Hi all,

I'm in Ireland with a GivEnergy system. With GivEnergy Ltd being defunct and the smart charging now behind a paid tier, I wanted something I could run myself that actively manages my charging plan and sends spare solar to the immersion. So I built it. It's a Home Assistant integration, and I'm sharing it here in case it's useful to you.

TLDR: Free, local, and it only needs Home Assistant and GivTCP. No cloud account, no subscription.

What it does

  • As few moving parts as possible. It runs inside Home Assistant on top of GivTCP, which you probably already have. No cloud account, no separate app to run, and no automations or scripts to write. A solar forecast service is recommended, and that's the only extra.
  • Gives me something usable, not just raw data. Each night it works out how much to charge from tomorrow's solar forecast and my own usage, and tells me why.
  • Hot water from spare solar. I don't need a diverter. A suitable WiFi switch on the immersion and a temperature sensor are all it takes, and both are cheap. It heats from surplus, keeps the water above a minimum, stops at my target, and can have it hot for set times. If you heat with oil or gas as well, it tells you when that's cheaper.
  • Cost tracking that follows a real bill. I found the native cost tracking lacking, so I modelled it on my Irish electricity bill: energy per rate, standing charge, levy, VAT, export credit and a projected bill.
  • Works with my own EV charger. I have a Zappi, and it sets Eco+ when there's surplus. It also picks up Wallbox, OCPP, Ohme and Easee chargers, but I've only run it with the Zappi. GivEnergy's app only does its own charger.

Worth knowing before you try it

  • It starts in dry run. It shows what it would do and sends nothing to your inverter or immersion until you switch it off. Please leave it on for a night first.
  • Make sure the switch is rated for your immersion element. A 3 kW element draws about 13 A, which a lot of cheap smart plugs aren't built for.
  • It's only been run on my system: a GIV-HY-5.0 on a day and night tariff in Ireland. Other inverters are untried, and the bill model follows an Irish bill, so other formats would need adding.
  • It handles a flat rate, day and night, or up to five timed rates. No dynamic tariffs like Agile yet; Predbat is the better fit for that. I also left out battery export, because in many cases it doesn't return enough value.
  • You need Home Assistant 2026.5 or later, and GivTCP. I'd also recommend a solar forecast service, Solcast or Forecast.Solar, because the charge plan is built on it. Without one it falls back on a seasonal estimate, which can't know tomorrow's weather.

Install: in HACS, open Custom repositories and add https://github.com/macuistin/givenergy_inverter_manager as an Integration. The quick start and documentation are at the same link.

Hope it's useful to someone.