springfall2008
predbat.cost_today ammount jumps after unplugging car from charge
Describe the bug After charging on IOG outside the off peak times with slots given through the ohme predbat component that predbat.cost_today jumps up in price. The predbat.cost_today_car also shows 28.22p/kWh after charging has finished
Expected behaviour predbat.cost_today should not increase
Predbat version
v8.25.3
Environment details
-givenergy 5kw invertor/ 9.5kwh battery
- Predbat & Givtcp addons
- Anything else?
Screenshots
I am pretty sure this has been raised before and the conclusion was that this is just the way it works
Predbat recalculates cost today each time it runs, and when you unplug the car, Octopus removes the cheap rate IOG slots from your account and so the predbat recalculation of cost goes up.
I'm also on IOG and use an Ohme charger with an AIO home battery. I've been struggling to pin down some inconsistencies in cost calculations among other issues and this might be part of it.
@gcoan, couple questions if you don't mind answering:
1 - Does Octopus discard all bonus cheap slots that are reported by the api for all types of car/charger when unplugged or is this just an Ohme issue?
2 - Does this mean the household cost tracking is also messed up as when Predbat charges up the home battery during a bonus slot this is then recorded as full price after unplugging?
Bonus question. Can Predbat be configured to pull cheap slot pricing from a helper that records when cheap slots happen?
Thank you.
@gcoan, couple questions if you don't mind answering:
I'll have a go, but I don't have an EV so my answers are based on my understanding of what happens and what other people have said happens
1 - Does Octopus discard all bonus cheap slots that are reported by the api for all types of car/charger when unplugged or is this just an Ohme issue?
I think it happens for all EV chargers, as I said, I'm pretty sure I have seen similar reports in the past. You can search the predbat github issues, filter on closed, to see prior conversations
2 - Does this mean the household cost tracking is also messed up as when Predbat charges up the home battery during a bonus slot this is then recorded as full price after unplugging?
Depends on what you use for household cost tracking and how you track it ! I personally use the Energy dashboard for cost tracking, and use the 'current rate' sensor from the Octopus integration. Now I don't think that this gets updated with the lower rate with a bonus IOG slot, so it will always be wrong. (No EV charger and not on IOG so can't confirm this, maybe @piansom or @swiftrr can) So assuming it doesn't, then you are in to having to create a custom template sensor to take together the normal octopus rate sensor, the intelligent despatching sensor, and create the correct rate for the 30 minute slot. This could be non-trivial as (I believe) if you get a bonus slot even for part of the 30 minutes then all import is at the lower rate, but you're starting to get beyond my knowledge of how this works in practice.
Bonus question. Can Predbat be configured to pull cheap slot pricing from a helper that records when cheap slots happen?
Not directly as predbat stands today. There's no input parameter for this kind of thing. The only way I can see it working is for some kind of 'persistent intelligent despatching sensor', i.e. one that holds onto the despatch states even when the EV is unplugged, and you use that in place of the standard Octopus sensor. Again not straight forward as Octopus can schedule future slots and then pull them at the last minute
This does help thank you @gcoan.
The cost tracker I was referring to is the in built predbat savings calculator.
It outputs bar charts showing the previous days values for: 1 - How much predbat has saved. 2 - Solar PV/Battery savings. 3 - Actual cost of electricity.
I think I'll have to build my own custom trackers for this kind of thing. Thanks.
I suspect it suffers the same problem.
I know that if I put a rate override in, e.g. for a power up or free electricity session, and then remove that before the end of the day then predbat recalculates 'cost today' as if the session had never occurred. I think this is because it always calculates such cost based upon the current sensor values each time it runs
Add a little more:
1 - Does Octopus discard all bonus cheap slots that are reported by the api for all types of car/charger when unplugged or is this just an Ohme issue?
I use a zappi charger and I find that, when I uplug the car, all predbat identified slots disappear. As IOG slots can be constantly on the move, there will be an inevitable delay in being reported in predbat plan.
Are you setting up your apps.yaml for the Ohme charger? See documentation: https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/apps-yaml/#ohme-car-charger-direct-integration
Rob
