I have been reading about PredBat and WonderWatt on other threads (Octopus Saving Sessions for example).
I have no coding experience. Which should I dive into to maximise my system?
(GIV-HY5.0 inverter with 5.22 kWh battery)
Any suggestions much appreciated.
netty depends on your appetite.
WonderWatt will do the work for you, once you configure the website to do what you want. Just set it and leave it.
PredBat needs a dedicated installation on hardware that runs 24/7 which will take quite a bit of setting up. No real coding experience needed, but can be time consuming.
Octopus R&D will do similar to WonderWatt, but I don't think it acts on Saving Sessions.
The downside to WonderWatt and OctoR&D is they're internet based - no internet, no changes. PredBat is local (on Home Assistant) so should keep going if no internet connection, although it won't pick up the new rates at 4pm each day
netty To fully maximise your system, PredBat, I should think - it has a lot more parameters you can tune. But since, as mentioned, that requires quite a significant upfront outlay in time and effort, perhaps use WonderWatt while you are investigating whether Home Assistant and PredBat are for you.
Probably also depends on what tariff you are on, which in turn depends on relative sizes of battery, solar array and consumption. And is likely to be different for summer and winter. Oh, and do you have an EV / ASHP ?
The Intelligent Flux tariff is, I suppose, another possible approach to battery automation, but the impression I get is that people aren't terribly impressed by it.
My Energy Optimiser (MyEO) might also be worth a look. I gave it a first attempt last night in conjunction with my first foray into Agile and it seemed to schedule pretty sensible charging times.
The thing I'm now trying to work out (and I've fired out a few questions to the developer on this) is how best (or whether it's possible at present) to optimise charging across two separate time windows to fit in with the high demand from our heat pump.
I'd like to do something similar to our previous Cosy tariff setup: charge in cheapest slots over night, use battery for morning demand, top up again during the day (prioritising solar when available) to leave the battery full ahead of the 1600-1900 peak time. But I'm still trying to work out if this is possible with MyEO. Can Wonder Watt do this? (I'm assuming PredBat can...?)
Much as I like a good tinker with stuff, and I may go that way eventually, for now I i think I'm probably in the market for a non-Home Assistant solution.
Josephiah answering the last bit of your question, here's my predbat plan for the end of the peak today (releasing the remaining charge), charging overnight, releasing the charge to meet morning demand, then recharging mid-day/afternoon to be ready for the peak again
Horses for courses as to what people prefer. MyEO and Wonderwatt are certainly a lot simpler and easier to setup for newer agile users
geoffreycoan thanks for that, yes. May well stop resisting the urge to tinker in due course. For me at present, HA is in the category of "I've had an initial tinker, and I can see what it could be capable of, but now I need to find the proper chunk of time and effort required to design my system properly". For starters, will see what's achievable in the other options.
Josephiah We're currently working on a 'hold charge' mode for your Agile Charge window for the gapped slots that aren't charge slots.
This likely solves your problem, as you could have an Agile charge window using say the cheapest 14 (or whichever you choose) slots between 00:00 and 16:00, and be sure that you make it to 16:00 with a full battery.
We're aiming to have this available over the next few days. You can keep track of our Release Notes here: https://community.wonderwatt.com/d/96-wonder-watt-release-notes
FWIW I started out using HA on a Pi but realised I could not be bothered with investing the time as I have better things to do. Went to Wonder Watt and am extremely pleased with how it is working, and evolving - it seems to be permanently beta and updates and improvements happen very quickly and smoothly.
As stated above, it is a good place to start at least.
Another thumbs up for Wonder Watt, tinkered with it a bit last summer on Flux, but stopped using whilst on Econ 7. Went onto Agile a few days ago and rejoined. WW very easy to set up the Agile charge (as well as other charge/discharge schedules) on a nice simple interface. The site is constantly developing and they're quick to fix/improve issues. My first night on Agile picked up an issue with sending the commands to the Giv servers. That is was rectified by WW within the same day. The support is excellent and they're very responsive.
Wonder Watt Thanks, will keep it in mind and try out (at least, I will once our replacement battery comes!).
I wonder if that half solves the problem. The bit I was struggling to figure out with MyEO was how to find the optimum charging slots overnight, and then the optimum charging slots during the day, as a separate group.
With MyEO, I was finding that if I chose say 6 slots, it would find 6 slots distributed overnight, as those are the cheapest. But to get it to find any daytime slots, I had to bump the number way up - and it would (naturally) find every overnight slot before finding any daytime ones. Makes sense if you're only doing one big charge cycle, didn't really work for the Cosy-style two charge cycles, which worked pretty well in our power-hungry setup. Does that make sense?
