Hi folks, I have had my system for 2 weeks now and moved to the Octopus Flux tariff which I thought was great in principle however, at present Givenergy have not set this tariff up to work with their products? Does anyone here no if/when this may be fixed....or if not suggest a different tariff please? FYI I have a 4kw PV array, with 3.6 Gen2 hybrid Inverter +9.5kw Gen 2 battery. Many thanks Steve
Not sure what you mean by does not work with flux? What do you want your battery system to do that it isn't? Your battery setup will operate regardless of what energy supplier or tariff you are on.
Are you talking about automations? Do you want to charge cheap discharge high?
THALL thanks for your reply, to clarify the battery works fine, except the automation i.e. charge/discharge are certain times and at certain KW rates do not work.
For example I am trying to automate the export timings at 4-7pm at 2KW/hour (6kw in total) i.e when I would receive the best export rate and then to also recharge/import 2am-5am again at 2KW (6kw in total) at the cheapest rate. The issue when trying to se this up on my desktop givenergy cloud it reverts back to factory settings when saved. The Givenergy helpdesk have said this new Flux tariff have said it's not compatible and there's an issue with timed automation?
Steviemac Got ya. This being discussed on another thread. But basically I am not aware of any plan for Givenergy to write the automations for other tariffs. At least not anytime soon. You can however do it by the octopus labs r&d site.
But on the inverter card, settings there is a timed charge and timed export option. But these will charge/discharge as fast as your setup can go rather than a 2kw limit. But, I know timed charge works but as people are using the octopus lab method I assume timed export does not work as expected.
I am on the flux, but I do not bother with discharging my batteries to the grid. I only benefit from solar excess which is still bloody good.
There are a lot of Octopus Flux posts which are worth browsing for other peoples experiences and possible solutions. There have been issues with forced export to grid.
You can change the charge and discharge power too in the inverter settings, but not for a given period, its all or nothing.
THALL Yeah, I have settled for a timed battery charge between 2am and 5am.
At the moment there isn't enough left in the battery at 4pm to bother exporting and it needs to power the house during the peak period.
What I am still trying to plumb in is a battery top up to at least 30% SOC by 4pm if it has dropped too low during the day.
THALL thankyou so much - i will copy what you are doing and export excess solar moving forward. Cheers!
Amazing thanks all!
Use Octopus R&D labs scheduler.
You will need to register and it takes a couple of days to fully populate.
Steviemac You could technically keep the battery topped up during the cheap grid rate and export more excess. For me I think the best "value" comes from using as much of my own generation as possible. I have been on Flux for 1 week now and it is working pretty one. Had 1 very dark rainy day temp dropped to 0 again so heating came on and it cost me just over £6.11. But then had a lot of sunny weather, first profit day was just under £5, next one was £7.35 so happy days.
Images of profit day
SteveCook Thanks i've just registered. I have also just set an hours export at 4-5pm and charge at 3am-4am to see if this also works?
THALL this is great thanks. I just spoke with Octopus and as my system was installed and comissioned last week, it transpires my import tariff isn't set up yet and won't be until the National Grid confirm this which may take another 2 weeks - no worries tho as i've been running on solar/battery and no import usage for 92% of my 9KW daily usage. Roll on the import set up!
Steviemac Is that to setup your export MPAN? Depending where you are in the country it might be days, or a couple of weeks. Regardless you are winning just by having the battery system. Especially from this time of year on wards.
If you go fully renewable it can be very rewarding. On flux, with PV, ashp, EV my bill range should be between -£3 to +£10 per day. No petrol bill, no gas bill. The whole bundle feels great.
THALL, correct it's the MPAN which Octopus are waiting on. I'd love to be 100% fully self sufficient, and seriously looking into ASHP but i've read and heard that they aren't that efficient especially with a 1920's semi as i'd probably need cavity insulation etc...
Steviemac Correct. But there are high temp ashp now and Air to Air is great! Faster heat up and can cool in the Summer. Check out https://www.youtube.com/@EVPuzzle he looked at ashp and decided on the air to air. I have a low heat ashp but my home is only 3 years old, triple glazed, over insulated, under floor heating. BUT this week when the temp dropped from a nice 12c to 0c I had to turn the heating back on and it took over 3 hours to heat up just over 2c. Totally drained my battery and sucked from the grid. My mistake, I should of checked the forecast and 1 left the heating turned on, and 2 set the battery to hold more charge. But still, its great!
alan_johnston An option is to set your battery to charge from 2am to 4pm. This blocks off battery usage during the day but you're going in to peak with a full battery and then can set a force discharge 6-7pm and use any left over through the evening.
Ideally what I would like to do is 2-4am charge to 85%, then switch to Eco with an 80% reserve (intention to minimise grid through the day with the 20%) and then Eco with 10% from 4pm with a forced discharge 6-7pm. I haven't found a system to enable me to do that yet though - I'm weighing up whether I have the time to build one.
GMorris
Are you sure Octo R&D scheduler cant get you close?
SteveCook unless I've missed it you can't set the reserve so there's no way to protect the charge in the battery through to the peak period. The closest I can get is to leave the battery in charge mode through to 4pm but then you lose the ability to use the battery during the day
GMorris At the moment I have set an alarm on my phone at 3pm then I check the Givenergy app to see the battery SOC. If lower than I would like for the upcoming 4-7 peak period, I hit the battery boost quick button on the app and set another alarm for 3:50pm to remind me to turn off the battery boost.
Steviemac
WRT the cavity wall insulation we found that a 70s extension on our house had none & got some eps beads blown in PDQ. I’ve done the sums and it should pay back in full in under 2 years. We wish we had found this earlier!
It’ll help your bills & comfort a lot faster than solar will. But polystyrene beads are the much the safest option wet potential damp issues.
alan_johnston Battery boost button in GivEnergy app? Where is that? I can't see it on my Android phone. Or is it on Octopus R&D?
James L burger icon top left - settings - preferences - show quick settings button
Tim Aha! Hadn't spotted that. Now I just need my SEG and to switch to Flux. 😀
James L 3 bars icon top left > Settings > Preferences > Show Quick SettingsButton.
Quick Settings button is big PLAY button at bottom of screen.
Tap it to get quick options to show.
For help tap the quick button then the littlte circle button on the right.