u/thomosan1 — reddlx

Image 1 — AI mode draining house battery into EV

AI mode draining house battery into EV

Longish post, sorry in advance but looking for some advice and help re my charger and sig system not playing well together

I had my Sig system installed last week (5.7kw array, 6kw inverter, 18kw batteries and gateway).

I already had an Ohme Epod EV charger installed at the start of the year to my consumer unit.

I'm on Octopus IOG EV tariff for cheap overnight rates with some cheap daytime rates decided by Octopus.

My installer has wired the Ohme into the Smart port on the gateway. I had asked for it to be blind but there was a miscommunication. I chased it up and was advised that Sig prefer it wired to the smart port and the AI will sort it all out.

Up until last night the system was charging my car via the mains for 99.9% and took about 0.22kw from the house battery, all run by the AI max profit mode. I spoke to Sig today who advised me to wait a few weeks for it to learn and it would stop draining the house battery. They confirmed that the smart port can't detect when octopus gives me cheap electric slots during the day but said the smart port connection would ensure no drain from the house batteries.

From the images attached, you can see that I found my batteries just now half empty after being full all day and have been discharged into the car which was plugged in at 9pm. The system was in AI profit mode but I switched to a time based setup just now when I saw the drain and it's since slowed the battery drain and switched most of the supply to the grid. I know I could force hold the batteries but this isn't a long term solution.

Can you smart folks advise if it's best now to get my installer back to rewire the Ohme so it's blind so I can let Octopus do their thing and let Sig handle the solar and house battery separately?

I've also just realised that my plans to self discharge the house battery to the grid at around 9pm for a few hours (on an export rate) and then recharge at around 2am on the cheap rate will potentially conflict with the car charging as it seems if my car is charging during a house discharge, it's going straight to the car.

Might have gotten some of the assumptions wrong and if so, please advise as at this stage I'm getting fed up and on the verge of asking for it to be switched to a blind charging system and leave the smart port empty.

I'm not bothered about solar charging at this stage as my overnight rate is so cheap but would be happy to have it as an option if possible.

Edit: > Been pointed out that my system won't export and import at the same time. What I aim to do is have the house batteries discharge at a different time now still doesn't explain why last night when in AI mode for max profit the system chose to dump my batteries into the car when Sig told me it shouldn't do this.
Still keen to learn lots so grateful for any words of wisdom.

u/thomosan1 — 7 days ago

▲ 2 r/sigenergy

Sigenergy system, Ohme Epod and Intelligent Octopus Go - house battery draining into EV.

Apologies if this has been covered but I couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for.

Can I get some opinions or feed back on whether most of you have your EV chargers behind a Henley block so your system is blind to the ev charger, or do some of you use the Sigenergy app settings to get them to work nicely together?

I had my Ohme charger installed back in February and on Intelligent Octopus Go tariff. Up to now it's worked great with Octopus handling the charging slots.

This week my solar and battery were installed, 2 bat 10s, 6kw inverter and just over 6kw solar array.

I'm waiting for my installer to get back to me this coming Monday as I was away when they fitted the system but my car drains my house battery. I've worked out that this means they wired my Ohme charger so it's visible to the Sigenergy system instead of behind a Henley block (thats probably the wrong terminology so apologies). I don't want the system battery to feed my car.

The initial work around I've come up with is to set a time based house battery charge overnight on cheap rate and I have the car charging at the same time, telling the Ohme charger I need 100% charge by 05.30 which makes it charge from 23.30 even though I only need around 30% adding per day.

Currently it's 1am and I'm drawing 14.3kW from the grid to charge the batteries and the car. Eventually I'll get my export sorted so my excess solar can mostly be exported and the rest backfill the house during the day.

How do most folks have their EV and sigenergy systems configured? With the EV hidden from the system so they time of use charge or using a software work around?

There will be times when I need to charge the car during the day using the Octopus slots and I don't want the house battery to be used. I could block the battery manually during a car charge but that seems like the wrong way to go.

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u/thomosan1 — 16 days ago

▲ 0 r/sigenergy

Sigenergy referral code for anyone who needs it. Passing it on as someone else here helped me. £100.

u/thomosan1 — 17 days ago

▲ 16 r/ElectricVehiclesUK

I replaced my run around earlier this year with a second hand MG ZS EV 2022 with 30k for £13k. I plan on keeping the car till it's either run into the ground or hits 200k miles.

I always buy cars nearly new and keep them for 6 plus years doing about 12k to 15k miles a year.

Since buying the MG it's become the family car to stop using the family Smax to save that for the caravan holidays and large school trips and my wife and I are now on track on doing about 20k to 25k miles this year.

Looking at the folks asking about PCP deals on this sub leads me to believe no one owns their cars anymore and no one drives more than 8k miles a year.

Is this true or am I missing something?

I'd rather own my car and get more money's worth over 6 plus years than keep paying a deposit, renting the car and always making monthly payment of £300 plus for the rest of my life. I must be missing something.

Update:

Thanks for all the comments below. I think I understand it a bit better now. Some of us prefer to pay off what we own outright and take the hit of owning older cars for longer while some of us prefer a refresh every 3 years for reasons that are perfectly fine. The low mileage thing makes more sense as we live rurally and I do a 50mile commute to work and we have kids who do lots of after school clubs that need a car and we think nothing of driving 300 plus miles to visit friends or family or do day trips almost every weekend. My high mileage now is because when I work nights, my wife will use the car for work while I sleep. The old family car is being used loads less but needed for the caravan. Cheers again all.

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u/thomosan1 — 2 months ago