Josephiah We allow you to specify multiple separate Octopus Agile charge windows, within each, you can specify how many cheap slots you want.
So you could have one overnight Agile Octo charge window and another early afternoon one from say 12:00-16:00 and pick say four 30-min slots there - which Wonder Watt then will pre-select the cheapest ones for.
Wonder Watt Sounds good, will give it a whirl once my system's up and running.
How does Wonder Watt handle EV charging? I have an Ohme Pro and the problem I have had is the EV charger firing up and the GivEnergy inverter dumping its nicely charged battery into the EV battery. It would be nice if the automated system could stop the GivEnergy battery discharging when the EV is charging. Currently I manage this manually via the mobile app.
alan_johnston It currently doesn't communicate with any EV chargers.
For users on Intelligent Octopus, we will be providing a solution. You can keep an eye on our release notes here, we tend to deploy new features and fixes very frequently.
For Agile Octopus users we just released the 'Hold Charge' functionality for the 30-minute gaps during the Agile charge window you specify. This allows ASHP users or EV users to use the same Agile charge window but without having to worry that the battery will be drained.
alan_johnston I have an Ohme Pro
Unfortunately, AFAIK Ohme refuse to make charging schedule available over an API. Ideal solution is probably to get things wired up so that the GE CT clamp doesn't see the EV load. i.e. attach the EVSE to the meter tails before the CT clamp.
Even on IOG, I think it's Ohme, rather than Octopus, that decides on the charging slots. Though I have heard that Octopus are currently working on moving the Ohme IOG integration into their own system.
DD you can get data from the Ohme now via Home Assistant.
I did this 3 years ago and got a tap on the shoulder from Ohme, so had to remove mine. However now there is some mild truce such that this has (for now) stayed up:
https://github.com/dan-r/HomeAssistant-Ohme
hoggy It’s a shame such companies don’t start with the idea of open and public APIs from the outset, as it ultimately creates a much better and more cohesive ecosystem around their product.
So shortsighted. In the meantime, people will have to vote with their feet.
Giv may not be perfect, but in those terms, they’re way ahead of the competition.
DD The Ohme app has a flyer for Solar testers but when I tried to sign up, my system was too advanced because it has solar+battery. 🙁
IMHO The Ohme app is pretty lame. The best thing is it acts a remote control so I can turn charging on or off remotely. The Ohme charge schedule logic is bonkers and it will often ignore the price cap and charge whenever. My first unit died after 18 months and had to be replaced. I wouldn't recommend one.
The CT clamp solution could work because Octopus installed the Ohme charger with its own consumer unit and set of tails from the meter/junction box. So I have separate tails for the house and the EV.
Wonder Watt Just seen the hold charge function for Agile users which could help me. Having a read...
Looks like I need use a google account to use Wonder Watt but a different acoount to use the forum.
Is it possible to use the forum login to access the dashboard?
Not 100% keen on using my google account for non google activities.
alan_johnston Not 100% keen on using my google account for non google activities.
Just create a new google account for wonderwatt if you’re worried about sharing your account details. They’re free.
I think you can add aliases to your google account which is another option
alan_johnston Makes sense for us to use a secure and popular auth provider, rather than rolling our own which would be a bit silly really, considering the vast majority of people have a Google login.
As @geoffreycoan suggested, just create a Gmail account for WW purposes alone.
The forum system unfortunately does have its own login system, it’s open source and runs on a SaaS.
Very much like how your Giv login is different from the Giv forum login, right?
Cheers!
geoffreycoan I don’t think you can login with aliases, but yeah you could use them as email addresses.
Wonder Watt Yes, not sure why I didn't think of that. I have just created a new google account just for wonderwatt and have had a go on the wonder watt dashboard. Had to search a bit for how to generate an API key but I now have an Agile schedule and it looks like Wonderwatt is talking to the inverter. It has picked the cheapest slots for overnight charging of the GE battery and I have enabled the hold charge feature so the overnight EV topup charge (which starts at 02:30) won't use any GE battery.
alan_johnston Great, glad you’re sorted. Let us know if you encounter any issues on our forums, cheers!
Thanks for all the discussion on this.
I think I'm going to tackle setting up WW. It seems to be the easiest thing to do.
netty It's not too bad. The tricky bits for me were generating the GE API token, then finding out how to drive the Agile scheduler. If you are on Agile you can ignore normal WW scheduler and go straight to the Agile bit. WW are pretty quick to help on their forum.