Wiki Everything you wanted to know about Intelligent Octopus But Were Afraid To Ask

Why write this post?
A lot of people are starting to get interested in IO. I don't think Octopus do a very good job of spelling out the benefits in their website. They have some FAQs, but the same questions keep coming up over and over on the forums.

What is it?
In a nutshell, IO is a split tariff that gives you a cheap off-peak rate for charging your EV and other electrical items in the household, including home batteries.

Isn’t that the same as Octopus Go or Go Faster?
The principle is the same, but in exchange for some benefits which we’ll explain, you allow Octopus to control the timing of your EV charge, so they can choose low carbon intensity and/or cheap wholesale priced time slots.

So I’m not in control of my charge? I don’t like the sound of that!
Well yes…and no. You’re in control of how much to charge and when you want the car to be ready, just like you would be normally. Within those parameters, you’re allowing Octopus to control which half-hour slots the car chooses to get to that target % charge. And you can always override IO if you want to “bump charge” through the day.

OK, but what are the benefits you mentioned for this trade off?
First of all, you get a larger guaranteed off-peak window for using household appliances and charging home batteries, etc. It’s six hours between 23:30-05:30. Go, for example, is a fixed 4 hour window.
In addition, when IO schedules your EV charging slots it sometimes creates schedules that fall outside of the fixed, six hour window. If that happens your EV charging and all your household use in these extra-slots is also charged at off-peak rates.
I have frequently had schedules give me seven or more hours of off-peak rates. On one occasion, I had a total of ten hours of off-peak rates.

Am I eligible?
You need a smart meter and a compatible car and/or charger. Since you’re reading this here, I assume you’ve got or are thinking of getting a Tesla. IO works with the Tesla API to create the charging schedules. The advantage of this is that IO will work with any* home charger. If you have a charger with smart features, you need to disable them so that the charger acts as a dumb switch. IO will control everything via Tesla’s API to start and stop your charging.
*Even your granny charger - but you need to tell IO what the max throughput is when you go through setup so that it can work out your schedules properly.

Some of this sounds too good to be true.
Phantom drain caused by having smart charging enabled in the Octopus app has been fixed as of 30th August 2022. One small side effect appears to be that schedules sometimes take longer to appear in the app after plugging in.

Further questions (to be updated in the main thread body once the edit timer on this post expires)

I have two EVs, can I charge the other while on IO?
Not with IO scheduling the charging, but you can charge any other car in the fixed 23:30-05:30 off peak window or at any other time at peak prices.

What are the rates etc?
Octopus do a decent job of explaining the peak and off-peak rates along with contracts etc. Head over to their pages to discover that.

I asked for a target % of x, but I got less than x.
There are two or three reasons for this.

The first, most common reason, is that Tesla reports battery % differently depending on where you look. The API (that IO uses) reports the gross battery %. This is generally fixed but can fluctuate very slightly. The Tesla app shows usable %. Apps like Teslamate and Teslafi can display both. Quite often, there is a delta of 2-3% which may be down to battery temp or other factors. This usable % will often be recovered as the battery warms up during a drive.

Some users have reported charging % being way off, perhaps 10% or more. This could be down to an error in the onboarding process. Some of the charger database entries incorrectly assume the charger you are onboarding is the 11kW version, without actually saying so in the charger description. The Andersen A2 was an early example of this. If you suspect this may be the case, the easiest thing to do is go through the on-boarding again and choose "Generic 7.4kW charger". It won't affect your functionality on IO in any way.

Lastly, it has to be mentioned that occasionally IO just craps out. It may be down to a comms error, a server error at Octopus' end, or just reasons. IO is a beta product and it's wise to expect one or two quirks from time to time

 

[Cardo]

Agreed. Switching off and on in app seems to force through a charging schedule

This didn’t work for me. However, changing target SoC or ready by time did force a new schedule.

