The Main question here is that over the last few days I have tried to set my charge and discharge cycles with dismal results! all my own fault probably. 🙁
Should I just let octopus take control as I think this is possible?
If so could someone give me step by step actions to do this please. obviously at this time of year I can't get help from Octopus!
Thanks
Mike
Daft Vader With Octopus Cosy there isn’t an option for Octopus to control your inverter, that option is really only available with Octopus Intelligent Flux.
What type of system do you have, what inverter type? This will determine how easy it is to program your inverter natively to charge in the 3 Cosy cheap-rate periods.
And what is your daily house consumption and battery capacity? If you charge in the cheap rate periods will your battery last during the day-rate periods or do you need to grid import and preserve the battery for the peak rate?
Even on a single tariff like Cosy there are several variables.
There are plenty of ways you can automate your battery charging, from the GivEnergy app/portal, use of Smart tariffs within the portal, to external paid systems like WonderWatt and My Energy Optimiser to free solutions like Octopus R&D and Home Assistant/Predbat or running your own control scripts.
I have a 13.5kWh AIO plus gateway that was installed 6 months ago although I only had smart meters fitted in September. I therefore had 3 months experimenting with my system before I could switch to a smart tariff. Here is my experience.
Initially, I simply set up 3 timed charge periods in the GivEnergy portal corresponding with the Cosy periods i.e. 0400-0700, 1300-1600 and 2200-0000. This simple setup requires no additional hardware or configuration and the whole house uses cheap rate electricity.
During this time, I discovered HomeAssistant and Predbat. Being am IT techie, this really appealed to me and I experimented with a variety of ways of using predbat and I noted down the amount I imported and exported with each different configuration. I continued these experiments until December, so had 2 months of data collected after I had switched to Cosy Octopus.
My current configuration is exactly as I originally set thing up ie 3 timed charge slots and no Predbat. I decided that the marginal monetary saving was not worth the extra wear and tear on the battery. Plus my battery always has a decent reserve in case of power cuts.
I am keeping track of other supplier's tariffs to see if I can lower my costs, but the 3 Cosy periods per day really suit my current needs. If things change, I would happily switch suppliers and reinstall predbat if needed.
Weasel Thanks for replies I have now finally discovered why I couldn't get it working properly!
The "Eco" setting ! why oh why isn't it better documented? I had seen it but my thought process was "I'd better get it all set up before I add an extra setting to confuse things"
Oh well thanks to help from the forum and a lot of digging it looks like the battery is under control.
Only got to get the solar sorted now!
Thanks
Mike