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+ apps.yaml settings
+The basic configuration for Predbat is configured in the apps.yaml file.
Depending on whether you have used the combined AppDaemon/Predbat add-on installation method or the
+HACS, Appdaemon add-on then Predbat installation method, the apps.yaml file will be held in one of two directories in Home Assistant:
-
+
/addon_configs/46f69597_appdaemon-predbat/appsif you used the combined AppDaemon/Predbat add-on installation method
+
or
+-
+
/config/appdaemon/apps/batpred/config/if you used the HACS, AppDaemon add-on then Predbat installation method
+
You will need to use a file editor within Home Assistant (e.g. either the File editor or Studio Code Server add-on's)
+to edit the apps.yaml file - see editing configuration files within Home Assistant if you need to install an editor.
This section of the documentation describes what the different configuration items in apps.yaml do.
When you edit apps.yaml, AppDaemon will automatically detect the change and Predbat will be reloaded with the updated file.
+You don't need to restart the AppDaemon add-on for your edits to take effect.
Templates
+You can find template configurations in the following locations:
+| Template | +Link | +
|---|---|
| GivEnergy | +apps.yaml | +
| SolisX | +apps.yaml | +
| SolarEdge | +apps.yaml | +
The GivEnergy template will be installed by default but if you are using another inverter please copy the correct template into the directory
+where your apps.yaml is stored, and modify it from there.
Basics
+Basic configuration items
+-
+
-
+
prefix - Set to the prefix name to be used for all entities that predbat creates in Home Assistant. Default 'predbat'. Unlikely that you will need to change this.
+
+ -
+
timezone - Set to your local timezone, default is Europe/London. It must be set to a +valid Python time zone for your location
+
+ -
+
template - Initially set to True, this is used to stop Predbat from operating until you have finished configuring your apps.yaml. +Once you have made all other required changes to apps.yaml this line should be deleted or commented out.
+
+ -
+
notify_devices - A list of device names to notify when Predbat sends a notification. The default is just 'notify' which contacts all mobile devices
+
+ -
+
days_previous - A list (one entry per line) of the number of days of historical house load to be used to predict your future daily load.
+
+It's recommended that you set days_previous so Predbat uses sufficient days' history so that 'unusual' load activity (e.g. saving sessions, "big washing day", etc) get averaged out.
+Typical settings could be 1, 7 or 7, 14, or 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
+Do keep in mind that Home Assistant only keeps 10 days history by default, so you might need to increase the number of days history kept in HA before its purged +by editing and adding the following to the/homeassistant/configuration.yamlconfiguration file and restarting Home Assistant afterwards:
+
recorder:
+ purge_keep_days: 14
+-
+
-
+
days_previous_weight - A list (one entry per line) of weightings to be applied to each of the days in days_previous. Default value is 1, that all history days are equally weighted.
+
+ -
+
forecast_hours - the number of hours to that Predbat will forecast ahead, 48 is the suggested amount, although other values can be used +such as 30 or 36 if you have a small battery and thus don't need to forecast 2 days ahead.
+
+
Inverter information
+The template apps.yaml comes pre-configured with regular expressions that should auto-discover the GivTCP Home Assistant entity names.
+If you have more than one inverter or entity names are non-standard then you will need to edit apps.yaml for your inverter entities.
+For other inverter brands, see Other Inverters
-
+
-
+
num_inverters - The number of inverters you have. If you increase this above 1 you must provide multiple of each of the inverter entities
+
+ -
+
geserial - This is a helper regular expression to find your serial number, if it doesn't work edit it manually or change individual entities to match.
+
+
Historical data
+Predbat can either get historical data (house load, import, export and PV generation) directly from GivTCP or it can obtain it from the GivEnergy cloud. +Unless you have a specific reason to not use the GivTCP data (e.g. you've lost your GivTCP data), its recommended to use GivTCP.
+Data from GivTCP
+The following configuration entries in apps.yaml are pre-configured to automatically use the appropriate GivTCP sensors.
If you have a 3-phase electricity supply and one inverter (and battery) on each phase then you will need to add one line for the load, import, export and PV sensors +for each of the 3 phases.
