Intelligent Octopus and Powerwall integration

[ACarneiro]

Hi gang.
I think the writing is on the wall for Go (Go Faster is, it seems, already dead) so it is more than likely that I'll be "strongly encouraged" to move to Intelligent Octopus next year.
My problem is that I have Powerwalls at home and IO doesn't really integrate with them. That means that some of the charging slots may end up being fed by the PW rather than the grid.

Anyway, all this just to say that I would like to contact them to highlight this problems but I worry that if I send it to the [email protected] address it'll just get ignored.

Does anyone know of an email address for the product developers or for someone who deals specifically with the Intelligent Octopus beta programme?

EDIT: that title obvious should read "Powerwall", not "Powerball"

Mod: fixed that for you

 

[phil4]

You might be able to get hold of Guy Lipman on Twitter or similar, as he's done lots of integration and the like with Octopus.

that being said, is the problem not more the Tesla bit? Ie you need them to allow some form of control like they do the car, without that Octopus won't get anywhere. You'd think with the TEP that Octopus offer, they'd be up for/doing that... but perhaps not.

 

[scdoubleu]

I'd be interested in this too. I suspect it'll need some work by both Octopus and Tesla on the TEG firmware side to make it DTRT.

 

[ACarneiro]

You might be able to get hold of Guy Lipman on Twitter or similar, as he's done lots of integration and the like with Octopus.

that being said, is the problem not more the Tesla bit? Ie you need them to allow some form of control like they do the car, without that Octopus won't get anywhere. You'd think with the TEP that Octopus offer, they'd be up for/doing that... but perhaps not.

The mere existence of Intelligent (not to mention the TEP) suggests that Octopus does have a relatively good relationship with Tesla (both are trying to disrupt the energy market, I suppose), so if anyone can make this happen I guess it would be them....

 

[rcotgrov]

Our OHME charger (we use Octopus IO) bypasses our solar battery for good design reasoning. We don't have enough solar production to fulfil Car charging as well as house consumption. My assumption here is you have plenty of solar panels and multiple PowerWalls. Charging cars as you know demands a lot of energy. Should the sun be shining like mad and have excess, we would use the trickle charger on a normal plug socket which is connected to the Invertor/Solar/Battery system

 

[btc1k]

Hi gang.
I think the writing is on the wall for Go (Go Faster is, it seems, already dead) so it is more than likely that I'll be "strongly encouraged" to move to Intelligent Octopus next year.
My problem is that I have Powerwalls at home and IO doesn't really integrate with them. That means that some of the charging slots may end up being fed by the PW rather than the grid.

Anyway, all this just to say that I would like to contact them to highlight this problems but I worry that if I send it to the [email protected] address it'll just get ignored.

Does anyone know of an email address for the product developers or for someone who deals specifically with the Intelligent Octopus beta programme?

EDIT: that title obvious should read "Powerwall", not "Powerball"

I think there is an Octopus run forum with the Agile members on.... but they discuss all the smart tariffs.

 

[ACarneiro]

Yes, I think it’s invitation-only, though…

 

[MST360a]

I’ve written quick and dirty bash scripts to control mine. You can get the intelligent octopus slots via graphql queries to octopus and then I set the powerwall backup reserve accordingly depending on whether I’m in an off peak slot or not. As soon as I hit an off peak slot, it charges the PW rather than depleting it, saving on the round trip inefficiency. Also have integrated with solcast predictions for the following day to decide how much charge I want in he PW going into the next day. Happy to share if anyone wants (feel free to DM) as long as you don’t critique my code!!

 

[ACarneiro]

That sounds pretty awesome! Unfortunately my coding is about as good as my singing, so I'll probably not mess with that particular solution

 

[RedMod3]

I wonder if IO is trying to be too clever when there are many different ways of wiring up solar, powerwalls, chargers, immersion heaters and items on back-up and non-back-up supplies. These complications are compounded with 5-terminal smart meters as Octopus can't seem to program them to cope with BST/GMT changes so I have to call them every six-months to get them to re-program the smart meter.

Personally, I'd rather Octopus focus on the simple GO product and make sure that works reliably, as that is a good incentive to shift grid consumption from peak to off-peak.

If I have to move to IO, then so be it, in which case I support this initiative.

 

[Darreno]

If it helps, home assistant tesla car and powerwall control is in beta and about to be released. This could technically be used in conjunction with home assistants IO add on.

IO - Octopus Energy - Intelligent Tariff

PW Control - Add support for Tesla Powerwall

 

[NewbieT]

Or if you want to code/adapt your own:

GitHub - liamjvs/intelligent-octopus-scheduler: Python script to output your Intelligent Octopus timeslots.

Python script to output your Intelligent Octopus timeslots. - liamjvs/intelligent-octopus-scheduler

github.com

 

[dtenex]

I’ve written quick and dirty bash scripts to control mine. You can get the intelligent octopus slots via graphql queries to octopus and then I set the powerwall backup reserve accordingly depending on whether I’m in an off peak slot or not. As soon as I hit an off peak slot, it charges the PW rather than depleting it, saving on the round trip inefficiency. Also have integrated with solcast predictions for the following day to decide how much charge I want in he PW going into the next day. Happy to share if anyone wants (feel free to DM) as long as you don’t critique my code!!

I would be interested in this - bit I have failed to find out how to send a DM. I have managed to connect to the gateway and retrieve the backup reserve but it won't let me set it programatically. Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I have managed to connect to the gateway and retrieve the backup reserve but it won't let me set it programatically

When I struggle with an unfamiliar programming language, or API, I ask ChatGPT who it would do it. Definitely not always right, but it does two things: all syntax and use of commands / reserve words is correct, nicely formatted, and commented, so that saves me the time of having my head stuck in Google but the main thing, I've found, is that it often suggests a line of attack that I hadn't considered - so even if not correct, as it stands, it has served me well as a first draft.

 

[scdoubleu]

I would be interested in this - bit I have failed to find out how to send a DM. I have managed to connect to the gateway and retrieve the backup reserve but it won't let me set it programatically. Any help would be gratefully received.

There's no known way to change the backup reserve via the local API on the gateway - you need to use Tesla's full-blown API for that. Fortunately, TeslaPy makes this pretty easy. This is my attempt to control the Powerwall programmatically, built atop TeslaPy. It has a side benefit of stopping our Tesla cars charging beyond the 4 hour Octopus Go window.

 

[ringi]

Why not just connect the EV charger before the sensor the Powerwalls uses, so the Powerwall does not see the electricity going to the EV charger?

 

[RedMod3]

Why not just connect the EV charger before the sensor the Powerwalls uses, so the Powerwall does not see the electricity going to the EV charger?

Or just move the CT clamp that the Powerwall uses to monitor grid power. There are many interesting scenarios for different locations of all CT clamps, and it gets more interesting when you have a 5th terminal Smart Meter. My Zappi measures all grid current, but my PWs exclude 5th terminal power. My chargers are on the non-back-up side.

I think it is all down to personal circumstances where to put CT clamps, the use of non-back-up, and the 5th terminal. I doubt one configuration suits all.