We had a GivEnergy hybrid system last year and could manage the overnight charging with Home Assistant. We have a solar forecast from Solcast which is pretty accurate most days. We got rid of it though as it was so unreliable (the GivEnergy system that is). We now have a Solis invertor which is in Home Assistant and I can see hybrid settings available. Automations are a great part of HA. Battery wise we have a Tesla powerwall now so it sorts all the charging out, doesn't do a bad job, in the 11 months we've had it in we've been on peak rate electricity for about an hour
if I'm honest I had a similar thought with my batteries but decided it was easier just to set the batteries to fully charge every night on the cheap rate and sell the excess during the day that way I know the maximum cost per day I could have
Did you have to pay for your system or were their grants ? I've been looking in to it and I can't see how it pays for itself if I pay out of my pocket, instead I just charge everything on the cheap rate during the night
I have a solar from 2015 and added a Victron inverter this year. As my solar is old and not that powerful (16x 250w panels on a East West roof) I'm always looking at the weather app and altering the inverter to set a charge limit on the home battery on over night charging if necessary. I'm on Octopus intelligent Go. Rob
I have the same inverter and batteries. I have home assistant that runs an automation every day that looks at the next days forecast, and runs a clever algorithm that charges the batteries optimally to make sure we store all forecasted solar. I haven't touched it in over a year and it's been working perfectly. No more wasted export or worrying about touching the inverter.
I use Solcast to give me a prediction of solar irradiance for the next day or two, and it seems to give quite accurate forecasts for my solar array (which is connected to a Givenergy inverter and batteries). I then tweak the overnight vs. solar charging to suit. I seem to recall Speak To The Geek describing a way to automate solar charging of Givenergy kit based on those predictions although I haven't tried it myself. Not sure if there's a similar solution for your setup, Jonathan
JP - I have the same Solis inverter & 9.6kw Pylontech battery setup. However, as we do get paid for our export @ 15p kWh via Octopus, which I don’t think you do in Orkney, I have now set ours to charge up fully overnight until 05:30 each morning. As of this year I am going to do this even during the summer months. I set the discharge rate to zero during the off-peak tariff period, so it covers the base load too & I can charge my EV without draining our home batteries if I need it. Not sure if you are aware, but most users can use the Solis app or at least the web portal to control the inverter settings now, rather than having to directly do it on the inverter itself. Great video as always.👍
What would be ideal would be the ability to control these settings from the Solis cloud app. I have just set ours to charge overnight as the weather has been so poor lately, but then the weather improved. Our inverter is installed in the attic so it is completely impractical to be going up there on s daily basis to adjust the settings.
Are you on a FIT with deemed export, or are you on a metered export tariff like Fixed Outgoing? I’m on the latter so charge overnight regardless of the weather. I usually manipulate the IOG charge % required to avoid ‘bonus’ additional off peak windows to avoid discharging the battery into our EVs.
I’ve a similar setup, but I fully charge on octopus intelligent at night for 7.5p, and if it’s sunny the next day, the batteries will be full and I export with octopus outgoing at 15p a kWh.
Octopus Go cheap rate cost here (a long way south of you) is 8.5p/kWh and they pay 8p/kWh for exported units. The difference is so small that it vanquished my inner geek and the house batteries are set to charge each and every night.
I have the same problem this time of year. I charge the Powerwall to 100% on Octopus intelligent overnight. If I have spare solar next day I use granny charger to fill the car at 2.4kw.
Must admit I do something similar - are you able to charge to a certain % of the battery capacity? - I have a summer (charge to 50% capacity overnight) and winter setting (90% overnight) - I now have 9xUS2000c - which more or less means that over the summer I dont draw any electric from the grid, and in the winter its max £50/month or so in Dec/Jan 👍
I'm lucky with this decision at the moment; I get 15p per unit export rate and pay 12p per unit off peak. So I charge to 100% overnight and export everything during the day. I can't see this lasting very long so I will probably have to rethink soon.
So, to charge my EV and keep my battery stored solar, I set the Solis hybrid inverter to charge at 0Amps for the time period when the EV is charging. The battery is in "charge up" mode and cannot discharge. Is that how you keep your solar stash of power and charge on Octopus go?
