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Get paid to charge your Tesla....
- Thread starter S.Badger
- Start date
jimbo_hippo
Member
For a normal household, Agile really works if you have battery backup and a bonus of you have solar. Bridge peak period with the Powerwall and your electricity all day is well under 10p/kW at any time with some super lows possibly dragging that down even further even in winter. See here for a typical day charging the LEAF at night and daytime covered by Powerwall with no Tesla charging.
My biggest gripe at the moment is that I have 4 Tesla items working together but not talking to each other much. A Gateway, a Powerwall 2, a Tesla Wall Connector and a Model 3. However, neither the wall charger or the car can react to excess solar which seems a bit ridiculous as the gateway knows how much solar you're generating and shows you as much in the Tesla App. We charge the LEAF at night with the above setup as the Nissan has limited range so really needs to be 100% before departure for my girlfriend. I work from home so today I'm trying to trickle boost the Tesla with excess solar mid-morning to lunchtime but the only way I can do this is by sitting in the car with the app open on my phone and nudging the current setting on the car to try and get a sweet spot, a la Zappi.
I did originally want a Zappi or similar and may still use my OLEV eligibility to do so but I had mixed feedback (presumably tied to Jeremy's findings about the car not waking etc) and delivery times were ludicrous so did a deal for Solar and Tesla Wall Connector done (very neatly) at the same time. But it's a bit daft that the only non-Tesla items are the solar panels and inverter yet none of these Tesla things talk to each other regarding vehicle charge rate or available resources. The car an the charger are seen as simply a load in the same way as the kettle or the oven.
This is where I wish I had my 'shrugging shoulders with upturned palms' iPhone emoticon 
My biggest gripe at the moment is that I have 4 Tesla items working together but not talking to each other much. A Gateway, a Powerwall 2, a Tesla Wall Connector and a Model 3. However, neither the wall charger or the car can react to excess solar which seems a bit ridiculous as the gateway knows how much solar you're generating and shows you as much in the Tesla App. We charge the LEAF at night with the above setup as the Nissan has limited range so really needs to be 100% before departure for my girlfriend. I work from home so today I'm trying to trickle boost the Tesla with excess solar mid-morning to lunchtime but the only way I can do this is by sitting in the car with the app open on my phone and nudging the current setting on the car to try and get a sweet spot, a la Zappi.
I did originally want a Zappi or similar and may still use my OLEV eligibility to do so but I had mixed feedback (presumably tied to Jeremy's findings about the car not waking etc) and delivery times were ludicrous so did a deal for Solar and Tesla Wall Connector done (very neatly) at the same time. But it's a bit daft that the only non-Tesla items are the solar panels and inverter yet none of these Tesla things talk to each other regarding vehicle charge rate or available resources. The car an the charger are seen as simply a load in the same way as the kettle or the oven.
This is where I wish I had my 'shrugging shoulders with upturned palms' iPhone emoticon
But as you can see from my latest Bulb bill with standard E7 am already paying below 10p per kWh for our electricity, so what does Agile bring in addition but a whole load of faff to try and match usage with ever changing prices?
Also to fully bridge weekend use you need at least x2 PW, we empty our one PW by about 8pm on a weekend. So your looking at £15k+ spend to allow for bridging....
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Personally, I checked agile and found its be more expensive unless I did serious work changing usage patterns, which I'm not prepared to do, or invest massively in battery storage.
Go, however, will save me a bundle. The vast majority of my daily charging will fit in the 4 hour window, and I will use more electric for the Tesla than my house over the year. However, on top of that, the daytime rate is cheaper than most I could find... It was win-win.
Go, however, will save me a bundle. The vast majority of my daily charging will fit in the 4 hour window, and I will use more electric for the Tesla than my house over the year. However, on top of that, the daytime rate is cheaper than most I could find... It was win-win.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
It's a heck of a lot easier to fit most household usage patterns into a fixed off-peak window (whatever that may be) than it is to try and constantly juggle usage patterns to fit with a variable 30 minute pricing tariff, IMHO. It's pretty easy (or would be if the M3 reliably accepted charge point controlled charging) to schedule overnight charging, home heating and hot water (using thermal storage) and stuff like washing machines.
