Anybody have direct experience with Amber Electricity?

[Vostok]

I’ve noticed this week Amber being a bit more aggressive in discharging my battery to the grid when export prices are high… but it’s mostly getting it wrong unfortunately.

Three times it has discharged during the evening peak (5-6:30pm) when export prices were 58c/kWh or higher. Sounds great… except the problem is that grid rates in NSW at the moment are elevated (usually more than 60c/kWh) from about 3pm to 8pm. At this time of year, my battery ceases filling by 3pm, so my battery is already depleted below 70% before grid export even starts.

So the result is, after about 30 minutes of peak grid export, my battery is down below 30%, and I am almost certain to run out of battery between 6:30 and 7:30 (especially if we turn the AC on ‘cos it’s cold), and then pay those high grid rates.

So Amber is selling my electricity for 30 minutes at 58c/kWh, but I then have to buy it back at 60 to 70c/kWh for up to 90 minutes. I come out behind! I’d be better off not selling at 58c/kWh.

I don’t know how others have gone with this kind of thing, but for me, I suspect battery discharge to the grid will only be a financial positive for me if the export price is much, much higher, like a few dollars per kWh. I need to stop Amber selling below that.

I’ve had only one day so far where I’ve made money, and that’s when export prices hit $7/kWh for a 30-minute period.

 

[Jules22]

I’ve noticed this week Amber being a bit more aggressive in discharging my battery to the grid when export prices are high… but it’s mostly getting it wrong unfortunately.

Three times it has discharged during the evening peak (5-6:30pm) when export prices were 58c/kWh or higher. Sounds great… except the problem is that grid rates in NSW at the moment are elevated (usually more than 60c/kWh) from about 3pm to 8pm. At this time of year, my battery ceases filling by 3pm, so my battery is already depleted below 70% before grid export even starts.

So the result is, after about 30 minutes of peak grid export, my battery is down below 30%, and I am almost certain to run out of battery between 6:30 and 7:30 (especially if we turn the AC on ‘cos it’s cold), and then pay those high grid rates.

So Amber is selling my electricity for 30 minutes at 58c/kWh, but I then have to buy it back at 60 to 70c/kWh for up to 90 minutes. I come out behind! I’d be better off not selling at 58c/kWh.

I don’t know how others have gone with this kind of thing, but for me, I suspect battery discharge to the grid will only be a financial positive for me if the export price is much, much higher, like a few dollars per kWh. I need to stop Amber selling below that.

I’ve had only one day so far where I’ve made money, and that’s when export prices hit $7/kWh for a 30-minute period.

Sounds like it's still adapting to your usage patterns etc. I'd definitely be overriding it in these situations if you can.

 

[Vostok]

I just made my first intervention… Amber was starting to grid-charge my battery on the basis that grid electricity was “cheap”. But 18c/kWh isn’t that cheap. Also, it’s going to be sunny all day in Sydney today. My house battery will get full by itself soon enough at 0c/kWh - so grid charging at 18c/kWh is stooopid.

Also filling the house battery now is a dumb idea - it would mean I’d be exposed to negative FITs from 11am. My car is at 90% SoC so not much soak left there. And while I’ve enrolled my inverter with Amber to do solar curtailment when FITs are negative, that is not operational yet.

So I hit the “control my battery” button for the first time and went into self-consume mode for the next hour. Grid charging has stopped.

I’ll provide condensed feedback to Amber after I’ve been with them for a few months on where I think their algorithms stuff up. I’m starting to think Amber should allow users to set “guard rails” for certain actions, e.g. a minimum sell price for grid exports.

 

[cafz]

@Vostok forecast prices also look very mild for NSW this evening (at this point!) so you might even want to go grid powered this evening and save that stored energy for tomorrow.

 

[Jules22]

I’ll provide condensed feedback to Amber after I’ve been with them for a few months on where I think their algorithms stuff up. I’m starting to think Amber should allow users to set “guard rails” for certain actions, e.g. a minimum sell price for grid exports.

Yeah I find that the interventions help to let it learn your individual situation.

I was doing them heavily in the early days but rarely need to now.

I also agree I'd love to see the ability to set a never charge below price and only discharge above price.

As part of the EV alpha program I get the opportunity to set up calls with the developers and those are a couple of things I'm going to suggest.