Home Storage Battery emptied overnight. How to stop it draining 

I’ve just had a similar set up to you fitted ( 2 days ago) . I’m completely confused so I’m pleased that you have “ cocked up “ too. I’ll be watching with interest and punching your ideas. Good quality video thanks for you input

Picture and Audio very clear. Seems to work very well.

Great thought....... only hope the industry takes it on-board.

I built my system around Solaredge which is great for storing excess solar but now that I want to integrate smart-meter based tariffs I suspect I have little control, only data. In fairness I haven't yet engaged with Solaredge support. Thank you for your analysis and dogged quest for better systems.

Told me a lot thanks for sharing Mike B

Very simple solution - set your battery to charge at a very low rate throughout your cheap energy period. I charge at 200w. Any other charging can take place without accidental discharge - no messing about with timers etc.

What all of the manufacturers of inverters, battery storage systems, and diverters (be that EV or immersion) need to agree on is a common communication language. If they all spoke the same then it would be easier to tell the overall system what you wanted. IFTTT would be a good way forward and for more automation, a compatible Home Assistant dashboard would be perfect. I agree, integration is the key, and that has to start with different systems being able to identify each other and then communicate.

Thanks for your video

You can use the Eddie Relay and sensor board that switches one of its relays ON/OFF when the Eddie is heating, this could be used to drive an Alexa bluetooth switch module to indicate to an Alexa system when the Eddie is operating, this could be used to control other devices i.e battery not to discharge.

My solution ( up to now) has been to move the CT coil downstream of the meter tails and any devices that the grid is working with. I have sunsynk inverters, pylon batteries and an "immersun" diversion controller ( the prequel to the EDDI) so during my off-peak periods the grid only functions on the circuits that are not on my "essential loads" consumer unit.

The beat video to date og Hope my energy is Up for tour tips 👍🙂

I’ve been critical of the powervault battery because of many failures, but one great thing about the powervault battery was it’s time clock system you could set periods to be normal, force charge, force discharge ( to grid ) sit idle, it was the best time clock system I’ve seen but the battery and SW was terrible

Hi Nigel. I have had a system installed that may be of interest. It uses a Sofar inverter with Pylontech batteries controlled by the installation companies own interface that utilises their own Solar Diverter unit. It can be programmed to operate as you have specified. The supplier will adjust the software to suit your own needs. The main issue I see is the integration with your Zappi device.

You are spot on, my tech ev charger cannot see my economy 7 rate but it can just use pv energy so I still have to think about and step in and manually change the way I need to save money. I know new ev chargers now can do what I need but I cannot justified the cost. And yes would it be nice for my pv battery to charge its self on my economy 7. Clever tech not

I'm waiting too, but don't think what we need for easy control will be available in foreseeable future 🙄

Have you tried integrating all this with Home Assistant? You could setup rules to do all the manual steps for you.

Hi Roger . The simple way to do this is to set the battery to charge from the grid in the off peak times . You can set it to charge at a minimum rate of 1amp .

What we need is all the Manufacturers to publish their APIs like Octopus do and then some clever programmers can write the software required, sadly unlikely to happen! My Powerwall is set to self-powered mode so I just set it to not discharge below 80%, works but is very messy.

I have the Lux Inverter and when you set it to AC Charge it wont drain the battery so it pulls everything else from the grid.

It also depends what you're optimising for... Saving money? Lowest climate impact? Security of supply (where blackouts are a risk)? Etc.. All these goals have different logic and management of the resources - and that's before we consider all the different setup combinations (i.e. battery but no Octopus). I guess I'm saying I totally agree they need integrating, but they also need smart management system that can handle these configurations whilst targeting various user goals. I wonder if Home Assistant or similar smart home solutions could be that glue... But someone has to write that software 🙂

Thanks for the video. Can I just ask do you get plunge pricing or low tariff rates on octopus energy on days when the weather is very windy?

if its a regular octopus go slot eg 0000-0400 can you set the givenergy to charge during that period and it’ll entirely block discharge? eg you set the battery to charge to 20% but you get to 0000 with 50% due to solar the day before. Then you set the car to charge. Will the givenergy discharge down to 20% and hold it there or will it stay at 50% and all the EV electric will come from teh grid?

It would be good if Myenergi produces a flow battery for storage, I would be one of the first in line.

