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I have solar and battery storage together with a recently acquired BEV (can’t believe how good it is to say that, it’s been a long time coming) and an Air Source Heat Pump. I’ve been looking online to see the best way to run all of the above and at the same time make best use of Intelligent Octopus Go and the cheap rates they provide overnight. Cheap slots are also provided during certain random times outwith the overnight charging slots and these are the times I would like to utilise.
My battery storage is circa 48kwh and my solar is 10kwhp. As a result during the summer months I am unable to make use of the additional slots, without a lot of faffing about, so was looking to set up Home Assistant to take over my system and run it without too much input from me.
Any help would be appreciated 👍
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.
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@kezo one for you.
Joss
Current car: BMW X2 sDrive 20i M Sport 5dr Step Auto In metallic Portimão Blue. 04:10:2025
Previous car:Peugeot 308 GT Premium 1.2 Pure tech Petrol.@joss I remember someone mentioning it many months ago on one of my threads but I can’t remember who it was.
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.Why not setup a time period on the inverter that covers the period / opt to force charge, that way during this period, the grid can be used to charge the car and battery, surely this would be simpler than implementing a 3rd party system, that could complicate matters further, especially with intelligent tariffs! (Eon Next Drive gives 7hrs @7.5p.
Is your Zappi wired grid side and the CT clamp wired grid side, which if so the Fogstar battery shouldn’t be able to see Zappi charger?
However, if you have the urge to use Home Assistant, with an intelligent tariff –
I’ll assume you know HA basics😂
You could use an add on like “Predbat”, available on Github which It integrates with the inverter, octopus’s API and as a solar forecast, which is able to control what the battery is doing. Also, it makes sure your Fogstar battery doesn’t discharge into the car, during off peak rates and can charge the battery whenever electricity is cheap, including in any extra cheap slots you get.
Another possible option, is to use MQTT board with “HACS” (Github) or ESS & MultiPlus Control vwith MQTT on HA. There are other options using MQTT,
Example using Givenergy
Is your Zappi wired grid side and the CT clamp wired grid side, which if so the Fogstar battery shouldn’t be able to see Zappi charger
A lot to unpack there Kezo so let me tell you my existing set up. I have my solar, via my 8.8 kWh Sunsynk inverter, set to sell but I have another 3.6kwh inverter that goes to the house.
It’s a Hypervolt charger that I have and I don’t know how to tell if it’s wired grid side or not.
I have no urge to do anything nowadays 😂 but home assistant seemed like the answer even though I don’t know what the question is lol.
The problem I have is that during the summer months I will almost always be sending power back to the grid but to keep IOG you need to have your charger plugged into the car for a certain amount of time. I can of course plug it into but prevent it from charging via my Hyundai app but not sure if that will satisfy Octopus.
Home assistant seems to be able to stop/pause power coming from your battery when cheap power is being supplied from Octopus but not sure it can do anything for solar.
The set up will change as we approach autumn/winter as my solar will drop off drastically and it will be much easier to control the battery on its own as I will be setting it to power my air pump and the house and just selling off what’s left at night but as far as I’m aware Hime Assistant, if set up correctly, can manage all of these things.
So I am not familiar with Home Assistant or any of these things add ons but I’m confident I can master the basics but I’ve no evidence to support this bold claim 😂
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.It’s a Hypervolt charger that I have and I don’t know how to tell if it’s wired grid side or not.
If it’s wired grid side, Fogstar won’t see the charger – I, expect it is, as from memory you have a dedictated consumer unit for the charger.
Octopus will want to see power flowing into the car.
Home Assistant is great, if you want to make your home snart ie powered curtains, rad valves, sockets etc, but outside of this it can become more complicated and open a can of worms, even though the coding is readilly availailable to hust download directly into HA. In a remotely similar way, it’s like side loading app onto a Firestick, once you know how it becomes easy and your able to go on and challenge, if the app or the coding in the case of HA as bug for example. I use Arduino, which is perhaps more complicated, but could be done more cheaply of one board.
Nipping out now I’ll come back later 🙂
@Rico are you around?Lets look at the pro’s and cons with what you already have and a simpler way.
Option 1 Inverter-
You could set the battery SOC to 100% in the time of use setting, but at the same time, dont select grid charge time. If at the time the pv battery is less than 100% then the battery will not discharge at all preventing the battery discharging to the car.
Another Inverter option, is to ensure yourpv batteries are set to charge during the off peak time period, by setting a SOC% you would like the batteries to charge up to.