 

[RedMod3]

I have to use my Zappi limiting total draw to 95A over winter to prevent our single phase 100A fuse blowing. I used to use my Tesla charger more frequestly as it is easy.

What would be really helpful is if the WiKi spelt out clearly the settings needed for a specific charge level on IO, with the settings and procedure for the Tesla Car, Tesla App, Zappi setting and Octopus IO settings for those with and without Powerwalls.

I cannot allow the Tesla car to be charged outside the 23:30 to 05:30 window for any reason.

 

[browellm]

I cannot allow the Tesla car to be charged outside the 23:30 to 05:30 window for any reason.

Really mate, you're on the wrong tariff then. It's as simple as that.

 

[RedMod3]

Really mate, you're on the wrong tariff then. It's as simple as that.

Oh, so how do I charge outside those hours without draining my Powerwalls, as they would drain outside IO hours.

 

[rob@rar]

Oh, so how do I charge outside those hours without draining my Powerwalls, as they would drain outside IO hours.

Isn’t the whole point of IO that the customer doesn’t control when their EV is charged? You set at target SoC and a target time when charging must be completed, and the schedule is then set by Octopus against their own criteria rather than anything the customer might want (for things like solar & battery installation). For people who, for perfectly sensible reasons, need more control of when their EV is charged, such as solar & battery installs, then I don’t think IO is currently the right tariff for them.

I had a week of trouble with IO when I first switched to the tariff, because I had set it up Incorrectly. since I fixed my incorrect set up, middle of March 2023, it has been faultless. Every single time I’ve plugged my MY in to my Ohme Home Pro the charging has stopped in less than a minute or two without any intervention by me, and the requested SoC has been delivered by the requested time (including pre-conditioning if I asked for that) within a 1% margin. I’ve never messed around with schedules in the car, controlling everything via the Ohme app. I set the SoC the same in the car and the Ohme app, typically 80% by 8am, and that’s what gets delivered. These last few weeks I’ve seen several days when my car charges during peak evening hours, so the rest of my household consumption is at 7.5p per unit. Is this the cheapest electricity in the country at the moment? I guess because there’s more wind-generated power in the grid at lower costs.

i think part of my success with the IO is that my charger, Ohme Home Pro, works well with the beta tariff, and my car has an API which pairs well with the charger (so I set a limit rather than try to work out what % SoC needs to be added). Whenever I read of the many woes than some people have with IO it often seems to be caused by a charger or car which doesn’t interface so well with the scheduling controls that IO uses; or they try to interfere with the scheduling process that IO uses.

 

[Yuff]

Oh, so how do I charge outside those hours without draining my Powerwalls, as they would drain outside IO hours.

I don’t have powerwalls but GivEnergy batteries and will be increasing our storage to 39kwh next month.
IO works very well with my batteries but why not just use the off peak hours as it’s longer and cheaper.
i cannot see how you cant get this tariff to work for you. Are the powerwalls not flexible at all in terms of charging and discharging?
I can pretty much do anything I want with our batteries.
for instance I was charging the car last night and didn’t want to drain the batteries so I paused them at 40%, went to sleep and had forgotten to switch off pause.
when I woke up this morning I had a schedule until 8am so just changed the inverter charging setting from 5:30 until 8 am and all good. Batteries and car charged ready for the day.

 

[KennethS]

Oh, so how do I charge outside those hours without draining my Powerwalls, as they would drain outside IO hours.

We have the Gen 2 Tesla WC (so a dumb charge point) and 2 Powerwalls. We have no charge schedule set in the car. I have the charge limit in the car set higher than the limit in the Octopus app. When I plug the car in at the end of each day I immediately stop the charge from the Tesla app as opposed to waiting for IO to turn it off. In IO I have set it to have the car ready by 5.30am to avoid the charging continuing beyond the end of the reduced price period. After a short time the Octopus app sets up a charge schedule. I have yet to be given a schedule that begins before 11.30pm but if/when that happens I will have to monitor and when the charge begins set the Powerwall reserve to an amount above its then current charge state so that no power is depleted from the batteries. So far it hasn't been necessary but I will find it merely a small inconvenience.