+If you have a single phase electricity supply and multiple inverters on the phase then you will need to add one line for each of the load and PV sensors. +You don't need multiple lines for the import or export sensors as each inverter will give the total import or export information.
+Edit if necessary if you have non-standard GivTCP sensor names:
+-
+
- load_today - GivTCP Entity name for the house load in kWh today (must be incrementing) +
- import_today - GivTCP Imported energy today in kWh (incrementing) +
- export_today - GivTCP Exported energy today in kWh (incrementing) +
- pv_today - GivTCP PV energy today in kWh (incrementing). If you have multiple inverters, enter each inverter PV sensor on a separate line.
+If you have an AC-coupled GivEnergy inverter then enter the Home Assistant sensor for your PV inverter.
+If you don't have any PV panels, comment or delete this line out of apps.yaml.
+
See the Workarounds section below for configuration settings for scaling these if required.
+If you have multiple inverters then you may find that the load_today figures from GivTCP are incorrect as the inverters share the house load between them. +In this circumstance one solution is to create a Home Assistant template helper to calculate house load from {pv generation}+{battery discharge}-{battery charge}+{import}-{export}.
+e.g.
+{{ states('sensor.givtcp_XXX_pv_energy_today_kwh')|float(0) + <inverter 2>...
++ states('sensor.givtcp_XXX_battery_discharge_energy_today_kwh')|float(0) + <inverter 2>...
+- states('sensor.givtcp_XXX_battery_charge_energy_today_kwh')|float(0) - <inverter 2>...
++ states('sensor.givtcp_XXX_import_energy_today_kwh')|float(0)
+- states('sensor.givtcp_XXX_export_energy_today_kwh')|float(0) }}
+GivEnergy Cloud Data
+If you have an issue with the GivTCP data, Predbat can get the required historical data from the GivEnergy cloud instead. This data is updated every 30 minutes. +Obviously connecting to the cloud is less efficient and means that Predbat will be dependent upon your internet connection and the GivEnergy cloud to operate.
+-
+
- ge_cloud_data - When True Predbat will use the GE Cloud for data rather than load_today, import_today and export_today +
- ge_cloud_serial - Set the inverter serial number to use for the Cloud data +
- ge_cloud_key - Set to your API Key for the GE Cloud (long string) +
Load filtering
+By default if Predbat sees a gap in the historical load data it will fill it with average data. This is to help in the cases of small amounts of lost data. +For entire lost days you should change days_previous to point to different days(s) or include 3 or more days and if you set switch.predbat_load_filter_modal to true, +the lowest day's historical load will be discarded.
+-
+
- load_filter_threshold - Sets the number of minutes of zero load data to be considered a gap (that's filled with average data), the default is 30. +To disable, set it to 1440. +
Inverter control configurations
+-
+
-
+
inverter_limit - One per inverter. When set defines the maximum watts of AC output power for your inverter (e.g. 3600). +This will help to emulate clipping when your solar produces more than the inverter can handle, but it won't be that accurate as the source of the data isn't minute by minute. +If you have a separate Solar inverter as well then add the solar inverter limit to the battery inverter limit to give one total amount.
+
+ -
+
export_limit - One per inverter (optional). When set defines the maximum watts of AC power your inverter can export to the grid at (e.g. 2500). +This will emulate the software export limit setting in the Inverter that you will have if your G98/G99 +approval was lower than your maximum inverter power (check your install information for details). +If you do not set an export limit then it's the same as the inverter limit.
+
+ -
+
inverter_limit_charge and inverter_limit_discharge - One per inverter (optional). When set in watts, overrides the maximum +charge/discharge rate settings used when controlling the inverter. +This can be used if you need to cap your inverter battery rate (e.g. charge overnight at a slower rate to reduce inverter/battery heating) as Predbat +will normally configure all timed charges or discharges to be at the inverter's maximum rate.
+
+
Controlling the Inverter
+There are two ways that Predbat can control GivTCP to control the inverter, either via REST API calls (preferred) or via the GivTCP inverter controls in Home Assistant.
+REST Interface inverter control
+-
+
- givtcp_rest - One per Inverter, sets the GivTCP REST API URL (http://homeassistant.local:6345 +is the normal one for the first inverter and :6346 for the second inverter). +When enabled the Control per inverter below isn't used and instead communication from Predbat to GivTCP is directly via REST and thus bypasses some issues with MQTT. +If using Docker then change homeassistant.local to the Docker IP address. +
To check your REST is working open up the readData API point in a Web browser e.g: http://homeassistant.local:6345/readData
+If you get a bunch of inverter information back then it's working!
+It's recommended you enable 'Output Raw Register Values' in GivTCP (via Settings / Add-on's / GivTCP / configuration tab) for added monitoring:
+Home Assistant inverter control
+As an alternative to REST control, Predbat can control the GivEnergy inverters via GivTCP controls in Home Assistant.
+The template apps.yaml is pre-configured with regular expressions for the following configuration items that should auto-discover the GivTCP controls,
+but may need changing if you have multiple inverters or non-standard GivTCP entity names.
The givtcp_rest line should be commented out/deleted in order for Predbat to use the direct GivTCP Home Assistant controls.
+-
+
- charge_rate - GivTCP battery charge rate entity in watts +
- discharge_rate - GivTCP battery discharge max rate entity in watts +
- battery_power - GivTCP current battery power in watts +
- pv_power - GivTCP current PV power in watts +
- load_power - GivTCP current load power in watts +
- soc_kw - GivTCP Entity name of the battery SOC in kWh, should be the inverter one not an individual battery +
- soc_max - GivTCP Entity name for the maximum charge level for the battery +
- reserve - GivTCP sensor name for the reserve setting in % +
- inverter_mode - GivTCP inverter mode control +
- inverter_time - GivTCP inverter timestamp +
- charge_start_time - GivTCP battery charge start time entity +
- charge_end_time - GivTCP battery charge end time entity +
- charge_limit - GivTCP Entity name for used to set the SOC target for the battery in percentage +
- scheduled_charge_enable - GivTCP Scheduled charge enable config +
- scheduled_discharge_enable - GivTCP Scheduled discharge enable config +
- discharge_start_time - GivTCP scheduled discharge slot_1 start time +
- discharge_end_time - GivTCP scheduled discharge slot_1 end time +
If you are using REST control the above GivTCP configuration items can be deleted or commented out of apps.yaml.
+Solcast Solar Forecast
+As described in the Predbat installation instructions, Predbat needs a solar forecast +in order to predict solar generation and battery charging which can be provided by the Solcast integration.
+The template apps.yaml is pre-configured with regular expressions for the following configuration items that should auto-discover the Solcast entity names.
+They are unlikely to need changing although a few people have reported their entity names don't contain 'solcast' so worth checking, or edit if you have non-standard names:
-
+
- pv_forecast_today - Entity name for today's Solcast forecast +
- pv_forecast_tomorrow - Entity name for tomorrow's Solcast's forecast +
- pv_forecast_d3 - Entity name for Solcast's forecast for day 3 +
- pv_forecast_d4 - Entity name for Solcast's forecast for day 4 (also d5, d6 & d7 are supported, but not that useful) +
If you do not have a PV array then comment out or delete these Solcast lines from apps.yaml.
If you have multiple PV arrays connected to GivEnergy Hybrid inverters or you have GivEnergy AC-coupled inverters, then ensure your PV configuration in Solcast covers all arrays.
+If however you have a mixed PV array setup with some PV that does not feed into your GivEnergy inverters +(e.g. hybrid GE inverters but a separate older FIT array that directly feeds AC into the house), +then it's recommended that Solcast is only configured for the PV connected to the GivEnergy inverters.
+Solcast produces 3 forecasted PV estimates, the 'central' (50% or most likely to occur) PV forecast, the '10%' (worst case) PV forecast, and the '90%' (best case) PV forecast.
+By default Predbat will use the central estimate and applies to it the input_number.pv_metric10_weight weighting of the 10% (worst case) estimate.
Predbat models cloud coverage by using the difference between the PV and PV10 forecasts to work out a cloud factor, +this modulates the PV output predictions up and down accordingly as if there were passing clouds. +This can have an impact on planning, especially for things like freeze charging which could assume the PV will cover the house load but it might not due to clouds.
+-
+
- pv_estimate in
apps.yamlcan be used to configure Predbat to always use the 10% forecast by setting the configuration item to '10', +or '90' to always use the 90% PV estimate (not recommended!).
