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Charging your Fox ESS battery on a cheap overnight tariff
Use the Mode Scheduler in FoxCloud to charge your battery from the grid during cheap off-peak hours.
If you're on a tariff with cheaper electricity overnight, you can set your Fox ESS battery to fill up from the grid during those hours. You then use that cheap energy during the day instead of paying peak rates.
Work modes in brief
Your system runs in a work mode. The main ones you'll see in the FoxCloud app are:
| Work mode | What it does |
|---|---|
| Self-use | Uses solar and battery to power the home first, keeping grid use low. Most homes use this day to day. |
| Feed-in Priority | Favours sending solar to the grid. |
| Back Up | Keeps the battery charged up to a backup level. |
| Forced Charge | Charges the battery using solar and the grid. |
| Forced Discharge | Empties the battery to the home or grid. |
Setting up an overnight charge
Fox ESS uses a feature called the Mode Scheduler. It lets you choose a start time, an end time and the work mode to use in that window.
- Open the FoxCloud app and go to your plant.
- Open Work Mode, then the Mode Scheduler.
- Add a schedule that matches your cheap rate hours, for example the start and end of your off-peak window, and set it to Forced Charge.
- Make sure the rest of the day is set to Self-use.
- Save and turn the schedule on.
Good to know
- While the Mode Scheduler is turned on, you can't change battery settings in Quick Settings.
- Don't make schedules overlap.
- The battery won't charge past the maximum level set for your system.
- It stops discharging at its minimum level (Min SoC). See Why does my battery stop at 10%?.
If you'd rather not set this up yourself, or the options don't appear in your app, we're happy to help. For Duracell Energy and Tesla Powerwall, see Battery Optimisation Guide: Charging on Off-Peak Tariffs.