Add 'a virtual battery on the electrical grid' as a simulated battery type with adjustment of the simulated battery charge.

[yoyodsl]

Hello,

First of all, thank you for this great simulator.

Could you please add 'a virtual battery on the electrical grid' as a simulated battery type?

Indeed, in France, we have several electricity suppliers that allow the virtual storage of photovoltaic electricity.
This energy can then be reused later with a very low return transportation cost.

The problem is that we can only know the state of charge of this virtual battery once a month, only on the bill.
Integrating it as a simulated battery would allow us to monitor its capacity on a daily basis.

These virtual batteries on the grid have the following characteristics:

• Unlimited storage capacity.
• Charge and discharge rates equivalent to exporting to the grid and importing from the grid.
• Efficiency: 100%

Above all, it would be necessary to be able to modify the capacity of the simulated battery to adjust/correct its charge with the same value as the virtual battery. Could you add a entity that allows you to enter a numeric value for this?

e.g.: battery precharge value in kWh

For example: my invoice shows on April 14 that my virtual battery's charge is 451kWh. I need to be able to adjust the simulated battery's charge to 451kWh.

For your information, there is a huge demand for this feature on the French Home Assistant forums :)

Thank you sincerely in advance.

[bvweerd]

If you make a 'custom battery' with a high capacity (~unlimited) and set the settings as per instructions on import and export meters and the efficiency of the battery on 1, then you would only need a service to set the battery charge level to have the complete implementation of what you're asking, right?

[yoyodsl]

Hi bvweerd,

Thank you for your interest in my request. Yes, that's exactly it ;)

The custom energy battery with the correct settings isn't really a problem. I was thinking it might be a default battery type offered during configuration.

Indeed, the biggest problem is not being able to apply a default charge value or charge percentage to the simulated battery.

I thought I could correct the "battery use" entity directly in the statistics tab of the development options, but that's not possible...

My request is similar to another request that stated that it would be necessary to apply a charge value or charge percentage even for a simulated physical battery to avoid "slightly" distorting the statistics. Indeed, physical batteries are all sold charged between 50% and 80% : #146

Do you have a workaround for this issue? Except to wait until my virtual battery at my energy supplier is completely empty :)

[bvweerd]

Sounds reasonable 👍

#146 is a PR #148 for. For setting the state of the battery, I have made a proposal with a service to set the value. You can test this by adding https://github.com/bvweerd/battery_sim.git as a repo to HACS, and v0.2-beta. If this is what you need I can create a PR for the official repo.

For adding a 'standard', we would just have to have the following description and data like below:

"HomeWizard Energy Plug-in Battery 2.7kWh": {
    CONF_BATTERY_SIZE: 2.473,
    CONF_BATTERY_EFFICIENCY: 0.95,
    CONF_BATTERY_MAX_CHARGE_RATE: 0.8,
    CONF_BATTERY_MAX_DISCHARGE_RATE: 0.8,
},

[yoyodsl]

Thank you sincerely for your feedback, your help and your proposal !

I installed your 0.2 beta fork, but unfortunately, I don't see where I can modify the battery value. I'm seeing two more entities (22 in total): the charge and discharge limits are modifiable, but not the battery charge value... I may have missed something...

For "standard" batterie, It should be something like this :

"Virtual Battery On Electrical Grid ": {
CONF_BATTERY_SIZE: 100000, ===>Or Infinite if possible.
CONF_BATTERY_EFFICIENCY: 1, ===> There is no energy loss on the electrical grid (based on the home's electricity meter readings).
CONF_BATTERY_MAX_CHARGE_RATE: 1, ====> The virtual battery can be charged from 0 to 100% (infinite) at fullspeed.
CONF_BATTERY_MAX_DISCHARGE_RATE: 1, ====> The virtual battery can be decharged from 100% (infinite) to 0 at fullspeed.
},

[bvweerd]

It's an action: developer tools -> actions -> set_battery_charge_state.

[yoyodsl]

Thank you for your quick response and help.

Perfect It works! ;) Thank you so much!

I'll test it and get back to you.

Have a good day!

[yoyodsl]

Quick feedback:

The discharge works, as do the charge and discharge values ​​and rates.
I haven't really been able to test the charge because I also have a physical battery and it's raining (so there's no energy being exported). But I imagine it should work perfectly ;).
The battery reset also works.

The only problem is the battery_use_now entity, which detects that the battery is still empty, even though we've set a positive charge value...

[bvweerd]

With battery_use_now you probably mean Battery_mode_now? Note that it will only change when there is updates in your source sensors and the battery charge is above 2%

[yoyodsl]

Yes, sorry, "use" is the name of my simulated battery :) I meant "Battery_mode_now". ;)
Thanks for the additional information on how this entity works.

The simulated battery works perfectly. You can therefore confirm the proper functioning of the "service call to set battery charge state" and therefore indicate to hif2k1 that he can integrate this (your) function in the next update of the official version.

Quick question : Is there a method to add and configure this service from the dashboard ? (directly or by creating one or more entries/entities...) ?

Sorry if my question seems stupid, but I've only been using Home Assistant for a very short time :)

Thank you in advance for your help.

[bvweerd]

You can use the action by creating a script, and you can create a button in your dashboard to activate the script. You can even create an extra input_number helper to first set the new value in the dashboard and than use the script to load it. Enough to tinker around for a new user!

[yoyodsl]

Thanks for your help.

Okay for the button.
Okay for input_number.

I was hoping for a simpler solution than the script :)
But you're right, this will give me an opportunity to experiment with Home Assistant scripts ;)
I was using Domoticz and then Jeedom before :)

Last request, and I won't bother you anymore :)
Could you please keep me informed when the "set_battery_charge_state" function is integrated into the official version? Because I'm going to keep your version for now ;).

Thank you again for your help!!!

[hif2k1]

Thank you both @bvweerd and @yoyodsl for your work on this. Its great to have your input.

[yoyodsl]

I'd like to thank you both.

@bvweerd for implementing this very useful feature so quickly.
@hif2k1for also adding it so quickly to the official version.

For me, this integration is no longer just a simulated battery, but a great way to monitor my virtual battery from my energy supplier;)

Once again, thank you both for your work.