Octopus Energy - Intelligent Tariff

I was wondering how reliable Octopus Intelligent Slot was - sounds like it is apart from when you have new charging slots? I’m attempting to circumvent this by monitoring my Pod Point and being strict on the battery charging in the usual off peak time slot.

Could you share the script that you are using? I’m not entirely sure the best way to configure it!

I deleted my original battery charging enable script and typed it back in.

We had another extra cheap rate last night and the system worked as expected…

Andy

I’m having some issues with numbers not adding up.
Today I’ve charged up from Off-Peak and run off my Powerwall battery all day so far.
As you can see here:
Screenshot 2023-01-30 at 14.59.55

When I check the Daily Peak entity it shows right:

But on the energy dashboard it has totally different figures?

This is how it’s configured:

Any idea what’s going on here?

Given that the screenshot shows the Intelligent slot turned off before your Lux AC, it looks likely that the Intelligent Integration worked fine and it was something in how you control/trigger the Lux AC that went wrong. Looking at your later message, possibly an issue in the script that was the issue.

In my experience it has been 100% reliable since I started using it a few months ago… always matching my intelligent slots, no matter when they are (early evening, overnight, extended mornings etc), allowing my car and home battery to charge whenever the slots are made.

However, if you are attempting to make your car only charge during the “core hours” of 23.30 - 05.30 to be double sure, then you don’t really need to use this integration - though, you aren’t then taking advantage of Intelligent, nor allowing Octopus to attempt to flatten out demand levels.

Not quite sure what you mean by ‘Lux AC’?

Weirdly, HA corrected itself later in the day so the figures matched.

My comment was more that under the Energy Dashboard it was reporting I’d used 13.16kWh of Peak Energy.
But when I check the ‘Daily Electric Peak’ entity itself, it was showing only 0.1kWh

Using the plugin to charge the battery (and other things) around the house outside of the regular slots so making full use of the plugin! Just making sure that the estimated figures given to me in the energy dashboard are close to perfect so I can compare with my actual energy bills

Still can’t figure it out, but it seems to be right today so far so hopefully it was just a glitch in the matrix? :man_shrugging:t3:

Hi @Pete_Matheson - My responses above were to @AndyWhittaker and @johnmeredith. I used the reply button, but should have also included their names to make clear.

What sensors are you using for peak and off peak elec usage? I assume these are sensors you have made yourself?

Must admit I hadn’t thought of creating peak and off-peak usage sensors for the energy dashboard, makes sense though to see the split. I just have the one sensor for usage, but then I created a tariff sensor ensure the price is correct at any time.

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Ah sorry! It’s not that easy to follow on here :slight_smile:

I follow the instructions further up this thread to create the sensors, then it automatically tells me how much I use each day for Peak & Off-Peak, and means I can hopefully match what the energy dashboard predicts to my Octopus bills.

Sounds good @Pete_Matheson, I missed that idea… will go back up and find it.

My energy dashboard matches my octopus bills well, as it will use the tariff sensor I have created, to dynamically change the rate. But I do like the idea of being able to clearly see the peak/off-peak split.

This morning my car stopped charging at 7.09am when it reached 90% full.
The Octopus App is still showing my slot for 7pm last night to 11am today.
The plugin also still thinks that I’m currently on off-peak energy.

Am I right in saying that if my car isn’t charging then I’m going to be charged at peak rates?

If so, I guess I need to add some logic in somewhere to check the car is charging outside of off-peak hours? (And to round it to the nearest half hour?)

Did you change the charge rate/amps that your charging at?

I’ve noticed that if I change the amps from my regular drip feed to a faster rate, the car stops charging when it hits the energy limit.
So they appear to be running on time x charge rate = kWh and it stops once you’ve hit that limit.

But you should still be getting the cheaper rate IF the slot is still showing as on. Hope that all makes sense!

Nope, not changed any settings / charge rate etc!

Everywhere else I’ve read says that you get billed Peak rate unless your car charges in that 30m window.
So if my window is until 11am.
My car stops charging at 9.15am
I’ll have cheap rate until 9.30am but from 9.30 onwards it’s peak rate.

I checked this with Octopus on Twitter and they confirmed that’s how it should work.
(I’m yet to get my first bill from them to be able to confirm it though!)

