So we embarked upon removing the old oil boiler and fitting a shiny new 10kW ASHP with £5K BUS grant contribution. We fitted 3.6kW of Solar PV, and we retrospectively added 13kW of BESS. Our heat pump install was done well and the ASHP has been flawless from the get-go, but the commissioning and handover were non-existent. Over the years we've learned through trial and error. We've benefitted from the huge contribution of knowledge this forum has provided - thank you @editor and all. A host of parameter settings needed to be adjusted, and numerous small tweaks made here and there. Over a couple of winter heating seasons we optimised the ASHP CH and DHW control and efficiency and found that elusive weather compensated heating curve sweet spot. If only it could have done it for us out of the box!

We soon realised however that we needed to load shift our electricity import to cheap rates, to allow the ASHP to run continuously for best efficiency while remaining a cost-effective means of heating compared to burning oil. So we added 2x 6.5kW BESS. We work the BESS hard, charging it whenever Cosy has a low rate 3x a day, to leverage the advantage and load shift most of our import to Cosy low rate. (Around 88-90%)

We've recently completed our journey having sold our two jalopy petrol and diesel cars, both with 130K+ miles on them and getting increasingly expensive to keep on the road. The cars owed us nothing. We've gone Chinese - like most things these days - with BYD. A new Dolphin Surf EV and an ex-demo Seal U DM-i PEHV. We've never bought new or nearly new cars before, so this was new territory. Our daily commutes are now all-electric, with the hybrid having a 1300kg towing capacity for our trailer tent family holidays. EV fast chargers on campsites are still anathema in the UK, but on some sites you can cheekily granny charge at 10A load from the electric hook-up.

Both cars are fantastic - we're well impressed with the quality vs value of them. The small EV returns 5miles/kWh, costing 2p a mile on Octopus Cosy cheap rate, less when solar surplus contributes. More Apps on our phones, more head-scratching and yet more settings! We installed a Zappi 7.5kW home charger at home, which is very capable but I didn't find it very intuitive. I've now found the sweet spot where it will timed boost at 7.5kW on the two Cosy cheap overnight rate periods, and granny charge at 1.5kW ECO+ setting at other times drawing from the BESS. Using the BESS that way gives us up to 10hrs of low rate charge overnight in a 'granny-boost-granny-boost' pattern, which no EV tariff offers. We can fully charge the EV overnight that way, but we've never had the battery lower than 45% charge yet on a 200 mile range city EV car used predominantly in a rural environment. One car gets plugged into the Zappi, and if needed one granny charges from an outdoor socket at 2kW. Whichever needs more juice overnight goes on the Zappi. I can charge the PEHV for free at work during the day. What we now save on petrol and diesel per month more than pays for the PCP on the small EV.

* I should add that in the current geopolitical climate where Billionaires send rockets into space for fun, and missiles are fired at anything that moves in the Middle East, our C02 savings seem futile, but we sleep easier knowing we've done our little bit.

Thank you to all who have helped us along this journey. It has been quite a ride!

I am quite pleased with myself already that I have managed to get some of this completed. I have started to follow the github process, GitHub - raomin/ESPAltherma: Monitor your Daikin Altherma / ROTEX heat pump with ESP32 · GitHub

I have a lovely old Dell laptop that wasn't upgradeable to W11 and had an ageing battery. It a very low powered (3w when idle with W10 and the screen off), passively cooled, has 8gb of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

So far I have been able to install Home Assistant on the laptop running on ubuntu. The laptop has the black screen with the HA logo in the top left hand corner. 

I have installed HA on my desktop computer and integrated the Shelly energy meter which is working perfectly.

I have installed the HA MQTT vis the HA desktop.

I have also purchased and received a (tiny!) M5NanoC6 ESP device which I need to program I assume.

I have downloaded and installed Visual Studio Code and installed PlatformIO IDE core.

This is as far as I have got and am starting to get a little out of my depth in how to complete the setup!

I am a little bamboozled with setting up the M5 ESP device (Getting started - Step 1: Uploading the Firmware).

I am not even sure about step 1 "download the repository folder and open it in Platform IO".

@majordennisbloodnok Would you be able to help me continue down this rabbit hole?!!

As a side note, I'd like to get the laptop screen to timeout as it is constantly on the HA black screen and ideally shut the laptop screen down whilst the HA server continues to run in the background. I am assuming I don't need the screen to be running all the time?!

Thanks.

I registered with HMRC a few months ago so that I might carry out on-line submissions for my tax. The app has always been ‘flakey’ to say the least and some days, I could open the app but others, it would not allow me at all. Getting a little peed off with this situation and when invited, I decided to reset my password and go through a long procedure to prove I am me and am alive etc.

Having used Gov UK to ascertain I exist in the past, I was then invited to prove my existence using this app. My only means of ‘proof’ is my passport (which was purchased a few years ago solely for the purpose of proving my existence and has never been used for anything else!) I went through the rigmarole of providing my NI number, DOB, colour of toenails, name of hamster etc., I was then requested to take a photo with my iPhone of the photo page of my passport and , having told them my passport has the embedded chip in the front cover, was then invited to scan this to confirm information.

My passport photo page shows my correct details - so far so good… scan the chip and it comes up with a page of data stating I was born in 2047! Needless to say, though I have tried ten or more times to pass this procedure to enable me to progress to HMRC app, I just see ‘Something went wrong’ type messages however, and which ever way I try to pass go and collect £200, it would seem impossible to make any progress!

I am currently waiting for Gov Uk to resolve this, but, I suppose I may have to wait until I exist in 2047 for a reply! Ho-Hum. Regards, Toodles.

I had the impression that any Heat pump type of cylinders would be compatible with any heatpump...

My EV is showing signs that the gas pressure in the aircon is getting low and so is struggling to cool things down properly in the hot weather. As a result, I need to get it regassed, but the problem is that it's got the optional heat pump in it and so is gassed with R744 (carbon dioxide). I'm struggling to find anywhere in the South East other than a main dealer who is equipped for this particular gas, and have wasted more than a little time with garages that say they can sort it because of the make and model before actually seeing it and realising they can't, courtesy of not listening to me initially.

Frustrating, but does anyone know of an outfit that can REALLY deal with R744, is based in the South East and doesn't charge an absolute fortune?