Really struggling to get car charging to work (GivEnergy EVC)

[DJBenson]

I've just added a GivEnergy EVC to my setup and I'm really struggling to get the car charging to work reliably (if at all).

In the UI I have the following set;

• Car Charging Hold (On)
• Car charging manual SOC (On)
• Car Charging Plan Smart (On)
• Car Charging Plan max price (20p)
• Car charging planned ready time (08:00:00)

In apps.yaml I have the following;

• num_cars (1)
• car_charging_energy (sensor.givenergy_ev_energy) | Current value: 79.81 (this value is retrieved from the GivEnergy API using a restful sensor)
• car_charging_planned (binary_sensor.givenergy_ev_charger_connected) | Current value: true (this value is retrieved from the GivEnergy API using a restful sensor)
• car_charging_planned_response contains all possible options for a boolean response
• car_charging_now (sensor.givenergy_ev_status) | Current value: Preparing (this value is retrieved from the GivEnergy API using a restful sensor)
• car_charging_now_response - contains "charging" which is the coorect status from the EVC
• car_charging_battery_size - 78
• car_charging_limit (number.eevee_ac_charging_limit) | Current value: 100 (this value is set by an input number provided by the Kia integration)
• car_charging_soc (sensor.eevee_ev_battery_level) | Current value: 64 (this value is a sensor provided by the Kia integration)

The plan just seems to never include the car.

For the avoidance of doubt - all input values are from sensors which are available (i.e. they've not gone "unavailable" and thus returning invalid values).

Below is an example of the CAR0 lines from the log;

2024-06-23 20:30:32.756689: CAR0: [ 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21, 128.21]

...and the only other mention of car in the logs...

2024-06-23 20:30:01.539183: Cars 1 charging from battery False planned [False], charging_now [False] smart [True], max_price [20.0], plan_time ['08:00:00'], battery size [78.0], limit [78.0], rate [7.4]
As you can (hopefully) see, there is no car charging planned. As the SOC is (64) is less than the maximum (100) and the unit rate (20) is less than many of the rates before 8am, I would expect to see charging planned.

[gcoan]

Can you share your apps.yaml and logfile please. I agree, it looks weird, should be planning charging.

You mentioned the sensor settings you have set in apps.yaml, there are some HA configuration items that have to be set, things like the time the car charging is needed by

Can you check these are all set correctly https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/car-charge-planning/

[DJBenson]

The settings in Home Assistant are already listed above.

I'll add the requested files later.

Thanks for the response.

[gcoan]

The settings in Home Assistant are already listed above.

Oh yes you did, sorry. They all look fine. Car charging should be planned

[DJBenson]

"Should" being the operative word. I just can't see why it's not. No errors, just not wanting to schedule any slots.

[DJBenson]

@springfall2008 do you have any (further) thoughts on this?

I've stripped the car config back to the barebones, removing any optional config and it still doesn't plan so I'm lost.

[DJBenson]

[gcoan]

Looks like it charged for 15 minutes then 10 minutes. Is that what you were expecting?

[DJBenson]

I had “plug and go” turned on so my charger kept forcing itself to charge whilst Predbat was trying to stop it 🤣

Turned it off and it’s now scheduled to charge in the early hours which correlates with the cheapest rates.

[gcoan]

Party, party !

[DJBenson]

Just a follow up - I found another issue with my setup (which may affect other GivEVC users using the RESTful integration) - the sensor for accumulated energy has a low refresh time as it's not considered important enough to refresh more often. On restarting of HA (or refreshing of the RESTful integration) the sensor goes "unknown" which Predbat does not like.

There's two fixes for this - increase the refresh time so the value is polled more often or create a template sensor which is only updated on a valid value - I did the latter.

- trigger:
    - platform: state
      entity_id: sensor.givenergy_ev_energy
      not_to: 
        - unknown
        - unavailable
   
  sensor:
  - name: "GivEnergy EV Energy Template"
    unique_id: 5f785f50-1fbf-4d5d-87b3-d3970a8a53d1
    state: '{{ trigger.to_state.state }}'
    device_class: "energy"
    state_class: "total_increasing"
    unit_of_measurement: "kWh"

The template sensor (which I've now plugged into Predbat) is always available and only gets updated when the parent sensor provides a valid value. When the parent goes unknown, the template simply retains its previous value.

[gcoan]

I've been working tonight on rewriting and simplifying the car charging documentation for Predbat, moving information out of the Customisation document into Car Charging

You can see the draft of that revised document here https://github.com/gcoan/batpred/blob/main/docs/car-charging.md

[gcoan]

Would it be possible to provide a simple list of what config variables are mandatory, optional, whether they hold a % or kWh value, and a brief description of what they are used for?

I think all the information you are looking for is already in the Predbat documentation https://springfall2008.github.io/batpred/car-charging/

Plenty of other people have got car charging working correctly, so it's probably something simple wrong with your setup.

Can you describe in more detail your setup, assume it is Predbat-led charging not IOG? Share the appropriate bits of your apps.yaml and the predbat configuration for car charging.

Are you able to manually start and stop the car charging from home assistant, e.g. by running the start and stop commands in your car charging automation? This is the first key step, if you can't do this then the problem lies outside Predbat.

[isteel]

I appreciate others have it working and it's purely down to my configuration. The issue is I can't determine what the variables are used for.
For example the documentation example, with regard to the MG, says to create 'car_manual_soc' but I can't see any reference to where it should be used. Or does it have to be named exactly as stated and in which case predbat will use it automatically? I searched through the predbat code for 'car_manual_soc' and it only appears in the documentation.

Yes I've got the integration from HA to charger working. Previously I was using a handrolled solution which chosen the cheapest Agile slots and started and stopped the Zappi charger.
The issue is that I can't understand how to configure predbat with regard to soc settings. This is resulting in Predbat either creating insufficient charging slots or way too many.

I'm going to delete all the car charging settings and start from scratch, again, to see if that fixes it.

[isteel]

An update:

I followed the instructions (after deleting and resetting the car charging in apps.yaml) in your documentation here
https://github.com/gcoan/batpred/blob/main/docs/car-charging.md
and it appears to be working much more accurately. 😊

Thanks for providing this - much relief!

[gcoan]

No problem. I did do a pretty big rewrite of the car charging documentation so hopefully it is much clearer and the sensors are explained as to what they do.

That fork of the documentation has been merged into the main Predbat codebase as well.

I did a quick read through and the stuff about car_manual_soc looks OK. I did see that I've been a bit inconsistent in some of the switch settings, sometimes saying to turn On or Off, sometimes saying True or False, but whilst the language is inconsistent I think the intent is still clear 😃

[gcoan]

I did see that I've been a bit inconsistent in some of the switch settings, sometimes saying to turn On or Off, sometimes saying True or False, but whilst the language is inconsistent I think the intent is still clear 😃

Just to close this off, have updated the car charging and customisation documentation to use On/Off terminology consistently throughout as that is what the HA switches are set to

[springfall2008]

Car charging manual SOC (On)

This means you have to reset the car SOC yourself to the current car battery level before each charge, using the number sensor Predbat creates. Did you forget to do that? If you have a car_charging_soc sensor already then turn this option off.

[isteel]

I'd got a mixture of soc kWh and soc % entities from trying to get it work that it was easier to just delete everything and start again. All sorted now and worked well over night.
Thanks.

[springfall2008]

Great :)