I’d be very interested in the outcome as I’m assuming that if the response for the Intelligent session is on/active - that 30 minutes will be at the lower rate regardless of wether the car is actually charging.

I agree that if the car stops charging then cheaper rate should stop, but how the two are linked I’m not clear on as the slot appears to stay open. If it’s that flag that tells their back end system to charge me the lower rate then whether the car charges or not becomes irrelevant. Depends on how they are checking.

My understanding has always been that as long as the api (and therefore the integration) is showing it as an intelligent slot, then its off-peak.

However… for me, Intelligent integrates directly with my car, but with you it sounds like maybe its integrating with the charger?

The former probably means that I never get into the same situation as you are describing, where the car has stopped charging, but the window is still open (for me, once because Intelligent talks to the car, once it gets to target, it stops the slot)

My gut feeling is that you are getting off-peak for as long as the API is showing as such (whether thats by design of Intelligent, or not).

I can’t remember, do you have a house battery too? in the short term, obviously you want to ensure that your battery doesn’t charge if your car completes before the window, just incase.

Longer term, I would then make a note of when you have seen the extended window, and the times the integration gave you. Then check your next bill… the daily page on the bill will clearly show you what time’s you had peak/off-peak. I’d say thats the best way to be sure… I can imagine the contact centre folks won’t be 100% sure… especially if its not working strictly to design.

Mine also integrates directly with the car (Tesla) and I have a Tesla Powerwall.

So my thought is that I need to switch to using power from the battery after the car has finished charging, even if the window is still open (Unless I can prove otherwise - I guess by checking my bill? Not sure if there’s a way to get data from Octopus which states historic Peak/Off-Peak times / usage etc? )

Interesting all the same!

Hi John,

Were you asking me for my script? This is how I configure the plug-in to kick-start my Lux LXP3600 pair of inverters to charge at cheap rate:

alias: Cheap Battery Charge **START**
description: >-
  Called when the electricity rate is cheap. Manually sets the inverters to
  charge from the grid. Also sets the battery maximum SOC limit of 90%. 
trigger:
  - platform: time
    at: "23:30:00"
  - platform: state
    entity_id:
      - binary_sensor.octopus_intelligent_slot_2
    from: "off"
    to: "on"
    for:
      hours: 0
      minutes: 0
      seconds: 30
condition: []
action:
  - type: turn_on
    device_id: 8a2e063ac2beb7afdc4ccfe37f68e61a
    entity_id: switch.lux_ac_charge_enable
    domain: switch
  - type: turn_on
    device_id: 328e1b697cba7379a40660edbc88f9b1
    entity_id: switch.lux_ac_charge_enable_2
    domain: switch
  - device_id: 8a2e063ac2beb7afdc4ccfe37f68e61a
    domain: number
    entity_id: number.lux_ac_battery_charge_level
    type: set_value
    value: 100
  - device_id: 328e1b697cba7379a40660edbc88f9b1
    domain: number
    entity_id: number.lux_ac_battery_charge_level_2
    type: set_value
    value: 100
  - device_id: 8a2e063ac2beb7afdc4ccfe37f68e61a
    domain: number
    entity_id: number.lux_ac_charge_power_rate
    type: set_value
    value: 60
  - device_id: 328e1b697cba7379a40660edbc88f9b1
    domain: number
    entity_id: number.lux_ac_charge_power_rate_2
    type: set_value
    value: 60
  - device_id: c67ddd3a9ac0ecb351a8a05185589053
    domain: mobile_app
    type: notify
    message: Cheap Rate *Active*
    title: Intelligent Octopus
mode: single

Cheers, Andy

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@Pete_Matheson

Hmm strange then - I have a Tesla with a Hypervolt charger, and it works fine and when the car finishes it stops the intelligent slot.

My gut feeling is you are getting additional off-peak for some reason, but you will only be able to tell that by looking at a monthly bill and checking the peak/off-peak times for that day

Got a question
How can i show the planned slot like in apps one on the homeassistant dashboard?
Many thanks
Eg 10:30- 5:30

My understanding (and experience from examining my first IO bill) is that as long as the car is connected (not necessarily charging), the off-peak slots are still honoured at the cheap rate. So you don’t need to check if the car is actually charging, just be sure your house battery is charging during the IO slots AND leave the car connected. Other posts corroborate this!