 

[Drew57]

For people who, for perfectly sensible reasons, need more control of when their EV is charged, such as solar & battery installs, then I don’t think IO is currently the right tariff for them.

Like many others I also have a solar and battery installation & I used IO again last night. House batteries were at 56% when I went to sleep and still at 55% this morning after 28.8kW added to the car.

Permanent overnight block discharge on both sets of storage batteries means car charging has no impact - it's simple to do this regardless of whether batteries are upstream or downstream of the car EVSE. Inverter apps should enable anyone to do this (& the post above from @KennethS explains the same with Powerwalls)

 

[rob@rar]

Permanent overnight block discharge on both sets of storage batteries means car charging has no impact - it's simple to do this regardless of whether batteries are upstream or downstream of the car EVSE.

What time does your overnight block on discharging your home batteries kick in?

In the last few weeks I've had several days when IO has started to charge my car during early evening hours, any time from 6pm onwards when I plug the car in. That's great for me as it means the rest of my household consumption is also at off-peak rate, and presumably good for Octopus as it allows them to balance demand across their grid and take advantage of cheaper/greener electricity. Everyone's a winner, except for those people with home batteries who don't want EV charging to start before 11.30pm as it will unnecessarily draw down battery power which should be used for household consumption the following day.

Even without the unusually early evening EV charging that I've had in recent days, IO almost always schedules my EV to start at 10.30pm rather than the guaranteed off-peak start time of 11.30pm. That doesn't make much of a difference to me as my household consumption between 10.30pm and 11.30pm is usually very low, but this might mess with the arrangements for home batteries. It seems to me that the Beta IO tariff isn't currently well suited to households with home battery installations. Hopefully that will change in the future, but right now there's seems to be a fundamental conflict between the fixed charge/discharge schedule for home batteries and the dynamic EV charging schedule that IO offers. Attempts to shoehorn the dynamic EV charging schedule in to a fixed home battery schedule all too often causes problems, or at the very least inconvenient compromises rather than the plug-in and forget about it operation that IO can offer.

 

[Yuff]

What time does your overnight block on discharging your home batteries kick in?

In the last few weeks I've had several days when IO has started to charge my car during early evening hours, any time from 6pm onwards when I plug the car in. That's great for me as it means the rest of my household consumption is also at off-peak rate, and presumably good for Octopus as it allows them to balance demand across their grid and take advantage of cheaper/greener electricity. Everyone's a winner, except for those people with home batteries who don't want EV charging to start before 11.30pm as it will unnecessarily draw down battery power which should be used for household consumption the following day.

Even without the unusually early evening EV charging that I've had in recent days, IO almost always schedules my EV to start at 10.30pm rather than the guaranteed off-peak start time of 11.30pm. That doesn't make much of a difference to me as my household consumption between 10.30pm and 11.30pm is usually very low, but this might mess with the arrangements for home batteries. It seems to me that the Beta IO tariff isn't currently well suited to households with home battery installations. Hopefully that will change in the future, but right now there's seems to be a fundamental conflict between the fixed charge/discharge schedule for home batteries and the dynamic EV charging schedule that IO offers. Attempts to shoehorn the dynamic EV charging schedule in to a fixed home battery schedule all too often causes problems, or at the very least inconvenient compromises rather than the plug-in and forget about it operation that IO can offer.

I have 2 ASHPs so our batteries are always set to charge overnight.
The givenergy app is very easy to adjust.
the only shortfall in our system install is the inverter is not fast enough bit I hope to rectify that with the 2 new batteries and inverter.
the inverter is quick enough for the solar generation but not for the battery discharge as I can only discharge at 2.6 kWh max and that doesnt even cover cooking on the hobs/ovens never mind heating, car charging etc

 

[Pete UK]

I don’t have powerwalls but GivEnergy batteries and will be increasing our storage to 39kwh next month.
IO works very well with my batteries but why not just use the off peak hours as it’s longer and cheaper.
i cannot see how you cant get this tariff to work for you. Are the powerwalls not flexible at all in terms of charging and discharging?
I can pretty much do anything I want with our batteries.
for instance I was charging the car last night and didn’t want to drain the batteries so I paused them at 40%, went to sleep and had forgotten to switch off pause.
when I woke up this morning I had a schedule until 8am so just changed the inverter charging setting from 5:30 until 8 am and all good. Batteries and car charged ready for the day.

Are you not on the 15p export rate?

If so forgive me for teaching you to suck eggs, it wasn’t totally clear from your post.

Since this export rate change, things have altered drastically (become much more simple).

If so, it should generally make much more financial sense to charge the car AND charge the batteries to full overnight at 7.5p, export all the excess daytime solar (if any), then export what battery power you have left in the evening all at 15p. (Helps the grid at peak time too!)

Or are you needing that extra battery space because of a heat pump or something?

I’ve got 2x Gen3 5.0 hybrid inverters and 38kW of GE batteries (4x9.5’s) and right now I’m managing to export about 5kW in the solar day (Oct) and export about another 22kW in the evening from the batteries. I set the “Timed discharge” down to 10% from 19:45 ish +/- to 23:29 and the batteries discharge at 8kW to the grid (and any variable house load is covered first at the same time). So the export rate is actually 8kW minus the current house load at the time, so actual export to grid varies by day but discharge rate is constant) which works great for planning purposes.

Then I give them 1 minute to rest and then they charge up to 100% at 7kW (usually mostly finished by 4:30am - but charge(/hold) window is until 05:30) Expecting it to be slightly less beneficial the in depths of winter but very much more so in summer, when I’m generating about 30kW a day, which 20kW should mostly all go to export plus 80-100% of the battery or so.

I’ve noticed GE now have 10 charge and discharge slots! I’m not sure if it’s part of the beta trial or if everyone now has them. Have you got 10 ???

I’m thinking to set them up so that I can export ALL (or the majority) of the excess battery without starting too early and running out before 23:30. Plus it should work all year round without any intervention;

I’m thinking something like this might work:
Discharge timing slots;
1) 1800-1830 discharge to 90%
2) 1830-1900 discharge to 80%
3) 1900-1930 discharge to 70%
4) 1930-2000 discharge to 60%
5) 2000-2030 discharge to 50%
6) etc…. till 10% at 23:29

That way, nothing will happen till 8:30pm if your battery only has 50% power but it will start to discharge earlier if it does and later if it has less. All the house load would be covered inbetween but you could export it all down to your reserve. I hope that would work. Don’t see why not. When I’ve got time I’ll see if I can set it up. I’m not sure if the beta is looking at all 10 discharge slots or just the first one, so I need to check with GE first.

If you’re going the GE dual inverter route you need to have some sort of control mechanism (Home assistant or get on a beta trial) because otherwise they cross charge each other like crazy. I’m on the GE software EMS inverter balancer beta trial (which pushes commands and pulls data via the API) but some others have the physical hardware EMS box on trial (I think they are only the dual/triple A/C 3.0 inverters on hardware EMS trial at the moment though unfortunately). When will the EMS actually appear on the market? Who knows! To quote GE “it’s close”.

Enjoy the new battery storage.

 

[Pete UK]

I have 2 ASHPs so our batteries are always set to charge overnight.
The givenergy app is very easy to adjust.
the only shortfall in our system install is the inverter is not fast enough bit I hope to rectify that with the 2 new batteries and inverter.
the inverter is quick enough for the solar generation but not for the battery discharge as I can only discharge at 2.6 kWh max and that doesnt even cover cooking on the hobs/ovens never mind heating, car charging etc

Ah, we crossed and you already answered my question.