We have all our hot water provided via a thermal battery that's electrically heated, either by excess PV generation (provides near 100% for ~6 - 8 months of the year) or by a timed boost during the off-peak period. Heating is the same, thermal storage heated by an ASHP that runs during the off-peak period. The car charge point is also timed the same way, which worked fine until I got the Tesla (hope they fix this soon). The washing machine also runs overnight in winter, when there's little PV generation. Sadly I can't load shift the dishwasher, as it doesn't have a timer option (oversight when we bought it).
That leaves us with a bit of peak electricity use running background stuff, like the sewage treatment plant, borehole pump, water treatment, cooking and whole house ventilation system and other appliances.
Trying to adjust daily life to fit in with a tariff that varies every 30 minutes may become easier as household systems get smarter, but there are some hard physical challenges to overcome. For example, we will always need the hot water thermal battery to be charged by 06:30 every morning, or else we don't get to have showers. That's around 10 kWh worst case, on it's own, and it charges at a maximum rate of 3 kW. The heating thermal storage tends to take between 3 hours to 7 hours to charge overnight, and again we want this to be charged by the time we get up in the morning, so the house is at a comfortable temperature. The car should (when charging works properly) be able to charge at a bit over 7 kW, and needs between 3 hours and 12 hours to charge, and again I really want it to be reasonably fully charged by first thing in the morning, in case we have to make a quick 200 mile journey at short notice.
For an all-electric house, some of the things that are never time-of-day dependent for a house heated by gas or oil, and running a conventional car, become harder to manage with variable energy pricing. Perhaps not impossible, but either we have to accept some compromises with when things are available, or we have to accept the much higher running cost.
We have all our hot water provided via a thermal battery that's electrically heated, either by excess PV generation (provides near 100% for ~6 - 8 months of the year) or by a timed boost during the off-peak period. Heating is the same, thermal storage heated by an ASHP that runs during the off-peak period. The car charge point is also timed the same way, which worked fine until I got the Tesla (hope they fix this soon). The washing machine also runs overnight in winter, when there's little PV generation. Sadly I can't load shift the dishwasher, as it doesn't have a timer option (oversight when we bought it).
That leaves us with a bit of peak electricity use running background stuff, like the sewage treatment plant, borehole pump, water treatment, cooking and whole house ventilation system and other appliances.
Trying to adjust daily life to fit in with a tariff that varies every 30 minutes may become easier as household systems get smarter, but there are some hard physical challenges to overcome. For example, we will always need the hot water thermal battery to be charged by 06:30 every morning, or else we don't get to have showers. That's around 10 kWh worst case, on it's own, and it charges at a maximum rate of 3 kW. The heating thermal storage tends to take between 3 hours to 7 hours to charge overnight, and again we want this to be charged by the time we get up in the morning, so the house is at a comfortable temperature. The car should (when charging works properly) be able to charge at a bit over 7 kW, and needs between 3 hours and 12 hours to charge, and again I really want it to be reasonably fully charged by first thing in the morning, in case we have to make a quick 200 mile journey at short notice.
For an all-electric house, some of the things that are never time-of-day dependent for a house heated by gas or oil, and running a conventional car, become harder to manage with variable energy pricing. Perhaps not impossible, but either we have to accept some compromises with when things are available, or we have to accept the much higher running cost.
We have a SMETS2 smart meter, on Bulb, on E7
no separate meter needed, the half-hourly readings on smart meters can cope with E7
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
That's very good to know. When we first wanted to shift to Bulb they told us that smart meters wouldn't work on E7, and that they couldn't arrange a meter change to an E7 meter. This seemed odd, to me, as all smart meters have the necessary stuff included to operate any sort of off-peak tariff, even one with lots of different rates at different times of the day.
Bulb advised me to get our meter swapped to an E7 one with our (then) supplier, SSE, and once that had been registered, to call them back and switch over to Bulb (took about a month after the meter was installed for its number to appear on the database).
vitesse
Active Member
The most recent statement I have is mid October to mid November:
Here is the associated Teslafi data:
We only supercharged briefly at Liphook when we went to visit our daughter at uni in Portsmouth:
This was a relatively quiet month. We've actually averaged nearly 1300 miles/month since we've had the car. My wife commutes 3 days a week during school term time. I work at home.
On my old flat rate Outfox 10,1p tariff but slightly higher standing charge I'd have paid about £10 more for that month.
