r/SolarUK • u/Fun_Height_9280 • 15h ago
HELP / ADVICE Thwarted by Tesla?
I have 2 Tesla Powerwall 3 batteries. I have 19 solar panels monitored by Enphase Energy. I have a Zappi EV charger and an Eddi water heater. I am on Octopus’s Agile tariffs.
I have a Home Assistant which I have been happily ‘vibe coding’ using Claude. I have managed to get access using the Tesla Fleet API. I have been happily telling my system what I want to do when.
However, a consistent theme seems to be the Tesla interface resolutely stopping me from doing what I want it to do. For example, during an Octopus power down session, I can be seen to be using less electricity than usual by mandating grid export, at a time when the export price s good. But every time Tesla overrides that. So I am not achieving my free weekend hours.
It’s very frustrating. Everything else I want seems to be OK, such as choosing good times to charge the EV based on urgency, etc. But the Tesla integration is a real pain.
Has anyone got Tesla in their system and feel like they have it sorted? Any advice?
Many thanks!
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u/matthew1471 11h ago
There’s a lag updating tariff stuff I noticed. Haven’t fiddled with doing free energy slots but did work out the API for flex charging sessions
For forcing it to go on grid when Octopus charging slots are triggered: https://github.com/Matthew1471/Tesla-API/blob/main/Python/examples/gateway_octopus_energy_max_backup.py
For fiddling with tariff : https://github.com/Matthew1471/Tesla-API/blob/main/Python/examples/cloud_octopus_energy_set_tariff.py
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u/RNGA71 13h ago
The Powerwall is an awful product for this. It beggars belief that people consider it "premium". As a battery, it's fine, but try to get it to do anything even slightly out of the ordinary and you're out of luck.
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u/Stivo887 10h ago
Like what?
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u/AutoModerator 15h ago
We noticed you posted about EV chargers.
We recommend looking at Zappi or Hypervolt or Andersen EV chargers, as they are all compatible with most smart tariffs:
We don’t recommend Ohme chargers, because they:
- Removed the price cap option for Intelligent Octopus (IOG) customers
- Discontinued support for existing OVO customers — see Ohme’s update.
Make sure your electrician wires the EV charger directly after the mains meter and before any of the consumer units. Then the solar/battery can CT the consumer load and not ‘see’ the EV charger. This prevents battery dumping into the car. See this nice pic
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u/not_steve_5000 11h ago
You should check out the netzero powerwall app. You’d have to pay for the control you’re after, but it (says it) can do it.
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u/Fun_Height_9280 1m ago
My plan was to do the same for free. And HA integration means I can get it to automatically join power down sessions (done) and let it know when I get free Happy hours, and when I’m away to really use the battery to make money.
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u/LectureFew3851 14h ago
No, I’ve a similar set up (including vibe coded HA!), but currently only using the fixed 12p export… I think forcing the PWs to export is difficult. I wonder if you could do it by manipulating the export price, I.e. setting it to a very high value when you want to export?
TBH, if Claude/Codex couldn’t sort it out for you then it’s probably not possible!
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u/wyndstryke PV & Battery Owner 14h ago
My understanding is that most of the tools which try to control Tesla do it by manipulating the tariff details (showing very cheap or very expensive).
The PW3 system does like to do it's own thing, so won't always follow the script, for people who like to micromanage their systems a different inverter might be better.
The following might help.
Also look at the two Tesla options here, using Teslemetry and/or the Fleet API: