Troubleshooting

Something not behaving the way you expected? Start here. Find the line that sounds like what you're seeing, check the likely cause, and follow the fix. Most issues come down to one of a handful of settings.

If you arrived from a Homey notification, jump straight to the matching section: Manual action needed, a Smart task missed, or a budget overshoot.

One rule worth knowing up front

The hard cap is your grid tariff step (effekttrinn) — the hourly average you've decided no hour should exceed, not a tuning knob. When PELS runs short of room, the answer is to give it less to do (a lower daily budget, fewer competing devices), never to raise the hard cap. Raising it just moves you into a more expensive tariff step. See hard cap.

PELS isn't limiting or turning down a device

PELS only acts on devices it is allowed to act on. For a managed device to be lowered, paused, or turned off, three things must all be true:

1. Managed by PELS is on for the device (Settings → Devices).
2. Power-limit control is on (Settings → Devices → the device → Setup).
3. The device's home isn't simulating. For a Main-home device that means Simulation mode is off (Settings → Simulation mode) — in simulation PELS calculates what it would do but never switches anything. For a device in a meter area it means that area's Control devices in this area switch is on (Settings → Limits & safety → pick the area); new areas start with it off, so they only simulate until you turn it on. The two are independent: an area can be actively limiting while Simulation mode is on, and it can be simulating while Simulation mode is off.

A device with Power-limit control turned off stays under PELS's planning but is never limited to protect the hard cap. If a device also has no usable power estimate, PELS cannot use power-limit control for it — set an accurate load under the device's Energy settings in Homey. See Configuration → Devices.

Manual action needed

The "Manual action needed" notification (Flow trigger Hard cap breach imminent — manual action needed) fires only when PELS projects the selected-period hard cap will be exceeded and it has run out of managed load it is allowed to turn down. It is the one urgent, safety-level alert in PELS — everything else is soft pacing.

What to do, in order:

• Look for a device with Power-limit control turned off. The most common cause is that a large load PELS could have eased off is excluded. Turn its Power-limit control back on (Settings → Devices → the device → Setup) so PELS can lower it next time.
• Reduce fixed load you're running by hand. If the breach is from unmanaged usage (an oven, a kettle, a charger PELS doesn't control), the only immediate fix is to use less at once for the rest of the capacity period.
• Don't raise the hard cap. It reflects the tariff step you're holding. If breaches are routine, the real fixes are bringing more big loads under management or pacing the day with a daily budget.

Once you have worked through those causes, if brief spikes still make it fire more often than you want, swap the Flow to Hard cap breach imminent for at least... and choose how long the situation has to last first. PELS limits managed devices immediately either way — this only decides when your Flow starts.

I went over my daily budget

The daily budget is a soft pacing target, not an alarm — going a little over, especially late in the day, is not a problem and never triggers an urgent alert. PELS simply paces the home so it tends to land on plan.

If you overshoot often and want to land closer to plan:

• Lower the daily budget so PELS reserves usable power earlier in the day (Budget tab → Adjust, or the Set daily budget Flow card).
• Set Background usage reserve to Conservative if unmanaged household load keeps eating the budget (Budget → Adjust → Budget shaping).
• Remember a budget caps energy (kWh), not money — on an expensive day a low budget can still cost more. The savings come from shifting load into cheap hours. See Daily Energy Budget.

A Smart task missed its target

When the History view shows a missed run, PELS surfaces one of two recourse buttons that tell you what to investigate:

• Lower daily budget — the day's energy budget ran out before the ready-by time and closed down hours PELS had scheduled. Lower the daily budget so future days reserve power earlier. (Raising the hard cap is not the fix — it just costs you a higher tariff step.)
• Review device — any other last blocker: the device stopped taking power, not enough available power was left, a higher-priority device took the room, or the plan did not leave enough time. The cause sentence on the entry names it. The button deep-links to the device settings; check stepped-load planning power, target temperature, priority, When limiting behaviour, and the Flow that reports state back to PELS. A device that stopped taking power may also have switched itself off, which no PELS setting changes.
• No button — the car itself held the run back: it stopped at its own charge limit, or delayed charging on its own schedule or smart charging. The fix is in the car: raise its charge limit, or turn off its own schedule.

If a task is At risk before the deadline and the timing matters, grant it extra leeway with Set what a smart task may do — go over today's budget, limit lower-priority devices, or pause lower-priority devices (which reserves power so the task can start sooner). All three stay inside the hard cap. See Letting a Task Push Harder.

