Starting today UK Octopus users are able to use regular VRM to configure and use Dynamic ESS. It uses the Octopus API, enabling you to use Dynamic ESS with any Octopus-supported energy contract.
Setting up Dynamic ESS in the UK is straightforward. All you need is your Octopus API key, which you can easily obtain by following the steps in this video.
In addition to your API key, VRM will need your account number and information about your payment method (e.g., direct debit), as these factors influence your energy pricing. Once youâve entered this information, youâll be able to see your Octopus energy prices displayed in the Dynamic ESS graphs on your dashboard.
We encourage everyone to explore the advantages of Dynamic ESS. Your feedback is important to us, so donât hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments! Also big thanks to all of the beta users that helped us discover and fix some bugs.
If you need more information, make sure to check the manual.
Note: If youâre living in the UK but donât have a dynamic energy contract, you can still use Dynamic ESS with fixed prices. Learn more about this option here. Note At the moment we donât differentiate between VAT and non-VAT prices. The checkbox to select that is scheduled for deployment on Thursday the 19th. Note The old topic on the beta release is closed.
Morning allâŚâŚ I still donât get how this system is working. We had relatively cheap power overnight but DESS decided to run the battery down. Now we are into morning peak itâs having ti take direct from the grid. This afternoon we have a long period of cheaper power, but as far as I can tell DESS only wants to import 3.6kw, barely enough to get me through the evening peak cost period. Whatsâs going on?
Iâm also seeing some strange behaviour. I set it to green mode, but it is doing force discharges. Surely the whole point of green mode is that it doesnât force discharge.
Do you guys have any plans to integrate into VRM so Octopus Energy can control the charge and discharge of our batteries allowing us to access their Intelligent tariffs.
Currently Intelligent tariffs are only available to customers with Givenergy BESS.
It would be fantastic if our Victron systems would work with these Intelligent Octopus tariffs.
Does this work with the free electricity sessions that Octopus run from time to time?
I know that Octopus do not drop the price per unit to 0p for these sessions, instead they work out how much you have used during this period afterward the event, so wondering if a DESS automation is possible.
No. These sessions donât impact prices expsoed via API so this isnât possible, also you only get free eleciticty for what you use above ânormalâ so itâs not a simple price change either.
What would be good is a way to have some kind of quick/schedule override in Victron for these situations.
I have been seeing some similar behaviour as well. it feels like the system is just skimming along at the bottom of the battery, it just about imports enough to cover some of the evening from 4pm onwards. but if we do something unexpected like run dishwasher or washing machine after 4pm it will not have enough to cover it and import from the grid. Feels like it needs a bit more of a reserve in place for the usage forecasting maybe.
it will be interesting to see how it develops over the winter, the pricing can vary quite a lot day to day due to the weather.
All Great work and much appreciated. not having to work out imports my self every evening is great.
First many thanks for your work on DESS and in particular the integration of Octopus in the UK.
I have DESS set up for my Octopus dynamic GO account and has worked well since the better was announced a few weeks ago.
When I say it has worked well I probably like other users mean nothing unusual has happened.
The weather has been good for a week and the battery is full to 100% by early afternoon most days. Last night I noticed the system was importing around 300w which was the approximate load, The minimum SOC had moved from 15% to 100% and the battery was being kept at full state of charge. Turning off DESS and resetting SOC to 15% stopped the import returned the system to ânormalâ -20 setpoint.
I have had the âBattery balancing is scheduled for this dayâ banner showing since I started using the Octopus version of DESS. As the battery gets to 100% full for 4 or 5 hours in the summer I have turned off the Battery balancing feature.
I have set Charge or discharge restriction to stop charging outside the Octopus GO 5 hour cheap rate window. 00.00 â 00.30, 05.30 â 23.59 (is this set correctly)
So was the system Balancing the battery by keeping the SOC at 100% when this feature is turned off?
Why was it charging outside the cheap rate window?
Obviously the balancing system hasnât checked if the battery has been at 100% for an extended period recently.
If the system is going to balance then it should do it in the cheap rate period. To reduce import costs.
Has anyone else experience of the battery balancing feature?
@Fellside
Could it be that you by coincidence changed the value while scrolling up/down in the VRM (using your phone) ?
While scrolling up (to close the screen) you could touch the battery slider and the value is set to 100%.
It happened to me a few times
Yes that is definitely a possibility.