Nigel, I had the same problem with a Tesla Powerwall, always discharging into my EV when I plugged in to recharge. But I have overcome the problem using a Raspberry Pi to switch the Powerwall over to 'Back-Up Only' mode (this makes it charge up from the grid and not supply energy), using an unoffical Tesla API. I actually use the MyEnergi Account system to control my EV charging (which automates it to the cheapest Octopus Agile time slots and turns it on whenever there is a price plunge) and my Raspberry Pi monitors the Zappi and switches over the Powerwall as and when the Zappi is doing a scheduled charge (as automatically set by the MyEngergi Account system), so the Powerwall no longer discharges. There is an added bonus in that the Powerwall actually charges up from the grid during these cheap time slots, thanks to the 'Back-Up Only' mode. In the depths of winter I set things so the Zappi tries to charge my EV for the four cheapest hours (usually overnight), even when the EV doesn't need a charge and this is sufficient to fully charge my Powerwall when there isn't enough solar to top it up, thus saving me from having to use grid energy at peak rates. This makes my Powerwall a 'smart' device and makes my energy use cheaper than the Tesla 'Advanced' mode in their app, which only accounts for low, normal and peak rates, not the half hour changes of a smart tariff. I'm happy to share the set-up and code I use, with anyone who is interested - Just PM me.

Hi There, I've noticed that when our oven is regulating it keeps pulling from the grid first when it is pulling energy, by the time it switches and it starts to pull from the battery it regulates off again and this happens over and over, so most of the time my oven runs it is pulling from the grid. This is only trying to pull around 2kw too, so nothing special. Does anyone know if it is possible to prevent this?

The optimizers are using energy from the panels. This could be the reason why the inverter seems to be less efficient?

The integration is the hard bit. The lux devices have the concept of standby which means the devices will not charge or discharge but this can not currently be scheduled by the software. I do have a method of doing that with some custom code, but I will confess I just charged the batteries the other night due to the price being below 8p ....

Yup it's a pain at the moment. I set my car to charge last nigh on the cheap Agile rates, but chose Saturday morning rather than Friday morning as the day. So no cheap power for us! Total integration for all items is the long term - smart homes are not that smart at present.

Really useful thanks, just what I was looking for. I have solar with a Givenergy battery and I am looking at an electric car with a home charger and I was wondering how I stop the car draining the battery at night. It looks like I need to use mode 3 where you can choose when the battery discharges. Would you still go with the Zappi charger?

The issues you have thrown up, would they be solved with software upgrades or new hardware? Sorry I’m confused but looking at buying a system!

The one thing about batteries is that you have go to size them according to you habits. When you go to small in a battery you then get battery drainage anxiety. Do it right from the get go and you would not regret it down the road

I almost done the same mistake, in the end I charged my batteries for the whole duration of low price (5h)

Hi Nigel. Finding your videos very interesting. Have you ever reviewed alpha smile inverter and batteries ?

I think Nigel knows something we don't know...! ;-) Loud and clear on the new setup and it's nearly as windy as it is in North Yorkshire!

There are so many parameters to consider but I reckon they could be simplified and have a much more independent system. Ideally link to weather but even a dumber system would be an improvement that just used last 7 days generation to guide decisions on whether to charge battery / car at night or wait till the free sunshine.

I had this last night. New system just installed yesterday. My givenergy battery is set to Eco mode. This doesnt charge from the grid and I ended up draining my battery into my car overnight. Now fixed I hope.

Hi Nigel. You might be aware already but if not, GivEnergy will soon be releasing an OTA update to allow for device control. This will obviously need CT clamps to be installed on each device, then plugged into the Giv inverter, but it will give us this holy grail of control you speak of - for example I will have a CT clamp on both of my car chargers so that I can tell the GivEnergy battery not to discharge when the chargers are demanding energy (charging) - so this is perfect for me. Thoughts?

Nigel, I think you highlighted that retailers of green products are more interested in the sale than the system. Share trading software allows a purchase when a certain value is reached, obviously the same should be intergrated into buying or using grid or solar produced energy.

Can anyone advise how I can measure what amount of my solar production I export rather than use. I cant find the answer anywhere. I’m trying to establish whether I produce sufficient solar power to make it worth while, and until I can meter this I dont know how to do this.

I have free grid weekend car plan or anything electric 12 -2 pm no money. Australia and the electric companies are trying to burn solar grid input. I charge my powerwall2 in the winter, charge my car, AC, heating, whatever I can think of, I use, all within my mains fuse. Mains fuse is only 45 amp. I can over extend the internal home electric because I have a powerwall2 and solar and an updated fuse board and never really used grid electric since August 2017 apart from my ev charging plan which I take advantage of as much as possible. My powerwall2 used to say zero grid usage , not now

hmm looking to buy a dual 8.2Kw Givenergy system without solar for cheap rate charging... good to know.

I have the Solax battery storage system and when I don’t want it to discharge I can set the discharge to zero amps and then it uses the grid until I tell it otherwise.

How did you tell your battery not to discharge? And is it possible to charge your battery from the grid during the night whilst it’s cheap?

So all this for, a rare, 12p overnight?

Hello I updated my system with harvi with I connected ct1 to grid ct2 to sollar generation and ct3 to my pylontech battery red cable but I do not get any riddings from battery can you do a video with instructions ho to connect batteries to the my enerhi harvi hub or to zappi to get battery riddings like you have from what I see on your tablet And Thanks for a great job as I watch lot of your videos and they was ever so helpful

This video is a year old. Do you still have the same problem (control of the battery) or has your latest gear sorted this problem?

