My Intelligent Octopus Flux tariff and Givenergy system seem to be incompatible!
Octopus say they need to disable eco mode , but GivEnergy say my system will not work if it is disabled. Disabling it causes timeouts and inverter offline errors which stop the schedules introduced by intelligent octopus flux from working.
Is mine the only system which has this problem?
What can I do about it without changing my tariff?
What system have you got and how many inverters/batteries?
Mine works fine and spends most of its time with eco mode off. The only time eco mode should be needed is peak rate 4-7pm (although it’s often force exporting then anyway).
I have the Givenergy 1PH Hybrid inverter 5.0kW 3rd Generation,
A GivEnergy 5.2kWh Eco Li-Ion battery,
10 x Jinko 435WP solar panels.
The battery and inverter are fitted in the attached garage.
Mine was working fine except for only discharging down to 40% rather than the more usual 20% during peak times.
During investigations into that by Octopus, they requested that Givenergy changed the battery clock timezone to match theirs, which they did and since then the battery has not been fully charged or discharged and there are very frequent timeout and offline errors, especially when there are API calls to disable eco mode.
At first Givenergy suggested replacing the wifi connection to the inverter to ethernet, which I did, but it has made little difference. They then surprisingly said that the intelligent Octopus Flux tariff will not work if there are calls to disable eco mode. I am surprised that there are so many repeated attempts to change eco mode by Octopus.
You say that Octopus sends calls to disable eco mode in your system and that does not effect the timed charging and discharging of the battery?
How often and when are the api calls made to do this?
After changing the time zone did they also press the sync time button?
Time zone should be automatically changed by GivEnergy twice a year. Don’t worry about setting it to BST or UTC+1. Hopefully it is currently set correctly.
I think Octopus update my settings or at least check them every 15 minutes, but it’s not at set times it does vary.
They adjust various settings including timed charge and timed export times, percentages, rates, etc.
They might decide to charge fast to 50% then do nothing for a bit, then charge a bit more later.
It does different things sometimes too, like a lot of the time it’ll charge to 100% overnight. Sometimes if the price of electricity is very cheap in the day it might charge then instead.
Occasionally it discharges during the off peak too. Octopus say it’ll discharge if the grid needs help. I’d prefer it to only discharge during the peak rate, but not much choice when you hand over full control to them.
I can only assume so. Givenergy did send a get time request through the API and i could see that the time it was sent and the return value was 1hr different.
The pattern which you are describing is exactly what i was seeing, except for the lower limit being 40%, before it all went haywire after the time was changed. Yesterday the GE battery graph showed the % charge go up from 50% to 100% during the peak period!
Octopus have decided to turn my requests for it to be sorted into a complaint. I’m not sure whether that is a good thing.
I think both sides behave as if I’m doing something wrong when i have no control over the schedules since joining intelligent Flux. They will not cooperate with each other to solve the problem.
Does your system show many timeout and offline errors in the API logs, particularly when Eco mode requests are being sent? Is your internal battery/inverter time UTC+0 or UTC+1?
Thanks for your help with this, but being a newbie to solar i do not have enough experience to distinguish between unexpected log entries and errors, so finding out what other peoples systems behaviour is like is very useful.
UTC 00:00 +1 GMT (London) is what it says on mine.
Yeah, I see lots of timeouts on things like enable eco mode and battery reserve limit, but the system does appear to be working correctly.
Thanks TX200. Thats useful to know.
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Just a question! It looks to me that the important feature of the intelligent octopus flux tariff to look for is whether your exporting the maximum battery discharge during the peak period, which seems to be 80% (100% down to 20%). Is that your take on things and are you getting that most days. I’m assuming here that you are on the intelligent Octopus flux tariff.
I am on Octopus Flux and discharge when the price is high in the evening and charge when the price is low in the morning. This allows me to manage the use of the battery during the day. I have a GivEnergy Hybrid Inverter 3.6kW 1st Generation and successfully disable eco mode during charge and discharge. I wrote my own software using the GivEnergy API.
Good for you PeterT. I was quite keen to dabble with the API, but didn’t want to have to maintain the schedules and so opted for Intelligent Octopus Flux, which has a better export rate both during the day and at peak time. But for me, the fact that import and export rates are the same at all times means it doesn’t really matter much when you charge the battery. The down side is that if things go wrong then you don’t have control of the battery so you can’t do much about it except moan at them.
If they don’t sort it out this week then ill disable the API and try to sort it out manually using GivEnergy’s settings.
I’ve done bits of Python driven Octopus and GivEnergy APIs to collect the data needed to do a running estimate of the payback period for the gear and used the google sheets API to act as the database, calculator and output of the results, but this is still a work in progress.
Tackling the current schedule problems is a higher priority.
Yes, pretty much always up to 100% and down to 20% (sometimes ends up at 17% and then tops back to 20% after 7pm).
The only time it didn’t always export was just after I’d joined end of last year. Not sure if it worked differently then, or if there was an issue at the start.
Did anyone get the Intelligent Flux Octopus account connected to their Inverter please?
Many thanks
Hi
Did you get the Octopus Intelligent Flux to work with your inverter/battery please?
I have been back and forward for 4 months and stlll nothing.
Many thanks
Yes, it has been working satisfactorily for a few months now. However I had full fibre broad band installed a couple of days ago and i suspect the loss of a wifi connection disrupted their routine and its still not charging and discharging the battery at appropriate times. I had to charge and discharge it manually today. I’ll get on to Octopus and Givenergy on Monday.
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I never got to the bottom of what went wrong but Octopus changed the battery time zone to match their own and I think they hadn’t thought it through. I got it changed back to the Givenergy default and it started working ok shortly afterwards.
I hope this helps.
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Hi,
Have been looking at various Octopus tariffs since getting AIO installed, currently plumped for Octopus Go, but was considering Flux / Intelligent Flux.
Stupid question - what price per unit do you get for charging overnight, from what I can see on the Octopus website it’s 21.56p import / export all day, except for the evening peak where it’s 28.75p import / export?
Currently charging my battery overnight at 8.5p, and then most days that charge is enough to see me through the day until back on cheap rate 00:30, rarely have enough spare to export over the evening peak, or am I missing something obvious with how this tariff works in practice?
Just can’t seem to wrap my head around why this would be a better option than charging very cheaply overnight?
Could well be my own use case - not getting much in the way of solar just now and can’t effectively shift peak load from 16:00-19:00 as cooking family dinner right in the middle of the period.
From what you say you are on the right tariff for your situation. My battery would very rarely hold enough to last me until the next charge so what’s important for me is that whenever i import from the grid, it is relatively cheaper than that on other tariffs.
The beauty of intelligent octopus flux is that everyday you know you can import a battery full from the grid and then sell it back for a profit during the peak period. At most other times you are paying less for imported electricity than on any other tariff. This means you don’t have to micro manage schedules and Octopus can use your battery to help balance grid loads.
Horses for courses i guess!
Grand, thanks.
Just wanted to clear it in my head 