Saving Sessions / Demand reduction thread

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Another thing to note is that when they use the term perverse incentives
I think they are also covering the people who in effect reduced their payout by reducing their demand in the IDA window.
People who turned everything off when they went out for the day reduced their daily adjustment. (Which is the point of it).

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I believe the reason only some of us get the free sessions is that the generation is local and there simply isn't enough capacity to get it out of the region.

Its now available online as well as the app.

They said something about opting in export as well so thats hopeful that they are adding in something for those of us who could help a lot.
(I can export 5.5kw if they make it worth my while to do so as opposed to using my battery during the day)

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

it was the grid's post analysis - haven't looked to see if it still there, or in my cache, but they also listed grid's proposed actions, which I didn't snaphot then.

Proof in the pudding will be whether savings are statistically less than previous season
e: maybe they will increase incentive for real saving

teh grids post analysis was I believe based on teh survey they asked us to complete (and paid us for)
They would have no way of knowing the real behaviour without the survey

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I think I've realised why I get it, and my parents that live about 7 miles away don't. Just checked on google maps and about 500 yards away is a giant solar farm. Must be connected to the same grid node.

yeah I am kind of the same, there is a solar farm not that far from me
But they have run multiple sessions when thats going to be super low output (as my home solar also is!)

The timings still make no sense to me so far!

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Yeah its going to be interesting to see what rate the export is at.

It could make a diff but should be at the same rate.

Something must be different in that they say they will opt your export in if you have one. That did not apply last year.

If they combine the import and export and compare that against normal then by default you just encouraged all those who could export to setup to do so.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I managed 6.95kWh, now just to wait and see what I get awarded. How long does that normally take? Octopus app say give us few days to run the numbers - they must be using a ZX81.

Last year was more like a week

My suspicion was they need so many days to get all the smart meter readings in, some seem to take a while.
Then they batch process some data, and my guess would be, apply a load of checks before advising of the results.

My gut feel is we will get the results around mid next week.

I was away unfortunately, remote set max export after holding 6kwh or so in reserve (max discharge rate is 5.5kwh) and then it didn't take my force export, so I missed the first 30 minutes.
So net export was around 1.8-2kwh in the end.

Quick check today and the 10 preceding days I didn't export anything between 5.30-6.30pm. And I wont apart from saving sessions until probably may realistically now.
I also didn't import anything between those times. But I am now starting to consider setting my batteries to not discharge from 5-7pm. (IE use grid that time) since its now becoming quite frequent that I use some grid late evening/early night.

In fact today has been nigh on perfect for this time of year and I am up to 5.5kw generation. I think setting 5-7pm as grid usage will mean most days wont carry over much in the batteries at 12:30 pm anyway.

IIRC last year we did not have any weekend savings sessions. Does anyone disagree?

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

They took about a week last year.

Also I was checking twitx earlier and they said they had over a million sign ups. Thats a fair chunk of data to manipulate even if a computer can do it they are still going to want to do some validation.
I mean for me its 40 data points, 2x half hour, incoming and outgoing. So thats my baseline.

The Octopus system has felt a little flakier this year so I suspect its been a bit close to capacity at times. Fair few times I have tried to log on and its not worked, just had the scrolling bar across the screen.

I think we will get results at the end of a day. My prediction is today actually, starting around 5pm. Lets see...

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

My timing prediction was a little out

So far you've earned 4216 Octopoints (or £5.27 ) over 1 Saving Session

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Last year was the same I was always one of the first, suspect as I was a customer a long time ago I have a very low customer number so get updated as one of the first.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Got mine as well, very pleased with this

I missed the first half otherwise I would have been similar.
I am very happy to be able to export a few kwh and get paid for it whilst helping the grid be greener

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

mine is 0, by the sounds of it these saving sessions are pointless for me lol.

You have a battery, you set to export, you get £2.25 per kwh exported

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

wow really, ok that is better to hear. hopefully I get notified of the next one ill hold all the juice in that sucker all day lol

I tried finding details on the whole session thing on octopus site but it is severely lacking.