 

[Pete UK]

What time does your overnight block on discharging your home batteries kick in?

In the last few weeks I've had several days when IO has started to charge my car during early evening hours, any time from 6pm onwards when I plug the car in. That's great for me as it means the rest of my household consumption is also at off-peak rate, and presumably good for Octopus as it allows them to balance demand across their grid and take advantage of cheaper/greener electricity. Everyone's a winner, except for those people with home batteries who don't want EV charging to start before 11.30pm as it will unnecessarily draw down battery power which should be used for household consumption the following day.

Even without the unusually early evening EV charging that I've had in recent days, IO almost always schedules my EV to start at 10.30pm rather than the guaranteed off-peak start time of 11.30pm. That doesn't make much of a difference to me as my household consumption between 10.30pm and 11.30pm is usually very low, but this might mess with the arrangements for home batteries. It seems to me that the Beta IO tariff isn't currently well suited to households with home battery installations. Hopefully that will change in the future, but right now there's seems to be a fundamental conflict between the fixed charge/discharge schedule for home batteries and the dynamic EV charging schedule that IO offers. Attempts to shoehorn the dynamic EV charging schedule in to a fixed home battery schedule all too often causes problems, or at the very least inconvenient compromises rather than the plug-in and forget about it operation that IO can offer.

Interesting you’ve been getting very early evening slots. Are you using a granny charger or standard 7kW charger at full speed? I haven’t had any outside of the off peak yet. Which suits just fine.

If you have a standard 7kW charger, you can fix the “draining the solar batteries” issue 99% of the time by setting the car’s off peak end time to 05:30, or setting the cars charging start time to 23:30. That should fix it, assuming you’re not charging the car from completely empty to 100% full. Which might generate an extra slot or two before or after (depending on what you set; end time or start time).
For us, below 23% car battery and charging to 80% or above should in theory give us an extra slot outside the 6hr off-peak window. But we hardly ever charge above 80% and are far too chicken to plan to arrive home with 20% or less

We set the car off peak end time to 05:30, so if we did ever get an earlier slot. I suppose it would come out of what we are discharging the battery to grid and anything above 8kW load that would come from the grid and be at off peak rate, so all should work well. Except that I wouldn’t be exporting to the grid at 15p, I’d be charging the car from the batteries.

If we did need an XL charge, I guess I’d just set the car charge limit to 60 or 70% that night to avoid it and catch up the next night or accept a bit of battery drain and loss of export once in a while.

It’s not always simple though. You’re absolutely correct.

 

[Drew57]

What time does your overnight block on discharging your home batteries kick in?

In the last few weeks I've had several days when IO has started to charge my car during early evening hours, any time from 6pm onwards when I plug the car in. That's great for me as it means the rest of my household consumption is also at off-peak rate, and presumably good for Octopus as it allows them to balance demand across their grid and take advantage of cheaper/greener electricity. Everyone's a winner, except for those people with home batteries who don't want EV charging to start before 11.30pm as it will unnecessarily draw down battery power which should be used for household consumption the following day.

Even without the unusually early evening EV charging that I've had in recent days, IO almost always schedules my EV to start at 10.30pm rather than the guaranteed off-peak start time of 11.30pm. That doesn't make much of a difference to me as my household consumption between 10.30pm and 11.30pm is usually very low, but this might mess with the arrangements for home batteries. It seems to me that the Beta IO tariff isn't currently well suited to households with home battery installations. Hopefully that will change in the future, but right now there's seems to be a fundamental conflict between the fixed charge/discharge schedule for home batteries and the dynamic EV charging schedule that IO offers. Attempts to shoehorn the dynamic EV charging schedule in to a fixed home battery schedule all too often causes problems, or at the very least inconvenient compromises rather than the plug-in and forget about it operation that IO can offer.