This morning actually SOC was 86% but minimum SOC was set by system to 90% system was charging.
System is still. Displaying the battery balancing banner is still being displayed.
I will keep an eye on it.
I set DESS up on the 17th and itâs not going how I would expect it to have gone. I have it set in Trade Mode.
My battery has now come down to itâs 20% cutoff over the last 3 days. I can see that it is scheduled to do a 30 minute slot this afternoon but only charge the battery 1.75kWh in that time. (I have 20kWh of usable capacity.)
The system doesnât seem to be predicting the peak periods properly and also isnât taking into account the peak periods by providing a sufficiently large buffer in the battery in case of power outages. Yes I could change the âBattery SOCâ but that doesnât really resolve the issue as that is going to just mean that less of the battery is available to consume on regular occasions.
From the first 3 days of use the system seems to be producing a net cost rather than a net profit but that could be myself miss interpreting the results incorrectly.
Yesterdays usage shows that the system consumed the grid between 16:00 and 17:00 (unless the timeline is offset by an hr) when us Octopus Agile users all know we should only ever be consuming from the battery.
The way I used to setup the system would be to charge at say the lowest charge slots during the day knowing that I would need to get over the morning / evening peaks and ensuring my battery was full then force discharge based on when the price was going to be favourable prior to the charge points. This tended to work out quite favourably whereas the current system seems to be swung a bit far towards consuming the battery and keep the battery empty rather than full but not full if that makes sense. Is this a consequence of choosing âTradeâ rather than âGreenâ mode.
I am wondering if the system is not dealing very well with the marginal price difference we are currently seeing between import and export rates at the moment.
Keep up the good work, I have been waiting for this functionality for a while and would welcome feedback on my observations.
Just a quick update and I may have identified some configuration parameters that I was an order of magnitude out on.
Adjusted charge / discharge rates and will monitor.
Octopus also have a Flux tariff for those of us with solar and battery that charge during fixed time cheap rate at night during 2-5am and want to discharge during peak 4-7pm.
Octopus are slowly biassing their payments to get us to discharge more during 4-7pm.
We are currently doing this manually or for those able, in node Red.
A âscheduled chargeâ type menu system would be ideal for this as a âscheduled dischargeâ feature for those that donât need the dynamic pricing model and want to control it themselves.
The menu would provide a SOC discharge adjustment on one of 5 schedules as current scheduled charging does.
Even better would be buttons to turn any one of schedules on/off on the VRM Phone interface rather than just on the remote console.
The VRM panel would show a summary of time and SOC setting to remind us of what each does.
Finally, the VRM interface to have a âDischarge Nowâ button like the central heating âBoostâ button, where discharging can start/stop now at the press of a button for 30,60,90 minutes etc.
A super feature in all of the above would be that grid discharge set point can be set for any one of the schedules and boost section so that the kW discharge level can be also controlled.
Discharge at full power isnât always as desirable as scheduled charge does at full power. Life of batteries, heat dissipation in system closet environment etc.
Thanks very much for your comments and help so far.
Have you tried DESS with Flux tarrif yet? Iâm on intelligent octopus and DESS does a great job of pulling the tarriff information and scheduling around this. You shouldnât need to do anythng manually or using node-red, DESS should automatically not import and instead export any excess not needed for the evening during 4-7pm.
Thanks for the suggestion. Itâs useful but Iâd like a lot more control than automatically.
Control and scheduling of how long for and how much is exported depending on the state of my batteries and when.
We have a regularly changing lifestyle and Iâm sure others are in a similar situation where DESS, although dynamic for changes in tariffs, doesnât fit all lifestyles.
At the moment there are no plans to work on the intelligent tariffs of Octopus. The integration right now stops at their API supplying the prices, based on the users contract.
Having said that, the new beta Venus now does feature extra Node-RED nodes to overrule Dynamic ESS controls.
Also keep in mind that the system has been designed with an aim to save the users time (and money) in manually monitoring and adjusting the system the whole time.
This seems an awesome development. Iâve setup my Octopus Agile account using the Account number and API key, but it doesnât look like itâs pulled any prices (have left it 12 hours or so), and it seems to be expecting a formula on the summary screen.
I got one warnings saying âNo matching schedule availableâ, but this cleared very quickly (though it doesnât look itâs getting data still).
not having to work out imports my self every evening is great.
