Automatic Battery Charging with Solcast Solar Forecast and Home Assistant - Part 1

Part 1 of a video guide series on how to set up your Solar PV with Battery Storage System to automatically charge from the grid overnight using Solcast Solar Forecasting. This video focuses on the reasons, tariffs and theory behind automatic charging and gives an introduction to Solcast and a functioning Home Assistant dashboard.

Links described in the video are here:

£50 incentive to sign up to Octopus Energy:
https://share.octopus.energy/stone-ly...

Home Assistant:
https://www.home-assistant.io/

Solcast Solar Forecasting Toolkit:
https://toolkit.solcast.com.au/

MODBUS Interface Build Instructions:
https://github.com/Jumpy07/Solis---So...

12v 1A Power Supply:
https://amzn.to/3nLUjLa

Project Box/Junction Box (110x180x100 minimum):
https://amzn.to/41dtWeE

Cable Glands:
https://amzn.to/3B5Ptv8

Soldering Kit - Iron, Solder, Multimeter etc:
https://amzn.to/3VNvrPF

Exceedconn EC04681-2023-BF for Solis/Ginlong Inverter RS-485 port:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1956689899...

Isolated RS-485 Hub (Must be the two masters one slave version):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10050...

Elfin-EW11 Whole Kit or 4-pin input version:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32916...

Odroid XU4Q:
https://www.odroid.co.uk/index.php?ro...

Odroid N2+ 4GB:
https://www.odroid.co.uk/index.php?ro...

Case for Odroid N2+ (KKSB cases are the best)
https://amzn.to/3pqBVYs

Raspberry Pi4 Model B:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/...

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:11 - Our System
09:22 - Shading
11:51 - Octopus Tariffs
17:42 - Old Charge Procedure - Manual & App
20:19 - Solcast
22:55 - Home Assistant
24:44 - Decision Logic
27:52 - Calculation Timeline
36:45 - Configuration & Devices
42:22 - Outro