I get saving the battery till 4pm

Even so, some get around that by setting a timed charge from 1am to 4pm.

Can even set a charge to percentage to leave a bit of gap in the battery for solar I think (as I think solar in eco mode charges past the charge to percentage as far as I'm aware) plus set a lower charge rate to charge slowly, which might help with clipping on solar etc.

Putting charge in the battery and getting out again is wasteful of energy and wears the battery. So I like to use the battery in preference to the grid as the units in it are either free from solar or at the cheap rate from the grid but I use solar in preference to the battery because it is free. Seems that is what ECO does.

I have never run the battery down before the expensive period but I can see you might want to keep some in reserve for that and run from the grid in preference to the battery.

But at the same time, if you don't use all of the battery, you're not getting the most out of the investment. Batteries are expensive.

nophead I do not read Eco to do this. My understanding is that on Eco if the battery needs charging it will take this from what is available e.g if solar is available it will charge the battery, if no solar battery will charge from the Grid. Although the inverter knows I am on a smart tariff I do not believe it knows the period when I have cheap rate. This means it will charge during my expensive rate costing me a great deal of money. If you have more knowledge reference the workings of Eco mode would be grateful if you could point me to it.

TX200 I'm not sure there's much difference between timed discharge and timed export.

Timed discharge can be set to provide power to your property, however timed export sends it to the grid.

dmhome I don't think ECO mode ever charges the battery from the grid. The battery is only changed from solar unless you do a forced charge.

@TX200 batteries are expensive but they have a finite lifetime in terms of cycles, so I don't think putting energy in and taking it out just for the sake of it is cost effective. You have to be putting in substantially cheaper units than you can get from the grid or solar when you use them.

dmhome timed discharge for me doesn't cover the house load it discharges at maximum rate. Thus exports what the house doesn't use.

What you've discribed makes sense, but maybe my gen 1 AC3 doesn't support it. 🤣

nophead of course. I'm not going to charge up at peak and discharge at peak, especially cuz of the round trip losses.

I'd just rather use the battery when it's needed rather than save it for later. That might make my energy bill cheaper in the long run, just depends on when you charge and how much it costs etc.

And yes, agree, eco only charges from the solar, doesn't charge from grid. It might take a few Watts here and there from the grid as it balances the house consumption with the inverter output, but otherwise should be solar only outside of any timed charge period.

TX200 If you look at the GivTCP code it helps explain what happens:

https://github.com/britkat1980/giv_tcp/blob/main/givenergy_modbus/client.py#L356

Internally, there seems to be a power mode (Modbus register) that can be either Home Demand or Max Power. When you export it sets Max Power mode and this explains why Export does not return to 'Eco/Dynamic' mode.

A schedule discharge seems to overwrite this and will discharge the battery at a set power for a given time.

When you look at it in a basic manner, a battery can be either be charging/discharging/idle. When considering discharging, it can: meet home demand, at full power, at a user chosen power - this can be now or scheduled.

The terms Discharge/Export/Eco/Dynamic etc are simply a combination of the basic operations above.

I believe that Timed Export is at full power, and that Timed Discharge is at the discharge rate set by the user by registers. Timed Export set 'Max Power Mode' Timed Discharge leaves it in 'Home Demand Mode' (hence returns to Eco/Dynamic).

My AIO is in Eco mode always, and does a timed discharge from 21:00 to 23:30. The only setting I change is the discharge rate (by GivTCP) to flatten the battery at 23:30.

I have read this thread with interest, can't say I fully understand it all. For instance what's an A10? , (modbus register) ?,
I am not on any smart meter or tariff, my system is 3.75kw array, 5.2 kW Bat, 3.6 kW inverter. The inverter and battery are situated in the garage, I am having to use a WiFi extender to stop the dongal from losing signal from the house..

Question can I get a G4 dongal fitted to remove the WiFi problem

Pandorian correct.
All new FW I've designed to follow the flux model.
Charge slot(s)
Discharge slots (s) read export
Eco
Set all at once and forget.