Block discharge is set 23.30-05.30 and in IO the car ready time is also 05.30. Usually the car needs between 30-50% additional charge & this almost always falls within these hours.

The inverters have options for several block periods so whenever a schedule starts earlier than 23.30, I set another temporary block for that evening on one of them, a few seconds to do this then cancel next morning but this requirement is quite rare. As a result, in 20 months of using IO I have never had a situation where it affects the SOC of the home batteries (the inverter for 9.6kW of these is wired via the consumer unit so would be unaffected anyway but I still block discharge in case solar hasn't fully filled them & then IO automatically tops them up).

 

[rob@rar]

Interesting you’ve been getting very early evening slots. Are you using a granny charger or standard 7kW charger at full speed? I haven’t had any outside of the off peak yet. Which suits just fine.

If you have a standard 7kW charger, you can fix the “draining the solar batteries” issue 99% of the time by setting the car’s off peak end time to 05:30, or setting the cars charging start time to 23:30. That should fix it, assuming you’re not charging the car from completely empty to 100% full. Which might generate an extra slot or two before or after (depending on what you set; end time or start time).
For us, below 23% car battery and charging to 80% or above should in theory give us an extra slot outside the 6hr off-peak window. But we hardly ever charge above 80% and are far too chicken to plan to arrive home with 20% or less

We set the car off peak end time to 05:30, so if we did ever get an earlier slot. I suppose it would come out of what we are discharging the battery to grid and anything above 8kW load that would come from the grid and be at off peak rate, so all should work well. Except that I wouldn’t be exporting to the grid at 15p, I’d be charging the car from the batteries.

If we did need an XL charge, I guess I’d just set the car charge limit to 60 or 70% that night to avoid it and catch up the next night or accept a bit of battery drain and loss of export once in a while.

It’s not always simple though. You’re absolutely correct.

I have a 7kW charger (Ohme Home Pro) which seems to charge at its full rate all of the time, although not all 30-minute charging blocks are contiguous.

You say that the solar batteries problem can be solved by setting the start or end time to coincide with the start or end of the guaranteed off-peak rate. That's where I think the problems with IO start. It's not designed to operate that way, especially if you set a start charging time at 11.30pm. I don't have home batteries or solar, but if I did I'd not be on the IO tariff as I'd not be prepared to risk a charging failure leaving me in the lurch when I came to drive my car in the morning. I'd not want to threaten a 'mission critical' kind of situation by using a Beta tariff in a way which seems counter to how it is designed to operate.

 

[btc1k]

Oh, so how do I charge outside those hours without draining my Powerwalls, as they would drain outside IO hours.

Adjust the reserve within the extra hours to force the powerwall to not discharge.

 

[Teamds]

Just had my latest bill come through for Octopus Intelligent go and they are offering me 2 new fixed rates, with one being flexible to end early. Anyone else had this and are they worth it?

 

[RedMod3]

Adjust the reserve within the extra hours to force the powerwall to not discharge.

Won’t that force charging when the PWs are below the reserve during the peak period?

 

[Pete UK]

I have a 7kW charger (Ohme Home Pro) which seems to charge at its full rate all of the time, although not all 30-minute charging blocks are contiguous.

You say that the solar batteries problem can be solved by setting the start or end time to coincide with the start or end of the guaranteed off-peak rate. That's where I think the problems with IO start. It's not designed to operate that way, especially if you set a start charging time at 11.30pm. I don't have home batteries or solar, but if I did I'd not be on the IO tariff as I'd not be prepared to risk a charging failure leaving me in the lurch when I came to drive my car in the morning. I'd not want to threaten a 'mission critical' kind of situation by using a Beta tariff in a way which seems counter to how it is designed to operate.

Ok. I see.

