Wait until next hour

Flows
1

I am creating a flow to keep track of power usage and turn things off when I use a lot electricity during one hour. In Sweden we have this thing where you pay for your top three hours over the month so there is a lot to save to keep the top hours under for example 6000W instead of 12000W. For this I use Tibber Pulse flow card “Effect is over 4000W for 15 minutes”. And cards for 6, 8 and 10kW.

The most ideal would be to have “The power usage for this hour is above 4kWh” but I have not found this yet. Please let me know if you have an ideas on this!

My question is, if I turn things off to save power, they can be restarted again next hour. I can not solve this. For example if I hit 6000W for 15 minutes I want to turn of some heaters, radiators, FTX-system or heat pump. But as soon as its the next hour these can be restarted. How can I do this?

2

Hi @Sundlof ,
That is quite simple.
Just create a yes/no variable for every device, if it should generally run.
You just have then to maintain them properly.
For example:
WHEN

  • ElectricConsumption > MaxConsumtion
    THEN
  • Switch Heatpump OFF
  • Set variable Heatpump_in_use to yes
    WHEN
  • Every 1 hour
    AND
  • Heatpump_in_use is yes
    THEN
  • Switch Heatpump ON
  • Set variable Heatpump_in_use to no

With an advanced flow you can combine this for every device.
If there are some devices you always want to switch on an off together, you can also use groups to spare space of flow.

3

Thanks DirkH,

This is a good idea, to check every hour if something is turned off that is supposed to be on. I will work with this, even if this creates a lot of variables.

4

A lot ? I have a flow that uses 13 or 14 varaibles, just think well before naming them

I use a 2char-code for variables and flows to know what variables are used in which flows..

5

The absolute easiest would be to turn off, snd turn on with a delay of 60min at the same time. :innocent:

6

Interesting problem.

These top three hours: is that for example always 8-9, 9-10 or is 7:18-8:18 also possible?

I assume that the top three hours only occur when you start heating your house: all heaters will use maximum power for a longer period. After that they will turn on every x minutes for y minutes?

If it is indeed 8-9, start heating 7:30

7

It is from 8-9, so yes it is good to have heaters run on two hours as they usually go for about 30-40 minutes.

8

That’s a good point, but when this flow kicks in, it is usually 30-40 min in the current hour, so next hour it might start in a bad time again.

9

You might want to check the Piggy Bank app, designed with the Norwegian peak tariff system in mind, to automate turning devices off and on