Apologies if this is covered anywhere else - I did look but couldn’t see anything.
I am on an Octopus Flux Import tariff (not flux intelligent and not export). Over the winter my inverter was set to import cheap electricity between 2 and 5am. So far so good - it has been chugging along like this since the install last Nov.
Last week I, belatedly, realised that I should have turned this off for the summer, and I turned it off.
Since then my battery has been charging from the grid during the daytime, as well as charging from my solar panels (about half and half). It doesn’t stop taking from the grid to the battery until the battery is full at around lunch time. My smart meter confirms this level of energy use, and that I am paying for it. (I couldn’t work out why I was using so much energy in the mornings when there was nothing to warrant it in the house.)
I called Octopus to check that I hadn’t been moved to their intelligent tariff and they said ‘no’, it was nothing to do with them. I also called Give Energy who said that they would upgrade my Firmware (yesterday) but it’s still doing this today. It hasn’t happened every day since I turned off the night-time import - on average about every other day - but it happened yesterday and is happening today.
At the moment I have pressed ‘pause’ on charging the battery to see if this makes a difference, but it means that all of my solar energy is now exporting for free so it’s not an ideal solution, but I just wanted to see if that stopped it.
Does anyone have any ideas or has anyone else come across this?
Yes I have. It was turning this off a week ago that seems to have triggered the problem. Or rather, to give a bit more detail, I started by reducing the max charge % for the night time AC charge to 30% (about a week ago), then I noticed the problem with it charging from the grid during the day, so then I turned off the “enable timed charge slot” completely - but it didn’t make a difference.
I have been on the phone to Give Energy this afternoon and they have tweaked a few things and rebooted the inverter. They got me to turn off the ‘winter battery conditioning’ in case that was confusing things. But it happened again at tea time as soon as the inverter had rebooted. They did say they will keep an eye on it but I will call them again tomorrow as the cost is mounting up now.
Thank you TX200. All of this has been done sadly - there has never been a timed export set. I have also realised that actually this has been happening since the install in December - it’s just that it only became obvious, and costly, once I turned the timed import off and the sun came out.
I might try that this evening but I don’t think that’s it.
Give Energy thinks that I am importing from the grid until the battery is full at around lunch time, and then from then on exporting (because the battery is full).
I’m finding it very hard to work out whether it’s just a glitch with the data on their app, or whether it is something that is actually happening and I am being charged. Initially I thought that it was actually happening because my smart meter display seemed to mirror what the Give Energy graph was telling me… but I’ve also been looking at my Octopus account online, and that tells me yet a different story.
At this time yesterday the Give Energy app told me that my energy had cost 71p so far that day. First thing this morning it told me I had spent 0p yesterday, and now it tells me 5p. While my smart meter display tells me that I paid 0.58p yesterday (which may include the standing charge). My Octopus app tells me I spent 3p (which is probably the most accurate one and ultimately the one that matters at it’s what my bill is based on).
There is so much contradictory information on all the various ‘tech’ its very hard to work out what is going on - but I am beginning to think that it may be an issue with the app display after all, rather than something that is actually happening and that I am being charged for. The chap at Octopus told me to to put my smart meter display in a drawer and forget about it as they are so inaccurate. Ho hum.
Thank you for the suggestion though - I will try and remember to do that this evening if only to rule it out.
Hopefully some relative info but here goes. We got ours installed in January 25 and after all the paperwork was done we switched to Octopus Flux (import & export). I didnt want the intelligent as i wanted full control, its a trust thing. Anyway initially we couldn’t export at all. Our installers were great and determined to find out. As it happens we had to enter the timings and percentage in the second slot. Bingo it instantly worked. I had the winter temperature thing activated but this “uses” the first time slot apparently. I cant tell you why but it worked. So now this weather is iffy at the mo, i overnight charge to 100% and the system overflows during the day as the weather changes. We get paid for that. Like most we discharge at 4-5.30pm down to 40% and that gives us plenty capacity. Sorry if this is not helpful in anyway.
I did have the winter thing activated but the chap at GiveEnergy asked me to turn it off in case it was causing problems (as it’s warm here). But it didn’t make a difference. I am exporting but not yet on an export tariff so not getting paid. The problem is that, according to the Give app, I am exporting energy for free when the battery overflows due to the sun and solar, after it has been filled up with imported energy from the grid that I have paid for.
But I’m not completely convinced that this is actually happening - I now think it may be a problem with the Give Energy graphs and the cost on the tariff tab being incorrect (the costs then seem to correct themselves during the following day but the graph remains incorrect).
But I am monitoring it as I’m not 100% sure that this is it.