+Set to blank or delete / comment out the line to use the default central estimate.
+
If pv_estimate is set to 10 then input_number.pv_metric10_weight in Home Assistant should be set to 1.0.
+Energy Rates
+There are a number of configuration items in apps.yaml for telling Predbat what your import and export rates are.
+These are described in detail in Energy Rates and are listed here just for completeness:
+-
+
- metric_octopus_import - Import rates from the Octopus Energy integration +
- metric_octopus_export - Export rates from the Octopus Energy integration +
- metric_octopus_gas - Gas rates from the Octopus Energy integration +
- octopus_intelligent_slot - Octopus Intelligent GO slot sensor from the Octopus Energy integration +
- octopus_saving_session - Energy saving sessions sensor from the Octopus Energy integration +
- octopus_saving_session_octopoints_per_penny - Sets the Octopoints per pence +
- rates_import_octopus_url - Octopus pricing URL (over-rides metric_octopus_import) +
- rates_export_octopus_url - Octopus export pricing URL (over-rides metric_octopus_export) +
- metric_standing_charge - Standing charge in pounds +
- rates_import - Import rates over a 24-hour period with start and end times +
- rates_export - Export rates over a 24-hour period with start and end times +
- rates_import_override - Over-ride import rate for specific date and time range, e.g. Octopus Power-up events +
- rates_export_override - Over-ride export rate for specific date and time range +
- futurerate_url - URL of future energy market prices for Agile users +
- futurerate_adjust_import and futurerate_adjust_export - Whether tomorrow's predicted import or export prices should be adjusted based on market prices or not +
- futurerate_peak_start and futurerate_peak_end - start/end times for peak-rate adjustment +
- futurerate_peak_premium_import and futurerate_peak_premium_export - price premium to be added during the peak period +
Car Charging Integration
+Predbat is able to include electric vehicle charging in its plan and manage the battery activity so that the battery isn't discharged into your car when the car is charging +(although you can over-ride this if you wish by setting the switch.predbat_car_charging_from_battery to True in Home Assistant).
+There are two different ways of planning car charging into cheap slots with Predbat, either by the Octopus Energy integration or by Predbat identifying the cheapest slots. +These approaches and the set of settings that need to be configured together are described in Car Charging Planning.
+The full list of car charging configuration items in apps.yaml that are used to plan car charging activity within Predbat are described below.
+The Home Assistant controls (switches, input numbers, selectors, etc) related to car charging are described in Car Charging configuration within Home Assistant,
+with brief mention of pertinent controls included here alongside the apps.yaml configuration items where relevant for context.
-
+
- num_cars should be set in apps.yaml to the number of cars you want Predbat to plan for. +Set to 0 if you don't have an EV (and the remaining car sensors in apps.yaml can safely be commented out or deleted as they won't be required). +
Car Charging Filtering
+You might want to remove your electric car charging data from the historical house load data so as to not bias the calculations, otherwise you will get +high battery charge levels when the car was charged previously (e.g. last week).
+-
+
-
+
switch.car_charging_hold - A Home Assistant switch that when turned on (True) tells Predbat to remove car charging data from Predbat's battery prediction plan.
+
+ -
+
car_charging_energy - Set in apps.yaml to point to a Home Assistant entity which is the incrementing kWh data for the car charger. +This has been pre-defined to a regular expression to auto-detect the appropriate Wallbox and Zappi car charger sensors, or edit as necessary in apps.yaml for your charger sensor.
+
+ -
+
input_number.car_charging_energy_scale - A Home Assistant entity used to define a scaling factor (in the range 0.1 to 1.0) +to multiply the car_charging_energy data by if required (e.g. set to 0.001 to convert Watts to kW).
+
+
If you do not have a suitable car charging kWh sensor in Home Assistant then comment the car_charging_energy line out of apps.yaml and configure the following Home Assistant entity:
-
+
- input_number.car_charging_threshold - Sets the threshold above which home consumption is assumed to be car charging and will be removed from the home load data (default 6 = 6kW). +
Planned Car Charging
+These features allow Predbat to know when you plan to charge your car.
+If you have Intelligent Octopus setup then planning of charging is done via the Octopus app and Predbat obtains this information through the Octopus Energy integration in Home Assistant.