Hi, I've got an offgrid solar system of 5.5 kw and 10 kwh of storage for over night usage and also an 3 kw ongrid sistem that inserts the extra energy into the grid. What I don't understand is why do you feel the need to charge your battries at night while you can charge it during the day? Here my batteries are full in 3 maybe 4 hours depending on the weather. I only charge the batteries from the grid in the winter when there is snow or really bad weather.
Ive 28kWh of storage and the days are getting shorter this far north in Orkney , so my solar is limited over the summer months , plus we are 100% electric , and our 2 cars are EVs
@@danielcolceru3840 👍-I run an old 🏠 , so combine a heatpump & oil (the EPC says its 22Mw - but I think its more around 10Mw?) - the long term plan is internally insulate each room
@@EverydayLife621 That will help a lot. I did insulate in March 2024 our roof and I no longer use so much gas. In fact I didn't have to turn out the heat on in April or September. I've used something called wood fiber insolation, I don't know what would be the right term in English, but what ai can say is that it really keeps up. When outside was -5°C during the winter, in my attic was 20°C without any source of heating, only the radiant heat from the sun.
Some quality hats on display there. Very informative as always.
Thanks matey 👍 😀
We had a GivEnergy hybrid system last year and could manage the overnight charging with Home Assistant. We have a solar forecast from Solcast which is pretty accurate most days.
We got rid of it though as it was so unreliable (the GivEnergy system that is).
We now have a Solis invertor which is in Home Assistant and I can see hybrid settings available. Automations are a great part of HA.
Battery wise we have a Tesla powerwall now so it sorts all the charging out, doesn't do a bad job, in the 11 months we've had it in we've been on peak rate electricity for about an hour
if I'm honest I had a similar thought with my batteries but decided it was easier just to set the batteries to fully charge every night on the cheap rate and sell the excess during the day that way I know the maximum cost per day I could have
Yes , but i cant sell to the grid here due to no capicity !
Buying at 7p selling at 15p. No brainer, fill it every night!
Did you have to pay for your system or were their grants ? I've been looking in to it and I can't see how it pays for itself if I pay out of my pocket, instead I just charge everything on the cheap rate during the night
@@huwsparky175303in Argyll Scotland it's 8.5p and 24.31p
@@JonathanPorterfieldthat's a bit pants Jonathan, can't you get intelligent octopus go there? 6 hours a night at 7p/kWh.
I have a solar from 2015 and added a Victron inverter this year. As my solar is old and not that powerful (16x 250w panels on a East West roof) I'm always looking at the weather app and altering the inverter to set a charge limit on the home battery on over night charging if necessary. I'm on Octopus intelligent Go. Rob
I have the same inverter and batteries. I have home assistant that runs an automation every day that looks at the next days forecast, and runs a clever algorithm that charges the batteries optimally to make sure we store all forecasted solar. I haven't touched it in over a year and it's been working perfectly. No more wasted export or worrying about touching the inverter.
Thats brilliant 👏
I do similar but my calcs are a tad primative in comparison by the sounds of things ... what are you using for the algorithm ... predbat ?
@@JonathanPorterfieldhappy to assist if you'd like to get this setup ?
Victron Dynamic ESS…. Is automated 👍
I use Solcast to give me a prediction of solar irradiance for the next day or two, and it seems to give quite accurate forecasts for my solar array (which is connected to a Givenergy inverter and batteries). I then tweak the overnight vs. solar charging to suit.
I seem to recall Speak To The Geek describing a way to automate solar charging of Givenergy kit based on those predictions although I haven't tried it myself.
Not sure if there's a similar solution for your setup, Jonathan
JP - I have the same Solis inverter & 9.6kw Pylontech battery setup. However, as we do get paid for our export @ 15p kWh via Octopus, which I don’t think you do in Orkney, I have now set ours to charge up fully overnight until 05:30 each morning. As of this year I am going to do this even during the summer months. I set the discharge rate to zero during the off-peak tariff period, so it covers the base load too & I can charge my EV without draining our home batteries if I need it. Not sure if you are aware, but most users can use the Solis app or at least the web portal to control the inverter settings now, rather than having to directly do it on the inverter itself. Great video as always.👍
Jonathan, I have automated mine. Works very well. Maybe should do a video on that?
What would be ideal would be the ability to control these settings from the Solis cloud app.
I have just set ours to charge overnight as the weather has been so poor lately, but then the weather improved. Our inverter is installed in the attic so it is completely impractical to be going up there on s daily basis to adjust the settings.
Are you on a FIT with deemed export, or are you on a metered export tariff like Fixed Outgoing? I’m on the latter so charge overnight regardless of the weather. I usually manipulate the IOG charge % required to avoid ‘bonus’ additional off peak windows to avoid discharging the battery into our EVs.
No FIT due to no more renewables being allowed onto our local grid !
@@JonathanPorterfield blimey! If you’re not paid for export then I can see why you’d be trying to minimise grid charging.
I’ve a similar setup, but I fully charge on octopus intelligent at night for 7.5p, and if it’s sunny the next day, the batteries will be full and I export with octopus outgoing at 15p a kWh.
Same here but I think Jonathan is on a deemed export tariff, so it’s in his interest to self-consume rather than exporting.
No export tariff for me due to to much renewables on our local grid !
Wish i could have this option here , but grid overload is a real issue here in Orkney
@@JonathanPorterfield aren't they building a new link from Orkney to the mainland? It was probably you that mentioned it... 😊
Octopus Go cheap rate cost here (a long way south of you) is 8.5p/kWh and they pay 8p/kWh for exported units. The difference is so small that it vanquished my inner geek and the house batteries are set to charge each and every night.
I have the same problem this time of year. I charge the Powerwall to 100% on Octopus intelligent overnight. If I have spare solar next day I use granny charger to fill the car at 2.4kw.
Nice 👍
@@kimedwards3937 Why don't you use a 3.5 kwh granny? This is what I use and it pays for itself.
Must admit I do something similar - are you able to charge to a certain % of the battery capacity? - I have a summer (charge to 50% capacity overnight) and winter setting (90% overnight) - I now have 9xUS2000c - which more or less means that over the summer I dont draw any electric from the grid, and in the winter its max £50/month or so in Dec/Jan 👍
Nice 👍
I didn't realise Octopus go was 5 hours now I have mine set to go off at 4:30
If you have the correct charger, and use IOG - it more or less gives you off-peak rates at anytime?
I'm lucky with this decision at the moment; I get 15p per unit export rate and pay 12p per unit off peak. So I charge to 100% overnight and export everything during the day. I can't see this lasting very long so I will probably have to rethink soon.
So, to charge my EV and keep my battery stored solar, I set the Solis hybrid inverter to charge at 0Amps for the time period when the EV is charging. The battery is in "charge up" mode and cannot discharge. Is that how you keep your solar stash of power and charge on Octopus go?
Yes !
Hi, I've got an offgrid solar system of 5.5 kw and 10 kwh of storage for over night usage and also an 3 kw ongrid sistem that inserts the extra energy into the grid. What I don't understand is why do you feel the need to charge your battries at night while you can charge it during the day? Here my batteries are full in 3 maybe 4 hours depending on the weather. I only charge the batteries from the grid in the winter when there is snow or really bad weather.
... but if you also run a EV & heatpump, you can easily require a MW/month in the depths of winter.
@@EverydayLife621 Yeah, I don't use a heatpump it would be useless here under -5°C and here it goes down to -10°C to -20°C.
Ive 28kWh of storage and the days are getting shorter this far north in Orkney , so my solar is limited over the summer months , plus we are 100% electric , and our 2 cars are EVs
@@danielcolceru3840 👍-I run an old 🏠 , so combine a heatpump & oil (the EPC says its 22Mw - but I think its more around 10Mw?) - the long term plan is internally insulate each room
@@EverydayLife621 That will help a lot. I did insulate in March 2024 our roof and I no longer use so much gas. In fact I didn't have to turn out the heat on in April or September. I've used something called wood fiber insolation, I don't know what would be the right term in English, but what ai can say is that it really keeps up. When outside was -5°C during the winter, in my attic was 20°C without any source of heating, only the radiant heat from the sun.