[APP][Pro] PELS Energy Manager - Power control and cheaper-hour scheduling for EV charging, heating and hot water

Apps
, ,
201

Just made a new release. There is still a fairly large amount of user requests coming in these days.

PELS can control Tesla charging

PELS can now control your Tesla’s charging directly through the Tesla Car & Energy Homey app. The car shows up as an EV charger in PELS, with charging steps, priorities and Smart tasks. Its battery level comes in automatically, so you don’t need a Flow to report it.

Due to some wonkyness in the Homey authentication model, you need to create a Homey API key that you add to the PELS settings UI to make the charger work properly. Alternatively you can also create a flow. See below.

Setup:

  1. Pair the car, Battery & charging and location devices in Tesla Car & Energy.
  2. Create a Homey API key with Flow permission.
  3. In PELS, open the charging device and go to Setup → Charging current. Paste in the key, and press Save key and enable.

PELS only controls the car when it is parked at home on an AC charging session. If the car leaves, disconnects or goes offline, PELS lets go. Make sure Homey’s location is set correctly.

Guide: Tesla vehicle charging | PELS

Built-in control for Zaptec too

The Zaptec app has been updated so that chargers can be fully controlled directly by PELS, with no Flow. Open the charger in PELS, go to Setup → Charging current, confirm This installation has only one charger, and choose Use built-in control. The single-charger rule is there because Zaptec sets the current for the whole installation.

Guide: Configure a Zaptec EV Charger | PELS

Switching from a Flow

If you already use a Flow to set the charging current, remove that action, press Check again, and enable built-in control. If you’d rather keep a Flow, that still works. Connect Stepped device target changed straight to your charger’s current action.

Energy tasks for EV chargers

Energy tasks, such as for example “20 kWh by 07:00”, using the Add energy task Flow card now works with EV chargers. This works with or without a linked car or battery reading. The charger only needs a live power reading. Progress counts the electricity going through the charger, including charging losses, not the car’s battery percentage. You can view and edit these tasks in PELS settings.

Details: Smart Tasks: Schedule EV Charging & Heating by a Deadline | PELS

Other improvements

  • PELS waits longer between power increases, so slow-starting devices have time to respond.
  • Smart tasks explain their power guarantees more clearly.
  • Clearer messages when charging setup is blocked, and you can retry if activation fails after saving your key.

Thanks to everyone suggeting new features and testing them!

202

Hi @Ole_Markus_With , I see that in the coming days, there is no cheap prices as the prices don’t go below 28ct. Wouldn’t it be more logical to label ‘cheap’ at the lowest 25% (percentile) of the current range instead of basing it on 25% (percentage) of the average price? Currently there is no advantage of the lowest prices. And yes, the price is then still significant but it is the lowest it will be…

image
image1170×1084 70.9 KB

203

Hi @CasperV

I think this depends a bit on what you’re using the price levels for.

For example, if you’re using the cheap/expensive temperature adjustments, marking the cheapest 25% of hours as cheap might not necessarily save money. Preheating can increase energy consumption, so there needs to be a meaningful price difference to make it worthwhile. With the prices in your screenshot, shifting 5 kWh from an average-priced hour to the cheapest hour would save around €0.25, before accounting for any additional heat loss.

If you’re using Flows to react to expensive periods, that’s a different use case.

There are also Flow cards for checking whether the current hour is among the X cheapest hours today, or the X cheapest hours before a given time. These work independently of the cheap/normal/expensive classification.

Another possibility would be to let users configure a minimum number of cheap and expensive hours, while keeping the existing thresholds.

But before considering changes, I’d like to understand your use case a little better. You mentioned earlier that you’re using Flows to control heating and preheat before expensive hours. Is this related to that setup, and how are you using the price levels?

204

I understand your vision. Currently I’m using your full functionality as I found the right (new?) flow cards. With flows I’m using the ‘set temperature in mode’ card for i.e. time schedule for a thermostat or lower when the door opens. So now fully working with the cheap/expensive periods as defined. So I saw we don’t have cheap period today. You actually gave it a good thought and strategy, though.
Just now need to tune the cheap-increase as last week we were steaming away :joy:. Thanks for the great job you are doing here!

Casper

205

@CasperV Thanks, glad the mode cards work for you!

206

New release. As of this version, when you enable “Power limiting” on a charger, you can specify the target battery level. When that level has been reached, it will stop charging. You typically want to use this to ensure you charge up to a specific battery level regardless of smart tasks and price levels.

You can (and probably should) still use Smart tasks to charge up to higher battery levels.

E.g you can set PELS to always charge up to 30% and then use smart tasks to ensure you are at 80% before 7am.

Note that for some car models, it takes a while for the car to be associated with the charger. By default, when power limiting is on, the charger will just keep charger until it has a valid SoC. You can now disable this by toggling off “Charge before the battery level is known”.

As the charger page became a bit cluttered with new settings, I also took the opportunity to reorganise it a bit.

Thanks to those suggesting this feature.

207

PELS 3.19.0 is live. Homey took a few days to approve the test versions, so this release covers everything since 3.17.2.

New widget: Device insight

The intention behind this widget is to be able to babysit your more important devices, typically EV chargers and water heaters and such. Instead of opening PELS settings to check whether the car will be charged by morning, you can see it on the dashboard.

Pick one managed device in the widget’s Device setting. The tile shows its state, its temperature against target or the car’s battery level, and why PELS is limiting it if it is. If the device has a smart task, the tile also shows how that task is doing. Tap the tile to open the task’s progress chart, or to create a task if there is none.

The two other smart task widgets are renamed to Create smart task and Smart task list. Widgets already on your dashboard keep working.

Quick targets when you create a smart task

Most of the time you don’t want to work out a deadline. You just want the car at 80 % or the water heater hot, without paying for the most expensive hours. Picking a ready-by time yourself means guessing what PELS can actually reach at current prices.

So after you pick a device, the widget now suggests up to four targets, each with a ready-by time PELS knows it can meet. One tap creates the task. Customize is still there if you have a specific time in mind.

Telling PELS which car is plugged in

To use a car’s battery level, PELS has to know which car is on which charger. It works that out from the car and the charger both reporting the plug-in. That depends on the car app, and some car apps are slow. I have seen it take anything from a few seconds to almost an hour, and until then a smart task can’t plan the charge.

With cloud services between the car and Homey, I think a fallback is needed regardless, so now you can tell PELS yourself:

  • Confirm connected car in the charger’s Car section in PELS settings. PELS then uses that car’s battery level for this charging session, even if the car app still says it is unplugged.
  • New Flow cards, so your phone can ask you instead of you having to remember:
    • When: No car matched to [charger] after [minutes] minutes
    • And: [charger] is waiting to match a car
    • Then: Associate [car] with [charger] for this connection

For example: “No car matched to the driveway charger after 1 minute” → push notification asking which car it is → on your answer, “Associate that car with the driveway charger for this connection”. Automatic matching keeps running in the meantime, so you can ignore the question if the car app catches up.

Futurehome EV charger: built-in control

PELS can now control the Futurehome Charge directly, like it already does for Easee, Zaptec and Tesla. Like Tesla, this needs a Homey API key with Flow permission. Open the charger in PELS and go to Setup → Charging current.