EcoFlex: Understanding SmartShift battery automation
EcoFlex SmartShift automation shifts your home's energy usage to the cheapest, greenest times. The algorithm learns your energy usage and tracks wholesale energy pricing, optimising your battery behaviour to import energy to charge your batteries when prices are low, and export energy when demand is peaking and prices are high.
How does SmartShift make the most of wholesale energy market prices?
Wholesale energy prices can range from extremely low (even below zero at times) to very high. This fluctuation can be highly profitable for battery owners who have access to wholesale market prices, but it can also be complicated.
The best way to increase your income is to allow SmartShift automation to handle everything. It continually scans for the best times to both sell energy to the grid and charge from the grid, so you get the most from your battery.
High price periods typically occur when demand is peaking and renewables are not, so your exported renewable energy is worth even more in the market. We pass on the full value to you.
SmartShift will then charge your battery from the grid when prices are at their lowest. This may even include buying from the grid at times when the wholesale price of energy is negative. At these times, you would be paid to use or store energy from the grid.
How does SmartShift battery automation work?
EcoFlex boosts the value you get from your battery by continually searching for the best prices for charging from and exporting to the grid, using our SmartShift battery optimisation technology.
SmartShift creates a 24-hour, regularly updated, personalised plan for your battery using three forecasted key factors:
Your energy usage
Your solar generation
Market wholesale prices.
The system then automatically sends commands to figure out what control actions should be sent to your battery. If the price is low and forecast to be high later, then SmartShift might charge your battery so you can either consume that cheap energy yourself, or sell it back to the grid, when prices are higher.
SmartShift updates your plan constantly because future electricity prices aren’t guaranteed and can change within minutes. The system continually reassesses your solar production, household usage and market prices to make the best possible decision at each moment.
What’s the difference between the two SmartShift automation modes?
You can choose between two automation modes in the EcoFlex app: Earnings Optimiser and Battery Booster.
Earnings Optimiser
In Earnings Optimiser mode, SmartShift tracks changes in wholesale energy prices to find opportunities to buy cheap green grid energy and sell it back to the grid at peak times when it's needed most.
In this mode, SmartShift continuously hunts for opportunities to make the most of price fluctuations. It also uses lower intervention thresholds compared to the Battery Booster mode.
Charging: The price threshold at which your battery will charge from the grid is higher than in Battery Booster mode.
Exporting: The Smart Export Guarantee price at which your battery will discharge to the grid is lower than in Battery Booster.
This means interaction with the grid could happen more times throughout the day.
Earnings Optimiser mode assumes that the battery has a larger discharge budget (up to 2.0 cycles per day) to give it more flexibility in pursuing savings opportunities during more volatile pricing periods.
Note: Discharging your battery more than twice per day may affect your battery's warranty. If you have any concerns about choosing Earnings Optimiser mode, please check with your battery manufacturer’s customer support team.
Battery Booster
In Battery Booster mode, SmartShift prioritises maintaining your stored battery power by limiting battery cycles to 1.3 per day. It will only export when there’s a significant premium to be made.
Charging: Your battery looks for pricing opportunities to charge your battery from the grid, so you’ll have cheap, green energy stored when you need it.
Exporting: Forecasted Smart Export Guarantees must be higher than they are in Earnings Optimiser for your battery to feed into the grid.
You can set your preferred mode in the SmartShift battery automation settings page at any time.