Charge and discharge slots have targets.
Discharge example.
1600-1900 limit 50%
At 1600 it will switch from eco to export at full power, or a power you set.
It will continue till either it gets to 50% OR reaches 1900.
Once at 1900 the inverter returned to Eco.

TheDragon (GivEnergy) That looks good.

One thing that might be useful is to adopt common terminology:
Eco/Dymamic/Home Demand are the same, so pick one.
Discharge/export are the same (just a different power) - I would drop the term export personally.

Just had installed AIO ( All in One) 13.5KW battery only system and been playing around with settings. Im on Agile Smart Tariff import only and at the moment no AP Interfaces. Using GE portal and App only.

Found this forum full of excellent advice and to be honest the helpfulness of people explaining in detail is the epitome of good community sharing.

Having read so much now I have gone back to simple basics and set timed charged only to 0030 through 0430 each day and take the hit in fluctuations in low rate during these times. When I worked it out to select say 6 half hour slots it was pence so for no no API.

So I've reverted to keeping it simple and forget about it for a month and will learn how it performs before next stages as planning adding solar in the future. Changing my start and finish charge times to match best shown on Octopus Watch made so little difference and took more time but helped me learn a lot.

I think Eco mode makes no difference with battery only? so left it ON for now, everything else at full rate, charge and discharge at 6000w, battery at 100%. So far been lucky with negative rates running the house on between 30 pence and 50 pence per day as battery has not fully discharged after the 0430 period even over Xmas.

So, my only question is, does ECO mode make any difference at all for battery only systems ?

MM/AIO AFAIK eco mode configures only discharge behaviour, nothing to do with charging. It's very much needed for all systems - it's the thing that matches discharge rate to household demand. Without it, battery is either paused, so that you are powering the house from the grid, or discharging at a fixed rate, which usually means exporting the excess to the grid.

When you turn eco mode off, how does your system behave?

PS you ought to start a new thread when starting a new discussion.

DD Ok thanks, noted on thread as yes it makes sense. When I turned it off in trials it starting using the grid in the day period, but not certain if other tweaks I had done had caused that. So in the end went to simple settings but left ECO on. I'll see next few days what happens and try just that one change at a time
and get back. Thanks for responding.

I think others who are trying to make best use of Agile with simple setup are putting charge battery period 00:30 through to when they know its still cheapish so more like 14:00 thus not depleting the battery till expensive o clock as such.

Eco on - Discharge and Export all off

And good luck with the battery if your on version 6 of the software for battery DONT UPGRADE is my only other advice.

DreadorUK Ok thanks, all good stuff. It is version 6 as installed. I guess updating software will cause more problems than it solves, will hold off.

DreadorUK I just charge on cheapest slots and let it ride, if dad decides to put his laser machine on for a few hours and I see it after waking up ill pick the cheapest slot for a top up.

Tonight I am setting charge period between 0400-0630 but I have been setting 30m charge periods with 30m gaps between them as during the night it had been going down, then up, then down, then up etc etc like this on the 29th

Was like a yoyo but that takes into account daily usage (typically around 16kwh (up from around 13-14 thanks to inverter power consumption of +80-140w constant overhead))

This is tonights

I LOVE agile for winter months.

I am not actually on flux export as you can tell by the price but it for some reason never changed to agile like import did.

Pandorian suspect the confusion on the terms comes from difference in terminology in the web portal and the app

Jellybaby are you setting multiple slots on the app, if so how

RetSparky On the app, no, via portal on browser.

Jellybaby By setting in remote control?

markgw Hi, did you ever manage to resolve the issues with the upper charge limit being ignored? I have exactly the same problem over a year later than you first reported it. I have contacted Givenergy support and they upgraded the firmware but it still has the same problem.

To my knowledge there is no tariff info added to my setup, but I cannot find where to check to see if this is the case. Can you advise where to look please?