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