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The new app has removed a critical feature.
It used to be possible in mode scheduler to set the min soc for a self use period. When charging an EV this helped to prevent the home battery discharging. This is no longer possible because there is no control for self use for a given period.
Please reinstate this functionality. With this the home battery will be dead by morning which means increased wear on the battery and increased electricity costs for me.
Hi Agush
I don't think you understand the issue fully so will try and explain better.
For me, when the EV needs a charge it might finish charging anytime between midnight and 5am. The EV tells me when it will finish the charge e.g. let's say 2.16am
With the old app I could set the mode scheduler to have a self use period to finish at 2.16am. I also set the min soc for that self use period for the home battery to be the current soc when the charge starts e.g. 46%.
At the end of the EV charge, the battery min SOC was back to 10% so it then provides for the house load.
So theres several issues with your suggestion
1. It has never been possible to update the quick settings when mode scheduler is enabled and it still isn't in the new app. Try it and you get an error (there are several bugs with the mode scheduler and min soc by the way but will raise separately).
2. I don't want to wake up at 2.16am to turn off mode scheduler and then update min soc manually.
3. You had this feature before. It worked. Why change it? I can only assume whoever changed it didn't understand why it was useful to users.it should be easy to reinstate since it just requires some fields to be shown in mode scheduler when setting self use just like Force Charge has.
You had something that was incredibly useful and better in some ways than how some of your competitors try to solve it.
Can we have it back please?
I would also like this feature back. I used to have a Self-Use mode scheduled 11am-4pm and toggle on for the weekend. Min SOC was set to 80% Why? I get 1/2 price electric at the weekend. If my battery was less than 80% it would charge up to this level and this was enough to get me through to either charge my battery up overnight (even cheaper electric) or (in summer months) was enough capacity to get me through to the following morning. once above 80%, solar would be used for the house instead.
It's not just Self-Use, but Force Discharge. The new functionality is that, once FDSoc is reached the inverter is switched off instead of going into Self-Use; i.e. no PV/battery usage. Although still in the web interface, MinSoc has been removed from FD schedules in the mobile app, and System MinSoc is ignored.
This makes Octopus Flux unusable, since it means discharging in the 4-7pm peak export period will risk (and probably usually result in) importing at peak prices once FDSoc has been reached.
Also, setting FD power to 0W seems to result in the inverter being switched off completely (including PV) and the load being taken from the grid. This is useful for taking excess load from the grid when the price is lower than export; e.g. on Agile Import, setting FD power to 0W when the import price is below the Outgoing Octopus 15p rate. This behaviour, at least, is still available by using legacy mode (charging period with charge from grid disabled) but that's limited to two entries and now only available on the web interface not the app.
Just had confirmation from Fox:
"During the Force Discharge time window, once the battery reaches the configured FDSOC (60%), the inverter will stop discharging the battery.
"From that point onward, all load will be supplied by the grid, even if your Min SOC is set to 10%. This is the normal operating logic of the Force Discharge mode."
So they acknowledge that this is now expected behaviour. No comment from them on this meaning Octopus Flux (and similar tariffs) are now unusable.
Further update:
"We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your patience.
"Our current system logic is indeed designed so that once the FD SOC is reached, the battery stops discharging during the Force Discharge period (especially if the time block is relatively long).
"Thank you very much for your feedback. Our project team is actively working to optimise the platform, so that after reaching FD SOC, the system can automatically return to Self-Use mode, maximising self-consumption and overall efficiency.
"We truly appreciate your suggestions and will strive to make this feature available as soon as possible."
@alexls end of July and seems like we still havnt received this feature
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion. We understand how having an individual SOC target for each schedule could be beneficial in certain use cases. We've noted your feedback and will take it into consideration as we continue to review and improve scheduling functionality.
It looks like it is now possible to set a MinSoc for a Self-Use period. I've attached a screenshot of my Mode Schedule.
Hi,
You should be able to go on to the quick setting's section of the app and adjust the system SOC's.
@agushberisha ideally want to be able to set a different SOC against each schedule rather than an overall one.