No, I’m not setting a start time. Just setting the off peak end time in the car to match what I set in the Octopus app (05:30). And let Octopus pick the slots.
I think it is designed to work like that. Doesn’t affect the Octopus app requested end time or the schedules; As that’s what I’ve asked for in the Octopus app.
This is specifically a “thing” for solar battery users. Otherwise I wouldn’t need to set it.

I must say setting the off peak end time in the Tesla app and 05:30 in the octopus app works perfectly for me. Never not charged so far.

Mission critical days, I may consider turning off the smart charging for those couple of times a year. - may…..

I think turning off the smart charging or trying to get extra slots by turning down the charging rate is the “it’s not designed to be used like this” !

Just thought it worth a mention about the start or end time though for those struggling with unwanted battery discharges.

Whatever works for you though

 

[Yuff]

Are you not on the 15p export rate?

If so forgive me for teaching you to suck eggs, it wasn’t totally clear from your post.

Since this export rate change, things have altered drastically (become much more simple).

If so, it should generally make much more financial sense to charge the car AND charge the batteries to full overnight at 7.5p, export all the excess daytime solar (if any), then export what battery power you have left in the evening all at 15p. (Helps the grid at peak time too!)

Or are you needing that extra battery space because of a heat pump or something?

I’ve got 2x Gen3 5.0 hybrid inverters and 38kW of GE batteries (4x9.5’s) and right now I’m managing to export about 5kW in the solar day (Oct) and export about another 22kW in the evening from the batteries. I set the “Timed discharge” down to 10% from 19:45 ish +/- to 23:29 and the batteries discharge at 8kW to the grid (and any variable house load is covered first at the same time). So the export rate is actually 8kW minus the current house load at the time, so actual export to grid varies by day but discharge rate is constant) which works great for planning purposes.

Then I give them 1 minute to rest and then they charge up to 100% at 7kW (usually mostly finished by 4:30am - but charge(/hold) window is until 05:30) Expecting it to be slightly less beneficial the in depths of winter but very much more so in summer, when I’m generating about 30kW a day, which 20kW should mostly all go to export plus 80-100% of the battery or so.

I’ve noticed GE now have 10 charge and discharge slots! I’m not sure if it’s part of the beta trial or if everyone now has them. Have you got 10 ???

I’m thinking to set them up so that I can export ALL (or the majority) of the excess battery without starting too early and running out before 23:30. Plus it should work all year round without any intervention;

I’m thinking something like this might work:
Discharge timing slots;
1) 1800-1830 discharge to 90%
2) 1830-1900 discharge to 80%
3) 1900-1930 discharge to 70%
4) 1930-2000 discharge to 60%
5) 2000-2030 discharge to 50%
6) etc…. till 10% at 23:29

That way, nothing will happen till 8:30pm if your battery only has 50% power but it will start to discharge earlier if it does and later if it has less. All the house load would be covered inbetween but you could export it all down to your reserve. I hope that would work. Don’t see why not. When I’ve got time I’ll see if I can set it up. I’m not sure if the beta is looking at all 10 discharge slots or just the first one, so I need to check with GE first.

If you’re going the GE dual inverter route you need to have some sort of control mechanism (Home assistant or get on a beta trial) because otherwise they cross charge each other like crazy. I’m on the GE software EMS inverter balancer beta trial (which pushes commands and pulls data via the API) but some others have the physical hardware EMS box on trial (I think they are only the dual/triple A/C 3.0 inverters on hardware EMS trial at the moment though unfortunately). When will the EMS actually appear on the market? Who knows! To quote GE “it’s close”.

Enjoy the new battery storage.

Signed up for outgoing yesterday . With my current system I don’t think I would export that much especially when it’s colder but the summer should be quite lucrative hopefully.
it will be interesting to see how I go with the extra batteries but I used 3.5 mWh per month in the coldest months last year.
my installer is liaising with GivEnergy to sort out the best way to go, im thinking another 2 x 9.5s although I could consider a 13.5, either one or two of them depending on cost