Hello there! We had our system installed over the summer (12 panels plus a 5.22kW battery) and are currently on Octoplus Flux Import/Export tariff. All was running smoothly over the summer with Charge off-peak + Eco ON + Export @ Peak working as a nice set up to charge overnight at reduced rate, use solar during the day, and then maximise our export at peak times.
But things have taken a turn with Winter… no sun, which means all our battery is used in right from the morning and is fully discharged by the time we get to peak time. Which means I am using the battery storage at the least convenient time. I thought this would be simple to turn-around, but I tried a couple of combinations and none seems to work:
Eco OFF, Discharge at Peak ON >> no battery storage is used at all
Eco ON, Discharge at Peak ON >> battery discharges at any time, i.e. Discharge only at Peak is ignored and battery is empty by the time the Peak period starts
Anyone has an idea how to fix this apart from manually setting ECO ON/OFF every day? Thank you!
Well - the simple way as a starter for 10 is to do a Manual “Timed Charge” from 2am until 5am every morning as this is the “Cheap Rate” - you can leave ECO mode on at this point.
I have handed all my timings over to “predbat” and Home Assistant to calculate all this for me as it gets complex in winter as the sun can be a shy in coming out,
You can see it knows when the cheap and expensive times are and controls when to charge and when not too.
Thank you; I may go the hard way, but for now just looking for a simple fix. The problem is that if I leave ECO on in the winter the battery will be empty by 16h… I was wondering whether there would be a way to have the battery discharge only from 16h. I think the best way is either to put it on ECO and charge it up again on day rate (say 15 to 16h) so that it arrives at 16h full OR change to Octopus Go.
well - i really simple way would be to turn off ECO mode and then manual set your “Discharge Time”, so start the discharge at 15:00 until 23:00 for example ( discharge is NOT export !! ) - that way you are are using the batterries at the most expensive time, and you can then just set you charge times for the cheaper hours.
Thats about as simple as you can go… and I used the webpage last time to do it as last time i used the app it wasn’t great ( they may have fixed that now )
Hi I have a similar problem and have been experimenting these last few weeks. I have a 9.5 Givenergy battery which, for some reason, doesn’t always charge fully between 02-0500, perhaps because of the weather. It’s under a leanto and therefore exposed to the elements. I’ve “discovered” a way of using the battery between 1600-1900 and that was to disable charge time and discharge time manually. Eco on. In theory one should be able to discharge between 1600-1900 but it doesn’t always work for me. But if you are finding that you are running out of power by 1400, then why not charge the battery between 1400-1600 or slightly earlier? That’s what I’ve been doing when the battery doesn’t charge fully at night. You end up paying less that the peak rate but more than the off peak rate.
We had a similar issue when using economy7 electricity, charge overnight for 7, hours and by end of day it was exhausted, especially now we have a heat pump. We have changed tariff to Cosy Octopus which gives 3 times cheap rate slots during the day, and now we never go below 50% charge. This has been a game changer for us, and ensure we run on cheap rate all the time.
Hi pgbish, does that mean you’ve found a way of making the GivEnergy batteries charge 3 x per day in the cheap rate timeslots? I’ve not been able to work that out so far. Currently on Intelligent Octopus Go tariff with 1 x 6-hour low rate, could save a fraction with Cosy tariff.
Yes, there are a few ways. It was essential i found a method for the multiple low tariff segments as otherwise i wouldnt have changed to Cosy. Gen1 and Gen2 hybrid inverters only have 1 charge time option, gen 3 has 10!
There are a couple of apps out there you could use, but i ended up using Octopus R&D app and portal, which alows you to link in GivEnergy systems, using an API link and entering your account details. You are able to set multiple charge times. It worked fairly well, but i was concerned that twice it failed to charge at a certain time, the rest of the time it resends the instruction multiple times until it suceeds. It sends charging instructions every 30 minutes.
I have now changed over to use the GivEnergy portal itself using the Smart Tariff (Beta) segment in the portal which you can add in via the dashboard (dont confuse this with the Smart Tariff app (without the Beta). This links your givenergy account with my Octopus account, and knows the 3 cheap rate times and you set a charge time based on cost/unit. You have to link your octopus account, and select automation, it then tells you of your charging periods for today and tomorrow and automatically changes the charging times. I am much happier with this than the Octopus R&D and it hasnt failed me so far.
Initially it failed to link my account and allow me to set up charging times, but i went back after a couple of days and it linked my account without any further issues.
I believe this feature only works with a couple of Octopus tariffs, certainly Cosy and at least one other, but I am not sure what other. You may need to contact GE support and ask this.
