At Moixa, we want to help our customers power their homes from greener and cheaper energy. The best way to achieve that is by optimising battery behaviour based on time-of-use tariffs, which is done by Moixa’s GridShare software that runs on the 4.8kWh, 7.2kWh and 9.6kWh Moixa optimised batteries.

A time-of-use tariff is an electricity tariff where energy suppliers offer different prices at different times of the day. The price differences usually correspond to when there is more or less demand for electricity often referred to as peak (when lots of people are using electricity) or off-peak periods (when fewer people require electricity such as overnight).

The most dynamic import tariffs, like Agile Octopus from Octopus Energy, track the wholesale price of electricity throughout the day to adjust their electricity price for you. When the wholesale price is low, so is the price for your electricity. So, if you can move your usage outside of the peak hours of 4pm – 7pm, you can save a lot on your electricity bills. Moixa’s automated charging plan enables you to store energy from the grid when the wholesale prices are low and use it at the peak times maximising your savings.  

How does it work?

GridShare software relies on three key sources of information to generate an automated charging plan, aimed at powering the home from the cleanest and lowest-cost energy available.

1. Household Electricity Usage
   The software looks at your recent household electricity consumption to try and predict your future electricity consumption.
2. Solar PV Generation
   Your location, local weather forecast and previous solar generation are used to predict how much electricity your solar will generate.
3. Your Time-of-Use Tariff
   The software looks at your import tariff (and any applicable export tariff) to understand the cheapest and most expensive times of day for you to purchase or sell energy from/to the grid. 

Our latest software release of automated planning also includes Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) tariffs alongside any import tariff.

Then, based on this data, an automated charging plan is created to cover your predicted household consumption with as much self-generated solar or lower-price grid energy, as possible.

As the accuracy of an automated charging plan is based on the predictability of your consumption, we’ll need to check your household behaviours before we move you over. We can do this by simulating how your battery would behave on the new plan. The less predictable your household consumption is, the less accurate your personalised charging plan will be.

It is important to note that automated charging plans are generated based on predicted household electricity consumption and solar generation. This means that when there are unexpected differences between predictions and reality, you may see less benefit on a given day. However, the battery will always look to cover your household with the lowest-cost and cleanest energy available. In the long run, an automated charging plan should save you money when compared to a static charging plan. 

For households where consumption is very unpredictable, a specific static charging plan to charge the battery from lower-cost grid energy overnight may bring the best benefit and we would be happy to set that for you.

If you are a 4.8kWh, 7.2kWh or 9.6kWh Moixa optimised battery owner and you would like to make the most of your time-of-use tariff, please contact our Support Team on support@moixa.com for more information.

What is a time-of-use tariff?

As you know, a time-of-use tariff is an electricity tariff where energy suppliers offer different prices at different times of the day, depending on the demand for electricity.

Traditionally, time-of-use tariffs were day-night, static tariffs such as Economy 7. There are also newer tariffs available which have been facilitated by the introduction of smart meters and these can have different prices throughout the day. 

The different tariff types available tend to fall into three categories:

Flat Rate Tariff: This is a tariff which remains the same price per unit of energy throughout the day and is the same every day.

Static Time-of-Use Tariff: This is a tariff with different price periods during the day, but these different price periods are the same every day.

Dynamic Time-of-Use Tariff: This is a tariff which has different price periods throughout the day and these periods change every day. One example of a tariff like this is the Agile Octopus tariff by Octopus Energy.

What is The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG)?

SEG has now been in effect for over a year, since it came into law in January 2020. It’s the mechanism to ensure solar panel owners are paid for the spare electricity they send to the grid. This came as a policy replacement for the Feed-in Tariff which was closed to new applicants in March 2019.

Under the SEG, all energy suppliers with over 150,000 customers must offer an export tariff with a rate greater than zero. The SEG is available for small-scale renewable energy generators for the electricity they export to the grid, provided they have a second generation smart meter.

Smart meters are needed since SEG payments are based on the measured amount of electricity exported to the grid while FIT payments were ‘deemed’ or estimated to be 50% of the total electricity generated. The payment rates for the FIT were set by Ofgem and the government and were the same regardless of which supplier paid you. SEG tariff rates are set by the companies which offer them. 

For our automated charging plans, we are only able to support SEG tariffs that allow battery storage as a source of export.

A few examples of SEG tariffs are:

• Outgoing Fixed Octopus 
• Outgoing Agile Octopus
• Non-FiT export tariff

​​​​​We cannot optimise for the export from a Feed-in Tariff, unless you also have a SEG tariff and have opted out of your deemed export payments and are only receiving solar generation payments.

What changes would I expect to see in the Moixa Dashboard or app?

• If you are on a time-of-use tariff, with cheaper energy overnight, you can expect to see a variable amount of battery charging from the grid overnight.
• If we’re optimising for your SEG export tariff you will see the battery exporting to the grid when your export price is high.
• You could also see that the battery may discharge through a low-rate period if it predicts there is sufficient charge available to cover your consumption for this period.
• On days with less solar generation, customers on tariffs with a high evening peak rate may notice charging during the day at cheaper rates, to help cover their peak consumption.

I have an electric car, can I use the personalised charging plan?

As we rely on your previous household behaviour to predict future consumption, any unexpected spike in that consumption (like plugging in your car at varying times each week) will create inaccuracies in the plan. However, if you have an electric vehicle that you charge in a regular pattern each week, then the personalised charging plan could work for you.

We’re currently running a trial on the optimisation of multiple devices for time-of-use tariffs including EV chargers. You can read more about our smart EV charging work here.

What else should I know about automated charging plans and time-of-use tariff optimisation?

• The battery will only charge from the grid as much as it predicts it will need to cover your future household consumption. 
• If you place high power appliances on a timer overnight, it is best to do that as part of a regular routine, so that the battery knows when your next high-load event will be. Random times of high-consumption will make it very difficult for the battery to make accurate predictions and you will see less benefit.
• The automated charging plan will not work effectively for customers whose systems are not connected and do not have data available for over 90% of the times of operation.
• The automated charging plan will not be immediately available for customers who have devices participating in active flexibility contract areas, although they can still have a static charging plan for their time-of-use tariffs.

If you are a current battery owner and you would like to update your tariff information, reach out to our team on support@moixa.com.

Not currently a battery owner but interested in purchasing a solar battery for cleaner and lower-cost energy? Contact our friendly team of Solar Storage Specialists on enquiries@moixa.com or enter your details on our enquiry form here.