the biggest obstacle i have to making best use of timeshifting is my Gen1 Givenergy inverter. Only charges/discharges at 2.6kwh so makes it hard to make best use of windows of cheap elec... or discharge enough during peak elec

especially with ashp

so its Tracker for me!... so far

Posted by: @toodles

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@majordennisbloodnok Then there are situations like a nerd with sufficient battery capacity and time to scrutinise the daily Agile rates, pick out the cheapest half hours that would suffice to ensure the battery is fully charged; then taking those times and programming the Tesla app to follow that regime, cover the daily consumption. Of course, the nerd needs to factor in the approximately 10% round trip losses and the investment in the battery storage in the first place…. Currently I’m on Cosy as my poor sight precludes me from being a true nerd 😉 Regards, Toodles.

And that, of course, is where home automation systems come in - Home Assistant, openHAB and so on. The true nerd won't scrutinise the Agile rates; they'll set up the system to do the forward planning itself 😉.

And, of course, when we start seeing V2X properly implemented then anyone investing in a new EV will almost inevitably have sufficient battery capacity, but with an extra level of complexity in the logic to ensure there's still enough juice for the expected journeys. Here be monsters....

@majordennisbloodnok Wouldn’t that be the Joules in the Garage?

Posted by: @toodles

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@majordennisbloodnok Wouldn’t that be the Joules in the Garage?

Only if you know watt's watt...

Badoom, tsh.

@majordennisbloodnok We could start a Coulomb about it…

@majordennisbloodnok Seriously though, are there any ‘off the shelf’ plug & play solutions to the use of various API’s? By this, I mean solutions that work with proprietary systems such as OE’s Agile linked to Teslas Powerwall and maybe also linked to Myenergi’s Eddi that don’t require serious amounts of computer programming skills and oodles of ‘black boxes’ and PSU’s, network and/wifi gubbins to take over the day to day operation of power control? I realise there would need to be equipment to carry out the controlling but I am not a computer geek nor would I want a system that was so complicated that, were I ill or kicked the bucket, my wife would have problems in keeping warm and ready supplies of hot water and powering for the house. Thoughfully, Toodles.

@toodles I get u totally. My wife wants to know nothing about this stuff. She just wants it to work. If something happens to me she will probaly sell the house as she would not be able to work it 😀.

Posted by: @andris

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@toodles I get u totally. My wife wants to know nothing about this stuff. She just wants it to work. If something happens to me she will probaly sell the house as she would not be able to work it 😀.

It's for this very reason that I've got our system running without a thermostat or a timeclock - that way the heating can't accidentally be turned off when I'm not around (I work away quite a bit)

@hughf There’s a lot to be said for the ‘KISS Principle’. Perhaps the likes of Octopus Energy might be researching such ideas? Regards, Toodles.

Posted by: @toodles

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@hughf There’s a lot to be said for the ‘KISS Principle’. Perhaps the likes of Octopus Energy might be researching such ideas? Regards, Toodles.

When we had a gas boiler, the wall stat was used as a switch anyway...

Posted by: @toodles

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@majordennisbloodnok Seriously though, are there any ‘off the shelf’ plug & play solutions to the use of various API’s? By this, I mean solutions that work with proprietary systems such as OE’s Agile linked to Teslas Powerwall and maybe also linked to Myenergi’s Eddi that don’t require serious amounts of computer programming skills and oodles of ‘black boxes’ and PSU’s, network and/wifi gubbins to take over the day to day operation of power control? I realise there would need to be equipment to carry out the controlling but I am not a computer geek nor would I want a system that was so complicated that, were I ill or kicked the bucket, my wife would have problems in keeping warm and ready supplies of hot water and powering for the house. Thoughfully, Toodles.

Not quite.

Each provider in all this will have their own API, and all these APIs have been written to (by and large) work in the same way. What is needed to pull everything together is a central system that can talk with all those different APIs and pull everything together. As a result, it's not about OE's Agile working with Tesla's Powerwall and MyEnergi's Eddi but rather each of those separate things providing or being given data that a central hub can work with, then doing as they are told.