+-
+
- switch.predbat_octopus_intelligent_charging - When this Home Assistant switch is enabled, Predbat will plan charging around the Intelligent Octopus slots, taking +it into account for battery load and generating the slot information +
The following apps.yaml configuration items are pre-defined with regular expressions to point to appropriate sensors in the Octopus Energy integration.
+You should not normally need to change these if you have Octopus Intelligent:
-
+
-
+
octopus_intelligent_slot - Points to the Octopus Energy integration 'intelligent dispatching' sensor that indicates +whether you are within an Octopus Energy "smart charge" slot, and provides the list of future planned charging activity.
+
+ -
+
octopus_ready_time - Points to the Octopus Energy integration sensor that details when the car charging will be completed by.
+
+ -
+
octopus_charge_limit - Points to the Octopus Energy integration sensor that provides the car charging limit.
+
+
If you don't use Intelligent Octopus then the above 3 Octopus Intelligent configuration lines in apps.yaml can be commented out or deleted,
+and there are a number of other apps.yaml configuration items that should be set:
-
+
-
+
car_charging_planned - Optional, can be set to a Home Assistant sensor which lets Predbat know the car is plugged in and planned to charge during low rate slots. +Or manually set it to 'False' to disable this feature, or 'True' to always enable.
+
+ -
+
car_charging_planned_response - An array of values for the above car_charging_planned sensor which indicate that the car is plugged in and will charge +in the next low rate slot. Customise for your car charger sensor if it sets sensor values that are not in the pre-defined list.
+
+ -
+
car_charging_now - For some cases finding details of planned car charging is difficult to obtain (e.g. Ohme with Intelligent doesn't report slots).
+
+The car_charging_now configuration item can be set to point to a Home Assistant sensor that tells you that the car is currently charging. +Predbat will then assume this 30 minute slot is used for charging regardless of the plan.
+If Octopus Intelligent Charging is enabled and car_charging_now indicates the car is charging then Predbat will also assume that this is a +low rate slot for the car/house (and might therefore start charging the battery), otherwise electricity import rates are taken from the normal rate data.
+ -
+
car_charging_now_response - Set to the range of positive responses for car_charging_now to indicate that the car is charging. +Useful if you have a sensor for your car charger that isn't binary.
+
+
To make planned car charging more accurate, configure the following items in apps.yaml:
-
+
-
+
car_charging_battery_size - Set to the car's battery size in kWh, defaults to 100. It will be used to predict car charging stops.
+
+ -
+
car_charging_limit - Set to point to a sensor that specifies the % limit the car is set to charge to. Default is 100%
+
+ -
+
car_charging_soc - Set to point to a sensor that specifies the car's current % charge level. Default is 0%
+
+
Multiple Electric Cars
+Multiple cars can be planned with Predbat, in which case you should set num_cars in apps.yaml to the number of cars you want to plan
-
+
-
+
car_charging_limit, car_charging_planned, car_charging_battery_size and car_charging_soc must then be a list of values (i.e. 2 entries for 2 cars)
+
+ -
+
If you have Intelligent Octopus then Car 0 will be managed by the Octopus Energy integration, if its enabled
+
+ -
+
Each car will have it's own Home Assistant slot sensor created e.g. binary_sensor.predbat_car_charging_slot_1, +SOC planning sensor e.g predbat.car_soc_1 and predbat.car_soc_best_1 for car 1
+
+
Balance Inverters
+When you have two or more inverters it's possible they get out of sync so they are at different charge levels or they start to cross-charge (one discharges into another). +When enabled, balance inverters tries to recover this situation by disabling either charging or discharging from one of the batteries until they re-align.
+Most of the Predbat configuration for balancing inverters is through a number of Home Assistant controls for Balancing Inverters,
+but there is one configuration item in apps.yaml:
-
+
- balance_inverters_seconds - defines how often to run the inverter balancing, 30 seconds is recommended if your machine is fast enough, but the default is 60 seconds. +
Workarounds
+There are a number of different configuration items in apps.yaml that can be used to tweak the way Predbat operates and workaround
+weirdness you may have from your inverter and battery setup.
-
+
- clock_skew - Skews the local (computer) time that Predbat uses (from AppDaemon).
