Is their a definitive tutorial about setting this up, ive tried twice and failed twice, of all the things ive done in HA this seems to be the hardest to pull off succesfully
#Dual Tarrif energy monitoring
deft jungle
ionic moon
Are you just trying to get a cost into the energy dashboard that is one of 2 values?
How does it change? Is it just time of day, or does it have weekends as a factor, national holidays etc
deft jungle
yeah time of day on peak and off peak, currewntly just getting one cost for the whole day
midnight till 7am off peak every day
ionic moon
Make a template sensor helper
{{0.1 if now() < today_at('07:00') else 0.5}}
Obviously change the 0.1/5 for whatever your off peak and normal rates are
deft jungle
being a new user to HA and only followed tutorials and simple instructional posts to get set up im not sure how or what that is, i think this is the problem im having with HA, its not very new user friendly, at times it feels like im learning c++
ionic moon
Settings > Devices and services > helpers tab > add helper > template > template a sensor
There's definitely a learning curve with some stuff in home assistant, "return a value that changes over time" is a somewhat awkward thing to achieve with base functionality, so it's easier to use a template imo
Still significantly easier than c++
deft jungle
yeah obviously not as difficult as learning a programming language haha but for someone like me who is new to the platform and bought a HA green box so im as base a level user can be in terms of knowledge it took me to get to this point in my HA journey its a big jump to start creating templates for sensors for a dual tarrif, something a LOT of people have at least here in the UK with our crazy energy costs. Ill give it a go later as the last tutorial i followed on this also set up templates etc but in the end none of it worked for me, as i say this is the only thing so far that ive been unable to do without resorting to discord for help
ionic moon
Who are you with? I have octopus and use the integration to pull the current cost live rather than having to set it up locally
Pretty sure eon and most others have equivalents
deft jungle
yeah im on eon drive 4v
v4*
i use fox ess integration for my battery and solar entities, all working great, this dual tarrif bit is the last piece of the puzzle for me
trim raptor
you can make a utility meter sensor, and an automation that sets the right tariff
so basically you end up with two sensors which you can add to the energy dashboard
please dont make template sensors for stuff which is already in HA
ionic moon
I never said it was the only way to do it, just the way I'd do it.
Utility meter + automation is workable, just messy. Your information gets scattered in half a dozen places (2 different sub-menu options for the costs, an automation for the trigger times and the utility meter bonus entities) which can make it harder to change things in the future when rates/times change. It's also more finicky, eg if HA misses a trigger to switch the rates (eg HA gets restarted at 6.59 and doesn't come back on till 7.00), you'll have a full day at completely incorrect rates
The only real advantage of that approach is it will give you your energy used within the (off) peak time periods as separate values
trim raptor
The real advantage is you don't need to write yaml
Also its easy to extend, just add more tariffs to your utility meter
ionic moon
And add triggers to the automation, and entities to the dashboard, vs just add an else if to a single template
Also templates are jinja. No yaml necessary
trim raptor
I consider templates to be an advanced user method
OP clearly doesn't want to use it
deft jungle
so is there a consesus on which method to use to set this up and could you point me to a tutorial or page that explains how to set it up? I checked the energy management documentation on the subject and it takes you so far with explaining what it is and shows a few examples of code but I still feel a bit lost as to how i do it. Im fairly computer literate and this one aspect of HA seems to be like a dark art to get working compared to all other aspects of HA ive come across
trim raptor
I could add it to the FAQ
deft jungle
yeah any help would be massively appreciated, like i said this is the final piece of the puzzle for me as i have everything else communicating and set up in my dash, but my energy costs are always off
robust junco
This may help if I understand what is being asked ...
I've setup a multi tariff arrangement for my own solution..
deft jungle
yeah all im missing is the peak and off peak grid consumption, ill give that vid a watch and see if i have any luck, thanks!
trim raptor
I also added it to the FAQ, at the bottom: Energy FAQ
deft jungle
alias: Energy tariff selection
description: ""
triggers:
- at: "07:00:00"
variables:
tariff: on peak
trigger: time - at: "00:00:00"
variables:
tariff: off peak
trigger: time
conditions: []
actions: - target:
entity_id: select.multi_tariff_meter
data:
option: "{{ tariff }}"
action: select.select_option
mode: single
ive edited the yaml code to match the times and names chosen, does tghis get pasted into the configuration.YAML? as the FAQ says "copy into an automation" ??
deft jungle
is this where i add the on and off peak sensors? also where do i select the 2 tariff costs?
trim raptor
ive edited the yaml code to match the times and names chosen, does tghis get pas...
yeah if you create an automation, go to yaml mode (top right 3 dots in automation editor), then copy paste this, then save it will show you the new automation
UI mode is just a different view of yaml mode basically
trim raptor
is this where i add the on and off peak sensors? also where do i select the 2 ta...
if you only have 2 tariffs you can just select static price right? bottom option
deft jungle
if you only have 2 tariffs you can just select static price right? bottom option
only place it lets me enter the newly created on and off peak tarffs is in the drop down shown, they dont show up in the top drop down which means i cant select the use static price to enter the tariff price
deft jungle
it will be because i havent done the automation part correct, i just added it onto my config yaml
trim raptor
not cost sensors
in the consumed energy field you fill in the tariff sensors created by the utility meter
in the static price field you fill in the cost per kwh
deft jungle
ill fix the yaml automation and see if it lets me do it then
right ive removed that code from my configuration.yaml
automation editor?
goto yaml mode?
as a newb im not sure what u mean here, i am here
as that is where i would imagine i should be to create an automation
im here in your instructions, as a new user i dont know what the instruction "copy paste the following YAML code into an automation:" means, as the only dealings ive had with YAML code previously was adding some lines to the configuration.YAML
here?
i have the created sensors showing as expected in the helpers screen but when i search for them in that consumed energy drop down they dont show up
deft jungle
i just watched the video posted by @robust junco and it says the reason i cant select those entities is because they have to be left for 24 hours before they will show up in that drop down, this explains why i cant select them at the moment even though i followed the instructions you laid out, at least we know why now
he mentions it in this section ive linked
deft jungle
ive copied that sensor name using the copy icon, then if i paste that into the consumed energy drop down nothing shows in the search, nothing shows if i search any part of that entity name ie peak
as you can see here, nothing appears under it in found entities with that name
if i try meter like you just shows some random tapo devices i have
the entity is working as expected too as its collecting data from my on peak usage currently
trim raptor
the entity is working as expected too as its collecting data from my on peak usa...
That doesn't have the right unit
You need kWh, not kW
I think you input a power sensor into the utility meter and not an energy sensor
That's why it doesn't show up
deft jungle
that was it, u legend, id selected grid consumption power instead of grid consumption, soon as i sawpped it shows
deft jungle
is there any reason the off peak wont show? its showing kwh and using the same source as the on peak but its not letting me select like the other one did, initially thought it was because it wasnt collecting data yet but the automation switched it over at midnight and the graph shows its started poling data from the grid consumption entity now but still not showing in that drop down when i search for the entity
