@Gruijter when you have time and taking care of the PBTH app somewhere in the feature, can you look into this feature request regarding the battery device?
Add two parameters and tags to the “best price for (dis-)/charge” flow card.
Power (Watt) and Lengt of time (hours).
At this moment, the calculation only triggers when time is best to (dis-)charge at maximum power, but as you know efficiency is better at lower powers. At lower power it takes more time to (dis-)charge and often (dis-)charging has to start some hours earlier.
So if parameter power is filled, determine length of time and trigger on right moment for that length of time. Return tag length of time.
If parameter length of time is filled, determine required power and trigger on right moment for that length of time. Return tag power.
If I had to choose for MVP i would like to have parameter “length of time” and no output tag. This is because I can determine/calculate the required power myself.
Yeah, @ErikT already posted a similar feature request. Biggest problem I face is that to support optimal power and/or length, I need to go to a completely different algorithm based on a linear solver. But after spending a lot of time looking for an well maintained NPM module that can handle linear solver problems with binary switches, I have not found one… For python there is a very good one. But Homey doesn’t do python (and neither do I).
For NodeJS there are some poorly documented half working ones out there, so I’m still looking if I can get one to do what I want.
Because of the absence of a good and well documented NodeJS module, switching algorithm is a major undertaking. So don’t expect anything soon.
Make source capability selectable as requested by @Sharkys :
To be honest I don’t see this happening because it requires significant work and adds complexity to the code. Solution for now is that you create your own virtual device using the GROUPS app or the Advanced Capabilities app, and then use that device in PBTH.
Request, could we incorporate a ‘AND’ to the flow, giving me the option to choose that the 'rate between the lowest and highest has a difference of … ’
‘De prijs tussen het hoogste en laagste tarief is minimaal … EUR’
DAP device: add price position of today for current hour as new capability. 1 for lowest price, 24 for highest price. With this you will be able to create logic based on this position, for instance more or less charge/discharge power for battery. I know there is a logic card for “one of the x highest/lowest prices of today”, but then I miss the position.
Battery summariser: add the possibility to reset the total charge/discharge energy fields (action card ?). With this I can start from blank when I want to monitor the efficiency of a different charging strategy without having to delete & recreate a battery summariser device (and adding to dashboards etc.). (For the total amount from beginning I have a second battery summariser device).
I would like to hear what you think of these suggestions.
Finnish energy companies have started selling on “Hybrid plans” as fixed price c/kWh plus consumption based flexible part c/kWh.
Monthly flex add-on price is calculated as:
(A-B) / E = c/kWh
A = hourly energy consumption (kWh) x hourly market price (c/kWh)
B = monthly energy consumption (kWh) x monthly average market price (c/kWh)
E = monthly energy consumption (kWh)
The flex part is only calculated at the end of month that will be put on the invoice as a separate line. So there will be one line for each:
Fixed price consumption
Flex price consumption
Energy tax
VAT
Monthly service fee
Should be noted the for the current active month the values are always estimates, as the flex price for the invoice is only known at the end of month. Meaning that the actual price for monthly energy can only be accurate for the past month. However having the estimates available helps improve the steering of consumption towards cheeper hours.
I would like to have for
Energy DAP device:
Value for the current rolling (num days of month) average price Avg. price this month.
This is only a estimate during the month and only valid at the
Value for the monthly average price of the prev month Avg. price prev. month.
Energy summariser
Energy summariser option to use hybrid plan with flex-addon.
Money this hour/day/month = (kWh period x fixed c/kWh) + (kWh period x Avg. price this month)
Money prev. hour/day = (kWh period x fixed c/kWh) + (kWh period x Avg. price this month)
Money prev. month = (kWh period x fixed c/kWh) + (kWh period x Avg. price prev. month)
Money this year and Money prev. year most likely the way they are now calcutated.
I looked into adding that before. Not as easy as you would think. DAP currently does not have concepts for ‘new day’ or ‘new month’. It only knows today and tomorrow. So adding this feature requires a major rewrite. But I will put it on the list.
This is way too complex to add atm, since the flex tariff is only known in hindsight. Any real-time estimation will not represent the real cost (since that is only known after a month). So for now I will not add this to the list.
In the settings I can currently specify a fixed and a variable markup. My electricity tariff (aWattar Hourly) includes another component: a variable markup based on the absolute value of the price, i.e. negative prices will be treated as positive for this markup.
Would it be possible to include such markup in the settings?
A setting for the minimum price charged by the energy company regardless the market price.
So that Actual Tariff pushed to the update group will use the floor value plus any markups defined.
Our energy company will always a minimum + margin when the price too low for them.
