Smart Tariff and "automation" from portal.

#1 rjp 2024-07-02

Having finally switched to Octopus Agile, I've configured the smart tariff info in the portal, which seems to be working. I hadn't realised there were built-in "tariff automations" to dynamically charge/discharge the battery - presumably run from the portal server rather than locally on the inverter?

The concept seems fine, but I can't see any way of viewing when the system intends to charge/discharge the battery - is this available anywhere?

#2 Watcher 2024-07-02

I haven’t found any more info than this..not exact enough imho so I use WonderWatt to manage mine.

#3 pwdst 2024-07-02

In my experience it will just set a charging schedule shortly after midnight which you can see in the app in the same way as if you'd set it yourself.
You probably can see the instructions sent in the "Remote Control" area of the portal, but I don't know any way you can see what it will send until it has.

#4 rjp 2024-07-03

pwdst Thanks. I let it do it's thing yesterday, and I'm seriously unimpressed.

It did nothing until midnight, as you said, then scheduled a charge for 8-10pm this evening.

First, that means I've got little charge in the battery all day today, as it did no overnight charging.
Second, it hasn't even picked the cheapest 2-hour period to charge, as agile is dropping to 2p/kWH later tonight.
Third, it waited until midnight to do this - when all the available cost info is available at 4PM - so I had no way of intervening to pick a better slot manually.

#5 geoffreycoan 2024-07-03

rjp When it was first launched the smart tariffs in the GivEnergy portal were ground breaking.

But that was a couple of years ago, there are better options available now.

If you want to go towards home automation then Home Assistant and predbat is probably the best way to go, but if you just want to automate your battery charging then Wonder Watt or My Energy Optimiser are simple to use cloud based services. Do disconnect the GivEnergy portal automation though as otherwise the two will clash

#6 Watcher 2024-07-03

@rjp 😉

#7 rjp 2024-07-03

Thanks. I do have HA but still on the learning curve.... I'll give Wonderwatt a go and see how I get on.