The disadvantage of this, is with intelligent tariffs and the off peak window they give outside of the normal off peak window hours. Off course this would be an advantage with non intelligent tariffs, such as EON next drive, where you are given one off peak window. Are you following😂
**Perhaps the best amd easiest option (CT clamp location)
Depending on positioning of CT clamps, your PV batteries, could see the charger as just another load, so every time you plug in the car or during extra hours on IO, the house battery detects the demand and start to discharge to meet it.
To overcome this, the pv battery CT needs to be positioned downstream of the charger, this puts the charger outside the monitoring zone. Then the battery won’t detect the charger load and won’t discharge, preventing unwanted battery drain during times you charge your car.
This way is simple ro do as CT’s just unclip and you can relocate them, although your system maybe setup this way anyway (we can look into that) and the charger basically sits on it’s own away from you PV system and charging the car won’t affect anything, as you will just charge during IO hours.
Hypervolt chargers have whats known as “Battery Safe” mode, in the event of solar surplus, say you wanted to charge the car from that surplus, you would still find it discharging the PV battery. To overcome this problem, Hypervolt introduced this new charging mode. Primarily it’s designed for those who want to charge their car using only surplus solar energy, whils’t saving battery capacity for other uses.
I don’t think this option is for you as you sell back for a higher price than you can charge during off peak hours. However, for those that may find it useful –
https://support.hypervolt.co.uk/en/knowledge-base/home-battery-system-setup
**This option maybe just what your looking for 🙂
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@Brydo ??
Sorry Kezo I’ve been snowed under my father in law is in hospital and it’s my birthday today so I’ve been really busy. I’m just heading out to my daughters for my party so will go over everything you have posted tomorrow.
Thanks for all the info 👍
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.Best wishes on your birthday @Brydo 🍺🎉🎂🍰🥃
Joss
Current car: BMW X2 sDrive 20i M Sport 5dr Step Auto In metallic Portimão Blue. 04:10:2025
Previous car:Peugeot 308 GT Premium 1.2 Pure tech Petrol.That’s some system Brydo! What made you go so big?
Our average use per day excluding 2×Ev overnight charge is 9kwh.
We charge up batteries and cars overnight and then top batteries up or export during the day.
We are on Eon Next drive Smart tariff but I haven’t quite worked out how to set cars/batteries to charge smartly through the day (not sure I need to though or if the cars are compatible?).
I am interested to see how I could use my system more smartly aswell
That’s some system Brydo! What made you go so big? Our average use per day excluding 2×Ev overnight charge is 9kwh. We charge up batteries and cars overnight and then top batteries up or export during the day. We are on Eon Next drive Smart tariff but I haven’t quite worked out how to set cars/batteries to charge smartly through the day (not sure I need to though or if the cars are compatible?). I am interested to see how I could use my system more smartly aswell
You would be better topping up your solar battery and charging the car during off peak hours (6.5p) and selling (or using) duriing the peak hours for circa 15p kW.
Even when charging the cars during off peak hours, your solar battery could just see the car as another load and start to discharge to meet it, rather than using off peak electricity. One way to overcome this is to ensure the car charger is outside the solar battery monitoring zone by making sure the PV/battery CT is downstream of the charger, which it may already be!
There are other ways to do this, as in my previous reply to @Brydo
Sorry if my post didn’t read correctly but I use my system exactly as you describe import overnight cheaply overnight into cars and house battery and then use battery/solar to power house.
I export the rest.
I have ability to force export from battery anything left, but I want to ensure by constantly fully filling emptying battery it doesn’t reduce its life.
I have ability to force export from battery anything left, but I want to ensure by constantly fully filling emptying battery it doesn’t reduce its life.
What battery do you have?
You could set a limit, it discharges to say 10-20%
I’ve got a pair of 9.5Kwh Givenergy’s and yes I could avoid emptying completely by setting a limit.
However I don’t want forced export to reduce the performance of my battery over time.
I’ve got a pair of 9.5Kwh Givenergy’s and yes I could avoid emptying completely by setting a limit. However I don’t want forced export to reduce the performance of my battery over time.
Givenergy 9.5, allows for 100% DOD, preferably 80% – 90% and unlimited cycles at 80% DOD without compromising the battery’s lifespan however, what they are saying here is, life cycling at 80% DOD is equal to 6,000 cycles backed by the guarantee, which works out at 500 cycles per year, so you should be fine.
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