Technical Support

I’m a new SolarPV owner and have couple of general questions relating to Agile Octopus and the Sunsynk inverter. It is my understanding that the inverter can (in principle, at least) access the half-hourly prices and decide “for itself” when to charge the battery.

I also have a plug-in hybrid EV and an air source heat pump. These have timers, but they are not “smart” (i.e. they don’t have access to prices)*.

My first question is: is the overall pattern of the half-hourly prices sufficiently predictable to make sensible choices in programming fixed times for EV charging and running a heat pump? The small example of prices I have seen seem to be all over the place.

My second question is: I see forum postings relating to difficulties in making the inverter work properly with dynamic pricing. Is this a historic problem now solved, something that is ongoing, or just problems understanding the correct configuration?

For now, I have decided to try “Cosy Octopus” with its heat-pump friendly, fixed, cheap rate periods. However, dynamic pricing with intelligent loads* would ultimately seem to be the way to go as it gives access to some “bargain basement” kilowatt-hours.

* I suppose a smart socket could be made to work with some devices, but not everything powers up without outside intervention when you apply power externally