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vitesse
Active Member
What ever works for you
Doing 500 miles more in a month in the summer is a bit more convincing I guess.
What ever works for you
Thats why I wanted to see a real bill.
I paid £85 for 919 kWh electricity used.
You paid £91 for 917 kWh electricity used.
The numbers don't lie
.
ACarneiro
Active Member
vitesse
Active Member
IndeedThats why I wanted to see a real bill.
I paid £85 for 919 kWh electricity used.
You paid £91 for 917 kWh electricity used.
The numbers don't lie
But I'm not feeling any 'faff'
jimbo_hippo
Member
Jeremy, I agree with this if anyone is under the impression they can save 50p by running around the house plugging things in at 3am. Nobody wants to do that. And yep, just relaxing into an on/off peak known quantity probably yields the same results. The price curves are pretty predictable and throw few surprises except the odd time you get a buzz out of saving some pennies (literally).
I tend to treat the demand/price curves the same way I would in a Go type scenario. Leaf charges at 1am even if it’s cheaper to start at 2am. Even if I was a wake, I’d not want to be clattering around doing stuff! And I suppose it’s safe to say that I’m really just dabbling around with tech with little perceivable gain. But with a degree of uncertainty about the world in general, I suppose I’m either preparing myself for the apocalypse some news outlets want to pedal or capitalise on wonderful FiT replacements when the world smells of roses and we’re all high-giving each other if you read the other ones.
perhaps what I should have written is, ‘you can tinker around pointlessly with apps and gadgets without the knowledge for it to be useful but enough to keep you amused and not lose your shirt.’?
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Just checked our last bill, from 21st October to 19th November, on Bulb E7.
Including VAT and the standing charge we paid £53.07 for a total consumption of 438 kWh.
That breaks down as:
VAT = £2.53
Standing charge = £5.65
Electricity used (night) = £22.15 (286 kWh at 7.76p/kWh)
Electricity used (day) = £22.74 (152 kWh at 14.98p/kWh)
Ignoring the standing charge and VAT, we seem to have averaged about 10.25p/kWh
If our off-peak period had been shorter than 7 hours, then there would be less at the night rate and more at the day rate, increasing the overall bill. It seems that I managed to get the off-peak to peak ratio up to ~65% to 35%, a bit better than the ~60% to 40% ratio we seem to have as an average over winter.
This is our total energy consumption, so includes all house heating, cooling, hot water, charging the car, etc.
Including VAT and the standing charge we paid £53.07 for a total consumption of 438 kWh.
That breaks down as:
VAT = £2.53
Standing charge = £5.65
Electricity used (night) = £22.15 (286 kWh at 7.76p/kWh)
Electricity used (day) = £22.74 (152 kWh at 14.98p/kWh)
Ignoring the standing charge and VAT, we seem to have averaged about 10.25p/kWh
If our off-peak period had been shorter than 7 hours, then there would be less at the night rate and more at the day rate, increasing the overall bill. It seems that I managed to get the off-peak to peak ratio up to ~65% to 35%, a bit better than the ~60% to 40% ratio we seem to have as an average over winter.
This is our total energy consumption, so includes all house heating, cooling, hot water, charging the car, etc.
jimbo_hippo
Member
Two adults and three teenagers here in a semi-detached. No great power saving tech (yet) but we bridge peak comfortably every day. I don’t treat daytime electricity as expensive, only the whopping peak, (not suggesting you do by the way. I don’t know your setup or scenario) so the Powerwall works well for us.
Early days for us though with only a couple of months of winter use to judge on. I think it’s probably worth reiterating what I conceded in my reply to Jeremy earlier by conceding that I’m enjoying the tinkering probably more than I’m gaining financially. I believe I’m not losing anything though and that’s the main criteria.
Re "faff", my take is that to be at all effective this stuff needs to be fully automated. The vast majority of households wouldn't make many day-to-day good decisions to save a few pennies, but with the right automation running in the background a lot can be achieved once many thousands of these little decisions quietly go the right way.
vitesse
Active Member
Absolutely. In the future I expect all my white goods and plugs and sockets to work in tandem with my daily requirements and the vagaroes of the dynamic power generation.
Today, the car automatically charges itself at the right time and we manually set the dishwasher and washing machine to work off-peak. This will look archaic, eventually.