I can do this by telling the Tesla gateway when the cheap rate is, and it rather charges up or freezes and holds charges dependant on what Tesla AI says it thinks it needs ( this is not always correct though

Where do you download the software to monitor the solar setup?.

As we all(?) make the change to new home charging technologies I can see a 'Dummies Guide to Home Charging' very soon, or even night school classes.... where do i sign up.?

Don’t you have CT clamps around battery, solar and grid feed so the zappi knows the difference and can avoid battery

I have a Give Energy hybrid system and I am so cofused by the whole thing, my battery usually sits at 4% which is no good if there is a power cut. Why is this so complicated?

As you set an Eddi charge schedule You can also use the Eddi expansion card timer function to send a signal/input to the AC coupled Inverter/Charger to stop it discharging at this period or at any time during the night. Depending on the Inverter/Charger you choose different levels of external control are available through relayed, RS233 or usb inputs. You can also use a stand alone Siemens PLC programmed to see all devices and the energy flow. As charging starts it can detect voltage, latch a relay or send an analog 4-20 0-10v signal to control the AC Inverter. These PLC’s are superb, you can island using contractors and voltage sensing and use the AC coupled battery system when islanding, opening a contact or the grid supply and back feeding the house board. You can do anything you wish with a little Siemens Logo PLC

Ok, but with octopus tariffs, the best tariff for ME is their special export tariff which currently pays 15p/unit. Octopus will not allow you to have "Outgoing Octopus" and "Octopus Go". So with an Eddi and Harvi, it's the "Do not use battery" setting. Presumably this basically says "if the battery is discharging, don't charge the car or heat the hot water. I have the advantage of being retired, so can plug the car in during the day...

If the components have an open source api this can be done no problem

In your circumstance it seems like what you want is the battery to be there only when there is an outage. Cheap energy from your utility at night is a bargain.

I wonder if a Moixa Smart Battery would solve this. 🤷🏾‍♂️

I've been down the same road and have come to these conclusions :- 1) These system will never integrate with each other. There are no real standards, after all they all think they know better/want you to buy into their world. 2) The software is a moving target on these systems anyway. 3) Even if the did talk, it has the feeling of a chaotic setup. It'll do mad things and you'll never work out why. So the line I'm taking, and it's not ideal as it's for expert users like yourself and no way plug and play, is to take control away from the individual systems and have something over the top of them all. For me that's Home Assistant. Charge the car for x time at x rate if the battery is x% full and it's before x o.clock. etc etc Sadly for the general public I think a system that does what we really want with the configuration bendable to our situations is years if not never away. My 0.02KWh worth :-)

Great idea. But, solar people are the same people who couldn't figure out how to set the clock on their VCR before it became obsolete. I see no hope till there is a system that tells them to go away, you'll just screw things up.

Better to use battery storage at home .grid tarrif I only 3.2 p which is nothing.energy compony charge customer at least 10 times higher..

This is the business of government. Government should not be procuring large pieces of software.. it's been catastrophically bad at that.. but it should be laying down standard protocols by which small independently written applications can talk to one another. In legislation.

Come on Nigel, that's what the Modes are for, you could have used Mode 2. Also, you could have set a point that the battery will not discharge below to prevent completely discharging. I think it's a bit selective to say that you made a decision to use an Agile plunge price, but you forgot to set other parameters. I have also made a mistake on my settings and I hopefully learned from these mistakes. I agree that better integration would be good, but one size will never fit all as it depends on how much risk you want to take about how low it is safe to charge down to.

Hi Nigel ,I been following you for long time ,great work you are doing. The best system in the world is E3DC From Germany the Rolls Royce of Home Battery;s The Germans Calling it Haus Kraftwerk. Home Power Station with tri link Power management system technology www.e3dc.com/en/#Intro ,I am in Australia and German speaking. I believe E 3 Dc is available in England but not here in Australia. As the Ceo from e3DC relayed ,the Aussies are only interested in Cheap stuff. Can I ring you about this one day? Cheer's Michael

I agree home storage batteries need better logic. Battery need to look at grid price and only supply house when cost are high. One way to get round problem would be to feed car charger before battery grid power sensor. Look at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AVbqhCrOwYg.html Norway's answer to integrated electric house.

Bad presentation. It is non stop talking which make it extremely difficult to get the message. Had to stop in the mid to avoid the stress.

I wouldnt call it integration/automation if you have to continuously fiddle with the settings almost everyday. What most people want is fit and forget based on a set of parameters, e.g consume/charge battery if price is above/below X pence per kwh between certain hours. Other sinple devices can then consume. Considering the givenergy octopus agile integration, why not something like the schedule setup like the one in the knowledge base - kb.givenergy.cloud/article.php?id=8 A local solution something like an ohme smart plug could work off the same parameters.