Hello,
I previously posted about us moving into a house with an GivEnergy battery and AC3.0 inverter. Good news… it’s up and running!
I’ve just changed to Octopus cosy with the hope of charging the battery during their three off peak charging points, but I have just seen the battery can only be scheduled to charge during one slot?
Is there anyway I can increase this to 3 slots to make the most of Octopus Cosy?
Thanks in advance - this is all a new world to me!
Harry
Harry UK You need an external agent to reprogram the timer between cheap slots. There are various options: see https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/5221-app-for-setting-multiple-charge-periods for example.
One other recent option is Axle VPP who also offer a service to fully manage the battery for you. I think it might be free ? (And they pay you if they want to export your battery to the grid at times of shortage.)
Harry UK As DD says, the AC3 and the Gen 1 hybrid are limited to 1 charging and 2 discharging slots and there's insufficient memory in the inverter for this to be increased.
You'll need an external scheduler, several options, Wonderwatt, Predbat or Axle are all cloud services, Axle also run a VPP so pay you to export when the grid is strained.
Or home assistant, either write your own scripts or use predbat to optimise your battery.
Or simplest is pay £10 to unlock the full features of the Rubik Cube Android app, but you do need an old Android device, e.g. a tablet, powered on all the time for this
Thank you everyone!
I see GivEnergy have their own setting which is aligned with your energy tariff? It says it's in 'beta' mode and there is some sort of disclaimer you have to agree before it's activated.
Has anyone had any experience of this?
Thanks,
Harry
Harry UK yes that is another option. Some people have used it with positive results, but it is a beta test.
I believe it is fully automated and you don’t get any control over what it does, but I have never used it so this is second hand information
Personally I’d go for one of the other options but YMMV.
Personally I would and do use the inverter app as you gain independence from GE and others.
For £10 it's a bargain and if the external provider fails you have access.
And you get to see the error messages that GE hide from you which is imo pretty important to know what is happening when things are going wrong.
Thanks everyone that's really helpful. We're giving the GivEnergy smart tariff a go - seems fine.
I just wondered if someone could answer this for me... it's all a different language!
We have a form from Octopus to fill in for our FIT. I am not sure which option to select under 2a. Could anyone help from our battery schematic drawing?!
Harry UK Like I said before on the other thread, are you absolutely sure this is a FIT installation?
The form is for FIT, Feed In Tariff payments. That scheme closed in I think 2019. You said I think that the solar panels were installed in 2023, in which case it is not FIT you should be applying for, but SEG, Smart Export Guarantee.
The diagram above could be for a FIT installation with a separate FIT inverter and FIT generation meter (labelled Generation meter) and then quite separately the AC3 inverter and battery.
If you do have two inverters, the FIT inverter and panels were installed when FIT was open, and the AC3 and 9.5 were installed afterwards and as per the diagram are after the generation meter then declaration 2 needs to be completed and the first box in 2a and 2b ticked.
Note that as you have a smart meter you are not eligible for FIT deemed export payments, only FIT generation payments.
Thank you very much. The GivEnergy battery was put in the new house during 2023, but the solar panels were before this. The previous owner left us a guide he wrote about the cottage before he passed away, and he refers to it at FIT. Octopus have confirmed too. I very much appreciate your help with all of this - I haven’t the absolute foggiest what a lot of this means, but google is my friend and I’m learning a great deal!
Ah OK, I thought this was the case, you must have had a 4kWh FIT array with inverter and then the AC3 and inverter installed after the generation meter. It is option 2. But do confirm that you have a FIT generation meter and the original FIT inverter and they didn't swap the FIT inverter for the AC3.
Good news is that you will be eligible for the FIT generation payments.