Install it, forget it, and slash your energy bills. ChargeIQ continuously optimizes your battery against live electricity prices, solar forecasts, and your household patterns.
This is Jan's personal fork of johanzander/bess-manager, tuned for an AC-coupled setup in the Netherlands:
- Battery inverter: Growatt MID 15KTL3-XH (3-phase, ~30 kWh battery)
- PV: separate SolarEdge inverter — no DC solar on the Growatt, so battery only charges via the AC side
- Market: Nord Pool NL (EUR/kWh) via Tibber, salderingsregeling
Each fork release is tagged
10.x-jvdd.Nand published toghcr.io/jdungen/bess-manager-{arch}.
Both additions are opt-in switches, default OFF — with them off the build behaves exactly like upstream.
| Feature | Why | Upstream status |
|---|---|---|
external_solar_mode battery setting |
On AC-coupled installs the Growatt has no DC solar input — without this, SOLAR_STORAGE periods do nothing. The flag flips grid_charge=True and the battery mode → battery_first, and makes SOLAR_STORAGE produce a real TOU/charge period, so the inverter actively pulls from the AC side during the planned solar window. |
PR #167 — open |
sell_price_equals_buy_price price setting |
Under net metering (Dutch saldering, in force through 2026) every exported kWh offsets an imported one on the bill, so its value is the full buy price — not spot + export compensation. Without this the optimizer undervalues exports and skews charge/discharge decisions. |
not upstream |
These patches were carried by earlier 9.6.x-jvdd.N builds and have since landed upstream — the fork no longer duplicates them:
- Growatt VPP control — now a first-class upstream feature via Settings → Inverter → Control Mode = VPP (#118). The old fork-local
vpp_modebattery toggle is gone; use upstream's Control Mode instead. - SolaxModbus TOU begin/end writes via the
time.*entities (#362, #181). - AI Analyst model IDs and Nord Pool continental area hints (merged back in 9.6.3).
- Battery → PV coupling → External solar mode — enable on AC-coupled installs (separate PV inverter, no DC solar on the battery inverter).
- Pricing → Price Calculation → Sell price equals buy price — enable while net metering applies. Export Compensation and Export Spot Multiplier are hidden and ignored while it is on.
Add the fork repository to Home Assistant:
https://github.com/jdungen/bess-manager
In the add-on store, install BESS Manager (it'll show the 10.x-jvdd.N version). The image is pulled from ghcr.io/jdungen/bess-manager-{arch} — make sure that package is public on GHCR.
This fork rebases periodically on upstream main. Tags are stable. To check what's in the current fork build vs upstream, see CHANGELOG.md — the jvdd releases at the top spell out exactly which patches the fork carries on top of which upstream version.
No YAML files. No manual entering of entity IDs. The setup wizard auto-discovers your inverter, price source, and solar forecast from Home Assistant — just confirm and go.
ChargeIQ tracks every kWh and every cent. Compare three scenarios side by side — what you'd pay with grid only, with solar only, and with solar + optimized battery — so you can see exactly how much value the battery adds.
See how accurate the forecasts are — solar, consumption, and savings — with predicted-vs-actual comparisons so you know it's working, not guessing.
Something look off? The built-in AI Analyst explains every decision in plain language. Ask "why did the battery charge at 3am?" or "why are today's savings lower than yesterday?" and get a real answer backed by actual system data.
| Optimization | Dynamic programming finds the mathematically optimal schedule — not a simulation, not a heuristic |
| Resolution | 15-minute granularity (Nordpool) or 30-minute (Octopus) |
| Solar aware | Integrates solar forecast to maximize self-consumption |
| Battery protection | Models cycle degradation cost — won't chase marginal gains that wear out your battery |
| Fuse protection | Monitors grid current and limits charging to prevent overloading your main fuse |
| EV aware | Automatically pauses battery discharge when your EV is charging |
| Re-optimization | Continuously updates as prices, solar, and consumption data change |
| AI Analyst | Chat with your battery system — ask questions, get explanations |
- Growatt MIC/MIN/MOD/MID — via Growatt Server (cloud) or Modbus (local, TOU or VPP control mode (VPP experimental))
- Growatt SPH — via Growatt Server (cloud) or Modbus (local, VPP control mode (experimental))
- SolaX — via Solax modbus integration
- Solis — via the solis_modbus integration (local Modbus) (experimental)
- Huawei LUNA2000 (experimental) — via huawei_solar integration (local Modbus)
- Nordpool — Nordic spot market (SE, NO, FI, DK, EE, LT, LV)
- Octopus Energy Agile — UK market with separate import/export rates
- ENTSO-e / Belpex — European day-ahead spot prices via the ENTSO-e Transparency Platform (e.g. Belgian Belpex) (experimental)
- Solcast or other solar forecast for production predictions
- InfluxDB for historical data persistence
- Tibber for power monitoring
Want support for your inverter? We're actively looking for testers with GivEnergy, Solis, Huawei, and other systems. Open an issue or join the discussion! Sponsoring helps prioritize new hardware support.
- In Home Assistant, go to Settings → Add-ons → Add-on Store, click the menu (⋮) → Repositories, and add:
https://github.com/johanzander/bess-manager - Find BESS Battery Manager in the store, click Install, then Start
- Open the web UI and follow the setup wizard
Full instructions: Installation Guide
- Installation Guide — Getting started
- User Guide — Understanding the interface
- Development Guide — Contributing
- Issues & feature requests: GitHub Issues
- Discussion: Home Assistant Community Forum
ChargeIQ is free and open source. If it's saving you money on your energy bill, consider sponsoring — it directly funds the AI tools used to build new features.
MIT License — see LICENSE for details.