With the advent of dynamic contracts, you want to buy energy when the price is lowest, which makes sense, but how do you do this without having to check energy rates all day?
Blauhoff presents its Smart Energy Hub. This Hub allows users to purchase energy at the lowest possible rate without having to check current rates all day. With the advent of dynamic energy contracts, they vary several times a day.
But how does this work?
Currently, it works as follows:
Your battery is charged and discharged by means of a manually set C-value. This value determines how long it can charge the batteries from the current percentage to the target percentage, in addition, this determines how many amps it can be charged with.
The Smart Energy Hub works a little differently:
The Hub looks at current energy prices and will start recharging the batteries at the cheapest times and/or discharging them at the most expensive times.
To make this happen according to personal preferences, the Hub is provided with a number of parameters, such as: the price must be below ... euro cents and only below this price should the battery be recharged.
This is so you can decide for yourself at what rate you want to purchase. Of course it is not possible to buy at a lower energy rate than the one offered that day.
When communication is lost for any reason, the Hub ensures that up to the charge target will continue to be charged. This is to prevent battery discharge to the minimum of 0%.
The battery pack itself also contains a so-called Battery Management System that continues to monitor maximum charge and discharge amperes.
The (currently) available parameters are:
- Battery capacity in Ah
- Minimum soc value in percent
- Maximum soc value in percent
- Loading capacity in C
- Discharge capacity in C
For automation, we made several objectives, such as:
- Trading (energy cheap charge and expensive discharge) this for maximum efficiency
- Store own generation, self-consume and sell high
- Store own generation, recharge cheaply and consume yourself
Another added benefit: the Blauhoff Smart Energy Hub is made in Home Assistant and can interface with Loxone and many other home automation systems.