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Overview
With dynamic electricity tariffs, electricity prices fluctuate throughout the day. The Time-of-Use Optimization takes advantage of these fluctuations by intelligently shifting energy consumption over time.
To reduce electricity costs, the system can automatically charge the home battery from the grid during low-price periods and later use that stored energy:
to supply household consumption during upcoming high-price periods, or
in supported setups, to discharge energy back to the grid when prices are high.
The optimization is based on forecasted household consumption, solar production, battery constraints, and future electricity prices.
Regional Availability
Grid charging functionality is enabled by default in XENON.
However, regulations, utility restrictions, or hardware limitations in certain countries and installations may prohibit charging the battery from the grid or exporting battery energy back to the grid. In such cases, these features can be disabled through the XENON configuration settings.
User Interface & Logic Transparency
To help users understand why the battery is charging from or discharging to the grid, the XENON UI and API provide transparent optimization insights:
Load Coverage Insight: Indicates that the battery is currently charging from the grid, including the current electricity price and the future high-price period the stored energy is intended to cover. This helps users understand that the system is storing low-cost energy now to reduce electricity costs later.
Arbitrage/Discharge Insight: In configurations where grid export is supported, the UI can indicate that the battery is charging during low-price periods in preparation for a later discharge during a forecasted high-price interval. This behavior is only activated when the expected financial benefit exceeds battery efficiency losses and configured operational constraints.
API Data: For advanced transparency, the API provides additional optimization details, including:
current price at which the Battery is being charged
target charge/discharge windows
minimum profitability thresholds required for economically beneficial arbitrage after accounting for battery efficiency losses.
Example Tariff-Timer decision insight:
