Okay, I am changed over to Octopus and had confirmation that I am on the Flux Import tariff and today they asked for the startup meter reading on the Export side which has duly been provided.
I've been online and confirmed that they now have me able to export and all their checks have passed.
The silly bit is I am unsure about is what do I configure on my system to actually make it export at various times etc ?
I have;
16 panels producing 7kWp
FOXESS 5kw Hybrid 1 Phase Inverter
2 off FOXESS 4.8kWh batteries
I import between 0200 and 0500 to top up the batteries at cheap rate every day.
As I sit here, the batteries are full and I am still getting on the portal that I am still generating 1.8kW and the pretty diagram says I am exporting that although I am not totally convinced as my system puts excess power into the immersion heater/hot water tank via myenergi EDDI unit and seems to be confused as to which is export to Octopus and which is export to the hot water tank.
How do I set the system to specifically export during the sweet spot time of 1600hrs to 1900hrs on the Octopus Flux tariff ?
Octopus - all sorted, now what ?
-
Dave Foster
- Posts: 1750
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm
You have 2 options, use either an active or a passive approach to this.
During summer when solar is still powerful in the afternoon, the passive approach is to use scheduler to switch your inverter to Feed-In First between 4pm & 7pm, that way all excess solar after the house load has been covered will be exported and no charge will go into the batteries.
The active approach is to Force Discharge your batteries between 4pm and 7pm, there is more risk with this as if you flatten your batteries too much you will be left without battery to cover your house load but there are some settings that can help with this.
Force Discharge has 2 main controls FDSoC and FDPwr
- FDPwr (Force Discharge Power) is used to set the maximum battery discharge power (in watts), so for example if you set 3000 it will discharge at 3000 watts, firstly covering the house load and the remainder will go to export.
- FDSoC (Force Discharge State of Charge) is used to set the level at which you want to stop force discharging, if for example you have decided that you want 50% SoC left at 7pm you would set the FDSoC to 50% and when the batteries reach this level they will cut the discharge. You can use this as a 'safety' to avoid over-discharge and keep power in reserve.
Perhaps the best approach is to mix the 2, your solar generation may still be very strong at 4pm and fading at 6pm, you could set a Schedule for Feed-in First between 16:00(:00) and 17:59(:59) which would divert all excess solar to export, then another schedule between 18:00(:00) and 18:59(:59) to Force Discharge
The Schedules for that would look like -
Note 2 : MaxSoC is not used by this work mode but must be set to 10%
During summer when solar is still powerful in the afternoon, the passive approach is to use scheduler to switch your inverter to Feed-In First between 4pm & 7pm, that way all excess solar after the house load has been covered will be exported and no charge will go into the batteries.
The active approach is to Force Discharge your batteries between 4pm and 7pm, there is more risk with this as if you flatten your batteries too much you will be left without battery to cover your house load but there are some settings that can help with this.
Force Discharge has 2 main controls FDSoC and FDPwr
- FDPwr (Force Discharge Power) is used to set the maximum battery discharge power (in watts), so for example if you set 3000 it will discharge at 3000 watts, firstly covering the house load and the remainder will go to export.
- FDSoC (Force Discharge State of Charge) is used to set the level at which you want to stop force discharging, if for example you have decided that you want 50% SoC left at 7pm you would set the FDSoC to 50% and when the batteries reach this level they will cut the discharge. You can use this as a 'safety' to avoid over-discharge and keep power in reserve.
Perhaps the best approach is to mix the 2, your solar generation may still be very strong at 4pm and fading at 6pm, you could set a Schedule for Feed-in First between 16:00(:00) and 17:59(:59) which would divert all excess solar to export, then another schedule between 18:00(:00) and 18:59(:59) to Force Discharge
The Schedules for that would look like -
Note 1 : FDSoC/FDPwr are not used for work mode 'Feed in' but must be set to 10%, 0 - MaxSoC is not used by this work mode but must be set to 10%)16:00 - 17:59, Work Mode: Feed-in First, MinSoC 10%, FDSoC 10%, FDPwr 0, MaxSoC 10% (See Note1)
18:00 - 18:59, Work Mode: Force Discharge, MinSoC 10%, FDSoC 50%, FDPwr 3000, MaxSoC 10% (See Note2)
Note 2 : MaxSoC is not used by this work mode but must be set to 10%