Kraken documentation updates

[guyank]

Thanks for the great work on this. I've just moved from IOG to EDF GoElectric and have managed to migrate most things across in Predbat. There are a couple of documentation changes that would make this simpler for others in future:

• I couldn't way to generate an API key for EDF so just used username and password. Make it clear that these are the same as the EDF username and password.
• Kraken also generates a dispatches entity within Predbat that allows Predbat to understand when charge slots are. I used octopus_intelligent_slot: 'binary_sensor.predbat_kraken_a_d081455d_intelligent_dispatch_000000001c3c', but octopus_intelligent_slot: 're:(binary_sensor.octopus_energy([0-9a-z_]+|)_intelligent_dispatching)' also works on testing
• Keep switch.predbat_octopus_intelligent_charging turned on

The only problem I've found at the moment is that Predbat does not update the import rate during the charge slots, remaining at the higher rate.

[Easen]

Hi @guyank - I've had a go at fixing the issue of the rates not being updated during active charge slot (#4267).

The rates are refreshed every 30 minutes by default, so I guess it would be updated eventually. I've updated the logic to go and refresh the rates if it's detected an active charge slots (charge slots are checked very 2 minutes).

I'm afraid I can't verify this fix. Are you able to try it out?

(I feel like I should give some background - I'm not involved with this project, I'm a EDF customer like you. While waiting for my solar to be installed and I've been reviewing what options I have with to regards to automating things and come across Predbat. I saw your issue I figured this is an issue that would impact me when I'm all set up, plus it's excuse to download the code and see how it all hangs together. :) )

[springfall2008]

Before merging #4267, I think it's worth double-checking the root cause, since Predbat already has a mechanism for treating dispatch windows as cheap that doesn't depend on the rate API being fresh.

rate_add_io_slots() in apps/predbat/octopus.py directly overwrites rate_import for any period covered by the wired octopus_intelligent_slot sensor's planned_dispatches/completed_dispatches, forcing it to rate_min_base regardless of what the published tariff rate says for that half-hour. Kraken's _publish_dispatch_sensors() already wires octopus_intelligent_slot into exactly this path, the same way Octopus Intelligent Go does — so the general import rate shown/used for planning should already be discounted during a dispatch, independent of whether the underlying Kraken rate data has been re-fetched.

@guyank a couple of things worth checking on your setup before assuming a rate re-fetch is the fix:

• Was switch.predbat_octopus_intelligent_charging turned on when you observed the stale rate? You mentioned in your report needing to keep it on — if it was off at the time, that alone would explain the symptom, since the discount logic only runs when that switch is enabled.
• With the switch confirmed on, does the Predbat plan/rate chart already show the discount during the dispatch window, even without fix: fetch rates when currently in an active planned intelligent disp… #4267?

If the discount genuinely isn't applying with the switch on, I'd suspect the bug is in how Kraken's dispatch source/location fields map into decode_octopus_slot, rather than rate-API freshness — worth checking that path instead.

[guyank]

switch.predbat_octopus_intelligent_charging was on when I posted this, but at some point later it did correct. However, I’m seeing the same thing tomorrow morning:

I don’t remember this in Octopus so is there a difference in how far ahead it looks?

I also noticed that my predicted costs for today appeared to be much higher than I expected. When I look back at my history, the costs all seem to be out:

[guyank]

And now correct this morning without changing anything: