HyperVolt (error - no power)

[Forty_Two]

I plugged the car in today and the Tesla app said ‘error no power.’ I called HyperVolt and they were able to access the charger and check the settings and in the settings under ‘Your HyperVolt’ beneath ‘Deafult Schedule’ is ‘Random Start’ start which was on green. I turned this off as instructed and plugged it back in and off it went all good. What happened I asked why was that on and he told me that there had been a firmware up-date which had switched that on and it need to be off.

What was not clear / is not clear is . . . what is ‘Random Start’ – what does it do and why was it stopping the power to charge my car?

 

[Dilly]

I guess that’s the new charging rules. Came in in January for new installations to avoid all EV’s starting charging at the same time
doesn't affect mine it‘s too old

 

[Billbrown1982]

As Dilly said. Its basically a way of delaying the start of charging by anything from a minute to 30 minutes (I'm not sure exactly what the threshold is but a google should find it for you)

The idea being that everyone doesn't plug their cars in at the same time at night (when electricity commonly switches to a lower rate) and overloading the grid.

 

[Sean.]

The idea being that everyone doesn't plug their cars in at the same time at night (when electricity commonly switches to a lower rate) and overloading the grid.

Thought it was 20M+ kettles simultaneously switched on to boil for a cuppa kicking off during the break in a big broadcast were the “straw and camels back” scenario.

 

[browellm]

It less about pure overload and more about not wanting to dip into dirty, expensive backup to satisfy short term demand peaks.

For the same principle, see also the recent DFS events which were about not wanting to bring standby coal online.

 

[Sean.]

It less about pure overload and more about not wanting to dip into dirty, expensive backup to satisfy short term demand peaks.

For the same principle, see also the recent DFS events which were about not wanting to bring standby coal online.

How’s a random 30 minute timer going to solve that issue?

Coal is a base load generator. They take a relatively long time to spin up. Gas on the other hand, pretty quick.

 

[browellm]

How’s a random 30 minute timer going to solve that issue?

It's smooths peaks

Coal is a base load generator. They take a relatively long time to spin up.

I mentioned coal in specific reference to the DFS event. There's a hierarchy, obviously. Regardless of what that hierarchy is, the grid is trying to avoid peaks.

In fact, I could not have been clearer.

see also the recent DFS events which were about not wanting to bring standby coal online

 

[Adopado]

The delay is randomised between 0 and 10 minutes (not 30 minutes) and with my Zappi it's normally at the shorter end of that scale. It's not to do with saving starting up coal generation. The problem is that modern electronic timers are very accurate ... everyone on Octopus Go (for example) would be starting their charge at EXACTLY 12.30am ... that's thousands of EV charge points switching in together as if it was one huge device pulling goodness knows how many megawatts instantly. The grid needs to handle that sudden change. To date it is being managed but as more and more vehicles and charge points are connected there is a point at which that sudden demand would not be feasible to balance fast enough. The famous Coronation Street kettle demand would pale in comparision. Even just spreading the increase over a couple of minutes gives time for the generation rate to be lifted to match the demand. It doesn't necessarily require new power stations to start up from scratch it just needs the ones that are running to be able to spin up.

EDIT: This presently makes the car report a "no power" issue when you plug in (at least for me with my Zappi). You can just ignore it once you realise what's going on. The car will try to charge at it's chosen time and if there is a delay it will wait and connect normally when power is available.

 

[browellm]

It's not to do with saving starting up coal generation

That's good because nobody suggested it was.

 

[Trogster]

My Hypervolt did this today so thanks for the steer to look in the settings for random start , several app restarts and logins later all fixed!

 

[Lockey]

How’s a random 30 minute timer going to solve that issue?

Coal is a base load generator. They take a relatively long time to spin up. Gas on the other hand, pretty quick.

The large gas fired power stations aren't that much quicker to start up than coal unless we're talking about from stone cold (I used to be an ops tech at one), from a grid perspective I can see how spreading the load gain over 30 mins will help

 

[Mr K O’Watt]

Really glad to find this thread today (not sure why I missed the earlier posts from Friday).

Haven’t had reason to charge my car since last Sunday, when Hypervolt were experiencing problems with their app, which gave rise to a similar “no power” message on the Tesla app. When it happened again today, I thought at first it was the Hypervolt app playing up again till I spotted the “Waiting” message and “your charge will start in x minutes”.

Had no idea about the Hypervolt firmware update or the wider introduction of these other delaying options for grid balancing purposes, so many thanks for the explanations.

 

[M1tch]

It's smooths peaks

It does if we all finish work at 5. All get home at exactly half past 5 and plug our cars in at 5.31. As that doesn’t happen it’s just the government controlling another element of your existence.