I have my GivEnergy battery set on timed charge to recharge overnight on a reduced rate tariff. On days when I also recharge an EV overnight I find my GE battery has dumped any existing charge to the EV and not recharged at all. I was thinking that I could set the battery option discharge rate to 0W but that means I have to remember to set/reset it each time the EV is on to charge. Has anyone used the timed discharge option and would this work in my situation?
ChrisFeldy I set the charge time of the GE battery at the same time as the cars. They both charge and the GE battery won’t discharge until the end of the charge time. Currently that’s 21:30 - 01:30 for me. So both cars and GE at set to charge at 21:30 until 01:30.
Hope that helps.
As simon_rb says, you an also set your GE charge to the level you wish to battery to drop to. I use this when it’s sunny the next day, set my batteries to retain say 20%; remainder gets dumped into the car/house and reduces my overall grid draw
Smk82 setting the overnight target can be automated too, based on forecast generation. Available as a plugin in HA or as standalone Windows executable or Python code. www.github.com/salewis38/palm
stevelewis I’m sure it can. All depends on setting up HA. Hoping it eventually gets added to the GE app.. there were rumours it would do at one poibf
Smk82 You don't need HA to do this. Download the Windows executable, update the settings file with your account details and let it fly. Couldn't be much easier than that.
stevelewis missing the point. I would need to leave my pc on 24/7. I don’t particularly wish to do that
simon_rb is there a way to hold the battery's charge while charging electric vehicle
Chief This is what I have been trying to work out in my thread. I've come to the conclusion it cant be done without spending loads so I am making sure the big EV battery gets topped up overnight, especially when it's sunny and I can top my PHEV up in the day (as it pulls less power so doesn't drain the house so quick).
Smk82 palm also has a "once" mode that does the sums and sets the GE registers immediately.
Chief Yes. Set the Givenergy battery to a timed charge for the same period as the EV charger. If you don't want to actually charge the Givenergy battery, set the Charge to % to a low value (say 20%) and the battery will supply house and EV charger until it reaches the 20%, at which point the inverter will hold the battery there and EV and house will be supplied from grid until the end of the timed charge period.
Assuming you have a TOU tariff, then just charge the car charging times to match the cheap period. Then set a Timed Charge and a desired battery SoC level.
Alternatively, move the GE clamp so it doesn't see the charger drain (assuming the charger is on a separate feed away from the main consumer unit)
The issue with using the TOU charge time trick is it doesn't solve the need for daytime charging. CT clamp trick may solve it but I have an older install that doesn't have a separate CU. It would be really good to be able to do this properly and I am assuming the GE charge point could have this function if integrated with GE house kit. Crossing fingers anyway.
Fair enough.
I've done 40,000 miles in my current EV and I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the times that I have needed to do a charge during the day. Everyone's situation is different to be fair, but I would suspect that in the majority of user's cases, daytime charging is an edge case.
However, if you are a night worker then charging is that much more difficult.
This is my method too. The Givenergy battery will not discharge when set on a timer schedule to charge on "solar +grid"
I often turn down charge rate of battery, if expecting a sunny day the following day.
Its a bit of a manual process but works.
Tim not sure if this is a Gen3 Inverter bug or if I'm just being stupid, but even when I set the maximum charge to 80% on mine it blasts straight past that to 100% overnight. Every single time 🙁
Rodney Trotter It may be a bug, or maybe your inverter registers haven't been reset correctly. @TheDragon (GivEnergy) may have a look for you if he has time, or at least note it as a bug.
While that's being looked into for gen3 (and gen2?), you can also dial back the charge rate to say 250W or even 0W during the timed charge period, if you want to minimise battery charge while the EV does it's thing. Actually, you may also want to zero the discharge rate to prevent the EV battery being charged from the Givenergy battery.
Tim thanks - I saw on another thread that apparently it is a bug which is on the fixlist so I’ll just wait for that to land. I’m on Intelligent Octopus so it’s not the largest financial impact at the mo. Will have to get in to HomeAssistant at some point and get things charging based on the SolCast forecast. That’ll be fun!
Chief Only way to hold the charge is to set the GE Battery to charge at the same time. You can manually pause the battery of course in the app if you're up and then remember to resume it when the cars finished charging.
I have the same 4 hours Off Peak so setting the car chargers and battery to charge at the same time is easy. Hope this helps.
If you have a compatible car OR charger then go for Intelligent Octopus. Same rates as Go but with a 6 hour off peak period.
There is a new pause battery setting, it works in the just released firmware 911, from the portal, or givtcp 2.3. for gen1 it is manual, for gen2 onwards it can be scheduled. 👍