I’m now on intelligent Octopus Flux and something I noticed today on the nice sunny day I getting 5kW from the solar panels but collectively the battery icon says 70% full but the solar is being sent to the grid & home before the peak export is due to start. I would have thought my the three batteries would be allowed to get to 100% full before the peak export period starts. So I drilled down on the battery icon to inspect the batteries storage , batt one 78%. Batt two 65%. and batt three 62%. Do you aggregate the three readings and then Octopus just takes this value? I think it would be better to allow to give the batteries full opportunity to maximise to solar when outside the peak export rate. Is this something you can fix? Or is an Octopus energy software issue?
IO Flux gives full control of your system to octopus. They adjust things to leave enough in your batteries to export at full power for the peak period leaving you 20%. The idea as far as I am aware is to maximise export. It is not broken, Octopus system is doing this automatically.
1 inverter 3 batteries, 50% discharge in the 3 hour peak. 3x 8kw batteries? Or 3x 9’s?
The added benefit is less stress on your batteries as they wont hit 100% charge.
Thanks for your comments. I understand IO flux is to maximise exports but the system starts filling up the batteries before sunrise. I know one can never be sure how much sunshine gets during day, but I know for certain we get none before sunrise, so the algorithm be set to start charging when potentially the sun is up. Even with my 3 array of batteries there is still enough grid charging time during daylight hours, to meet the peak export period even there hasn’t been any sunshine but the system should allowed the solar to contribute to topping up the batteries to make the most of potential of Solar Energy but it doesn’t it just pulls power from the grid ignoring free power from the solar panels.
They are 3x 9.5kW batteries
Octopus decide when to charge.
They charge when electric is cheap and discharge when it’s peak rates.
You have no control over their decision making.
For example if there’s surplus electric overnight (windy perhaps), they’ll charge overnight.
If you don’t like that, then change to a different tariff.
Like you I’d prefer it to charge from solar, and charge slower ideally (as the inverter and battery get quite hot when doing a full speed charge) but you hand over control to them in return for the “net metering” style tariff and good export rates.
So I contacted octopus about this exact issue a few weeks ago (grid charging to 100% overnight, leaving no room for daytime solar) and asked if this was expected behaviour. They basically confirmed what TX200 says above:
“The smart tariff team have investigated and confirmed that It seems it is following the schedules, which will have been worked out to optimise the pricing/green energy. The way the battery is behaving is expected. As a dynamic tariff there may occasionally be strange seeming schedules but they will be reacting to the grid capacity etc.”
So yeah, that helped me get my head around the fact that Intelligent Flux is more optimizing for grid storage and export than storing solar. But the trade-off is that you get very cheap grid electricity and very good export rates, so I suppose that’s basically what Octopus “pays” us in order to rent our batteries!
The gains are great. Mate of mine with a 4.1kw south pv and single 9.5kw battery is making £6 - £9 per day. I have 15.6kw east west pv and make the same on the fixed export. Hard to argue with the financial gains :-)
I’m on intelligent flux too and i have the same behaviour unless Octopus set a charge during the day.
Given the import and export rates are the same it’s best to think of the grid as one big battery.
But are you all making money !!! thats what I want to know.
I am still waiting after 10 Weeks just to get the normal EXPORT traffic from Octopus.
And what makes the most money - normal export or the Intelligent Flux !! ( or something else )
My entire energy bill for June was -£30
But everyone is different. If you import more than you export IOF probably isn’t the tariff for you.
There’s various things to think about including have you got an electric car, heat pumps, etc.
I think if your generation is 1.4x your consumption or better, IOF might be the best tariff (according to a YouTube video by Tim and Kat’s Green Walk).
I am on the ordinary Octopus Flux Tariff and wrote my own software to the export when price high and import when low in accordance with the tariff. I don’t discharge below 30% during the week and 40% at the weekend to ensure we have enough for the evening based on experience. Our bill for June was £29.38 in credit. We have also turned off the pilot light on our gas boiler so that the only gas used is for some cooking, we use about 50p per week. After the battery is filled in the morning I use a MyEnergi eddi to boost the temperature of the hot water tank. This lowers the battery to, at the most, 50% and then it is recharged by the solar panels to 100%.
The battery is 8.2kWh, which is double the usage before we installed it and the solar panels generate about 3.8kWh depending on the amount of sun.
Excellent news that your making some money - I have got rid of my gas cooker and gone Induction so 100% electric.
What I would say though is don’t turn your boiler off… ( Should I Turn My Boiler Off in the Summer? | Boiler Guide ) - every now and again it will turn all the valves on and off again to make sure things are OK - and the pilot light uses so very little gas it’s doesn’t really show up.
The pilot light uses about 3.6kWh per day, cooking is less than 1kWh per day on average. So during summer the pilot light is excessive. Even with the pilot light off we can turn the boiler on now and again to make sure things are OK; water is pumped around even if it is not heated.