This is where the likes of Home Assistant et al come in. If you can get HA to talk with Octopus, the Powerwall and the Eddi, you can tell HA to work on logic of your choosing e.g. if Octopus plunge pricing is in effect and the Powerwall is not at 100% then charge it irrespective of standard schedules. Of course, telling HA how to talk with an API is beyond most people so each of the integrations you can get for HA is effectively a little black box of code that someone else has put together so you don't have to. You pick the integrations you want for HA to talk to the kit you've got. If, as with me, you don't have a Powerwall, there's no point in telling HA how to talk with one, but if you install an Ecodan ASHP then you'll want an integration for that. It's like Lego for programmers; modular and build-it-yourself.

All that is fine and fair enough, but whilst it's much easier and more straightforward than trying to code yourself it still has some way to go before it really is plug and play. That's not surprising, though, when you consider what you're asking. As long as you've got all limbs and eyes in working order there's nothing physical stopping you from flying an aeroplane (after all, we can all press pedals, turn steering wheels, pull levers and press switches), but there's still a lot of prior learning you need in order to understand what you're trying to achieve and how to do it. Same with setting up a home automation system. None of the steps are hard and it's all nice and modular but how you want it all to work together needs you to know some stuff first.

I suppose one parallel one can draw is your car. Almost all of us buy a car that's ready-built and set up and then use it. Periodically we give it to someone else (a garage) to perform a bit of maintenance so we don't have to. Some people have enough of an interest to perform some tweaks or modifications off their own bat, but will still leave it in a state where their friends and family who borrow the car don't need to know what was done or have to use it differently; they might just need to know they need to be a bit less heavy-footed, for example. A select few may perform serious modifications or even build their own kit car, but that's rare. In home automation terms, installing one's own home automation server is akin to the serious modification route. Buying a preinstalled server and adding in the integrations to get it working with your kit is like the home DIY route. Getting an installer to sort it all out for you is like buying the car and getting it serviced by someone else. Most people want the easiest route which is why manufacturers generally provide some kind of online service (a web portal and/or an app on your phone). That's probably more akin to a Londoner ignoring buying a car and just using the Tube. It might not be as flexible but if it's easy to use and does pretty much what you want then why not?

As of right now, there are few enough tradespeople who properly understand air source heat pumps to install them correctly let alone understand the converging technologies of the Internet of Things (IOT). As a result, truly integrated home automation systems are more often than not the province of enthusiastic amateurs and finding a company that will install something for you and offer a management service is likely to be difficult to find or expensive. As time moves on and integrating things together becomes more widely accepted this will change and we'll get closer to the plug and play you're talking about.

Posted by: @majordennisbloodnok

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Each provider in all this will have their own API, and all these APIs have been written to (by and large) work in the same way. What is needed to pull everything together is a central system that can talk with all those different APIs and pull everything together. As a result, it's not about OE's Agile working with Tesla's Powerwall and MyEnergi's Eddi but rather each of those separate things providing or being given data that a central hub can work with, then doing as they are told.

I agree that is how things are presently moving...
... but it's not the official/approved strategy.

I have copies of the original Smart Meter specifications as they progressed through the various stages of drafts and approvals.

There is a clear emphasis that it should be the Smart Meter system which operates as the delivery platform for all 'smart' devices which are required to respond to ToU tariffs.
The internet doesn't satisfy the need for energy security/resilience.
Note the 'S' in the Government Department DESNZ. It's there for a very good reason!

There was pressure put on Ofgem by Energy Suppliers to allow them to use the internet for EV chargers.
They required per-minute monitoring and the National Smart Meter Network is based around 30-min time periods.

Ofgem relented, which I regret.
It should've been the case that commands were sent to Smart EV Chargers via the Smart Meter network, whilst monitoring data was routed in the other direction across WiFi and internet.

The consequence of Ofgem's decision is that Sections 10 & 11 of the EV Charging Regulations conflict with the timings and offsets inbuilt into Smart Meters.

Apart from these conflicts between two pieces of legislation both approved by Parliament, this move has opened the door for further departures from the Smart Meters specs.

Energy Suppliers who offer ToU tariffs are not downloading those tariffs into their customer's Smart Meter.
Instead they are offering them as APIs, available across the internet.

That might be preferred by 'nerds', but it shouldn't be a strategy which replaces the requirements of UK Smart Meter legislation.