+Set to 1 means add a minute to the AppDaemon time, set to -1 means take a minute off the AppDaemon time. +This will change when real-time actions happen e.g. triggering a charge or discharge.
+
If your inverter's time is different to the time on the computer running Home Assistant, you may need to skew the time settings made on the inverter when you trigger charging or discharging. +Again 1 means the inverter is 1 minute fast and -1 means the inverter is 1 minute slow.
+Separate start and end options are applied to the start and end time windows, mostly as you want to start battery activity late (not early) and finish early (not late).
+You can adjust the charge and discharge times written to the inverter by setting the following in apps.yaml:
-
+
-
+
inverter_clock_skew_start, inverter_clock_skew_end - Skews the setting of the charge slot registers vs the predicted start time
+
+ -
+
inverter_clock_skew_discharge_start, inverter_clock_skew_discharge_end - Skews the setting of the discharge slot registers vs the predicted start time
+
+ -
+
battery_scaling - Default value 1.0. This setting is used to scale the battery reported SOC kWh to make it appear bigger or larger than it is +e.g. if you have an 80% depth of discharge battery that falsely reports its capacity, set this to 0.8 to report the real figure.
+
+If you are going chart your battery SoC in Home Assistant then you may want to use predbat.soc_kw_h0 as your current SoC +rather than the usual givtcp__soc GivTCP entity so everything lines up
+ -
+
import_export_scaling - Default value 1.0. Used to scale the import & export kWh data from GivTCP if the inverter information is incorrect.
+
+ -
+
inverter_battery_rate_min - One per inverter (optional), set in Watts, when set models a "bug" in the inverter firmware +in some models where if charge or discharge rates are set to 0 you actually get a small amount of charge or discharge. +Recommended setting is 200 for Gen 1 hybrids with this issue.
+
+ -
+
inverter_reserve_max - Global, sets the maximum reserve % that maybe set to the inverter, the default is 98 as some Gen 2 inverters and +AIO firmware versions refuse to be set to 100. Comment the line out or set to 100 if your inverter allows setting to 100%.
+
+ -
+
battery_charge_power_curve - Some batteries tail off their charge rate at high soc% and this optional configuration item enables you to model this in Predbat. +Enter the charging curve as a series of steps of % of max charge rate for each soc percentage. +The default is 1.0 (full power) charge all the way to 100%. +Example from a GivEnergy 9.5kWh battery with latest firmware and Gen 1 inverter:
+
+
battery_charge_power_curve:
+ 91 : 0.91
+ 92 : 0.81
+ 93 : 0.71
+ 94 : 0.62
+ 95 : 0.52
+ 96 : 0.43
+ 97 : 0.33
+ 98 : 0.24
+ 99 : 0.24
+ 100 : 0.24
+Triggers
+The trigger feature is useful to help trigger your own automations based on Predbat determining that you have spare solar energy or battery that you would otherwise export. +For example you may turn an immersion heater or the washing machine on to consume the excess solar power.
+The triggers count export energy until the next active charge slot only.
+For each trigger give a name, the minutes of export needed and the energy required in that time.
+Multiple triggers can be set at once so in total you could use too much energy if all run.
+Each trigger specified in apps.yaml will create a Home Assistant entity called 'binary_sensor.predbat_export_trigger_name' which will be turned on when the condition is valid.
+Connect this binary sensor to your automation to start whatever you want to trigger.
Set the name for each trigger, the number of minutes of solar export you need, and the amount of energy in kWh you will need available during that time period in apps.yaml:
+For example:
+export_triggers:
+ - name: "large"
+ minutes: 60
+ energy: 1.0
+ - name: "small"
+ minutes: 15
+ energy: 0.25
+If you wish to trigger based on charging or discharging the battery rather than spare solar energy you can instead use the following binary sensors in Home Assistant:
+-
+
-
+
binary_sensor.predbat_charging - Will be True when the home battery is inside a charge slot (either being charged or being held at a level). +Note that this does include charge freeze slots where the discharge rate is set to zero without charging the battery.
+
+ -
+
binary_sensor.predbat_discharging - Will be True when the home battery is inside a force discharge slot. This does not include +discharge freeze slots where the charge rate is set to zero to export excess solar only.
+
+