Normally one of us will bump this thread when a session is announced.
The more of us that monitor and post up the better, especially if as they say we get some short notice events this year.

You can sign up from the website or app even without the email.

If your exporting your baseline is the last 10 days import less export. And then your in day calculation is vs that. So if you export say 1kwh on average in the window of saving session then you start with -1.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

hhmmmm, what if I don't export, not done so really for a while.

If you do not normally export then you start at zero

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Saving session tomorrow, found it by luck no email yet!
5-6:30pm

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Is that on Octopus? I signed up and enabled notifications but had nothing and apparently missed the first one that happened.

yes indeed, my phone just pinged the whatsapp/octopus notice as well

So you need to reduce your baseline. No messing about with in day adjustment like last year
So they take your average over last 10 weekdays (excluding saving sessions) and compare each 30 minute session to that tomorrow.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Is this why the octopus site isnt working atm, everyone checking at once? Not even app will load.

Someone on the GE forums mentioned getting a message about a saving session and ive been trying for 10 minutes to get the website to load lol

AND I STILL DIDNT GET A DAMN NOTIFICATION VIA ANYTHING, app, email, NOTHING

It says in info "opt in now to earn 3200 points (£4) for every unit of power you save" but nothing about export.

Export is included.
Mine savings last time were from export and think plenty of others on here also, Hippo and Ronski for example

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Info on website has changed, as well as saying the previous 5pm to 6:30pm they added 1h between those times, REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Won't be getting 30+ quid anymore lol

What do you mean, its showing exactly the same for me as it did yesterday 1.5 hours (5-6:30pm)

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I allowed my batteries to drop to 85% pre session which looking back was too low.
I had to disable export at 18:10 and just go to self use. Which meant I had some left, I just couldn't time it better.

Next time, 100% battery charge without fail

10 days or so ago I decided to switch to grid use between 5-7pm since almost every day I was out of battery by late evening.
As such I calcuated my average from 5-6:30pm is actually 1.45kwh for the 10 days upto today excluding the last saving session. Thats adding a nice almost £6 to my amount today.

Should be in for about £25 total I think.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

On another note, I think I'm going to stop force discharging in the peak window now as it was quite alarming how bad the losses are going by last nights discharging.

I have 12.25kW of batteries and from min SOC to full charge they take about 10.6kWh using about 11.2kWh from the grid (5% loss). I force discharged from 92% to 10% last night and only got 6.9kWh out (over 25% loss!). I imagine its due to emptying them at the full 5kW but its enough to make it pointless, as even on the flux peak rate I'm barely making 4 pence a unit in reality and cycling the batteries a lot more.

What brand of batteries?

Only thing I will say, and you can track back my comments on this over time. With my Solax batteries the SOC is a number thats seemingly just made up.
The only time I can get a true idea of charge/discharge kWh is to go from 10-100 or 100-10. (%SOC)
Any other SOC% just cannot be trusted.

Also to add location / type.

LifePo4 needs 23c to be at 100% capacity it seems from reading around. My batteries were lab tested at 25c.
Solax haven't engaged in regards do they need to start at 25c, lol not fit for purpose in the UK then or is it fine to end at 25c. In theory if they are warming as they charge then the end temp should be key.

Mine show about 5.6% efficiency loss on charge. I think its less on discharge.
If I plot battery temp against charge/discharge when charging the temp goes up quickly, I think due to higher voltages. When discharging its less marked, but its far more rare that I discharge at a high rate for a sustained period.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

They're Fox HV25 batteries. The temperature makes a massive difference. In summer when they're 25-35C I get the full capacity. Now it's cold (15C or so even with insulation as the loft is under 5C) it's much lower.

Is that the Mira HV25 or an earlier version of the Fox HV2600?
I see a very high usable there (assuming the Mira version) of 11.9kWh on 12.28kWh nominal.
Your way short of capacity in that case very much like my issues.

Edit. An annoyance of mine is that yours as well as mine in specs talk about impact on charging from temps, not impact on capacity.
When in reality both are real and a consideration.