A run marked Abandoned usually needs no fix — it means the situation changed (the task was cleared, or an EV unplugged past the grace window) rather than a planning failure.

A device won't resume / stays paused

• It's waiting for available power. After limiting, PELS resumes devices in priority order as room opens up, with a short cool-down between steps (60–300 seconds). A device low in the priority order resumes last.
• The day is ahead of the daily budget. When you're over the daily pace, PELS holds resumes back a little longer. Check the Budget tab; if it's frozen over plan, that's expected until usage drops back under plan.
• A Smart task releases an hour. With Power-limit control on, PELS holds the device off for that hour. With it off, PELS uses the task's configured release behavior. An hour the task keeps without planned energy is different: the device runs there when power turns out to be available. When no active task controls a device, Power-limit control on allows normal run-when-power-is-available behavior.
• It was turned off elsewhere and PELS was asked to respect that. If the device's Overview card says Turned off elsewhere — turn it on to resume, PELS is honouring an off action that did not come from it. Turn the device on in Homey or on the device to hand it back, or turn off Leave off until turned on again in the device's Setup section. Note PELS only sees an off action your device's Homey integration reports — a physical switch that stays silent is invisible.

See Plan States for what each Overview state word (Limited, Resuming, Idle, Off, Manual, and more) means.

No power data, or the Overview is empty

PELS plans on a live whole-home power reading. If the Overview shows nothing:

• Using Homey Energy? Confirm Power source is set to Power meter and a meter is chosen under Whole-home meter (Settings → Limits & safety). See Using Homey Energy.
• Meter chosen? Check that it is available in Homey Energy and its reading is still changing. A selected meter that stops reporting is never silently replaced by another one.
• Using a Flow? Make sure a Flow calls Report power usage (in watts) every time your meter updates.

What PELS does while readings are missing

A short gap changes nothing. PELS counts a reading as current for 60 seconds, and beyond that it carries the last good one forward and keeps acting on the decision it already made. A missing reading is never counted as zero.

After 10 minutes with no new reading, PELS fails closed rather than keep trusting a decision it made before the meter went quiet. It limits every managed device to its floor (lowest step, limited setpoint, or off) and pauses planning until a new reading arrives, so a meter that has quietly stopped is worth fixing promptly.

A meter that keeps reporting exactly the same number can count as stopped too, when your devices show it should have moved. PELS watches the managed devices that report their power. If their combined draw changes by a kilowatt or more and stays that way while the whole-home reading keeps exactly the same value, the banner warns you after two minutes, and after ten minutes PELS treats the meter as stopped. That is a meter that has stopped updating, for example a HAN/P1 reader that lost contact with the electricity meter while its app keeps showing the last value. A steady reading on its own is never treated as stopped, and nor is exactly 0 W, which a meter that cannot show export reports for as long as your home exports. So a meter stuck at 0 W is not caught, and nor is one that freezes while none of your managed devices reports its power (W): one that reports only the energy it has used (kWh) does not count, because that figure trails behind. A meter that normally holds a value for twenty minutes or more (one that reports only on change) is not checked this way, and nor is any meter while a battery, or a solar inverter that is producing, is connected to Homey: either can keep the grid reading still while a device switches.

In Simulation mode nothing is switched. PELS still shows what it would limit, and planning carries on as usual.

The banner above the Overview tells you which state you are in:

Banner	Meaning
No power readings yet.	PELS has never received a reading.
No new power readings in the last minute.	Readings have stopped, or keep the same value while your devices' power changes.
No new power readings for over 10 minutes. Managed devices stay limited until a new reading arrives.	PELS has limited every managed device and is waiting for a new reading.

No price data, or cheap hours aren't being used

• Confirm a Price source is selected and shows data available (Settings → Electricity prices).
• On the Homey Energy source, check the status card on that same page. If it reads Not usable or No usable prices, PELS could not work out your price setup and has paused prices on purpose. Simplify the formula under Energy > Electricity in Homey. Not read yet means PELS has not reached Homey; press Refresh prices. PELS never falls back to the bare market price, because that would look plausible and be too low every hour.
• For the Flow source, the external payload must contain full-day JSON.
• On the Power by the Hour source, the status card names what is wrong. No prices from the app means that app is missing, stopped, or older than 8.10.0 (the version that started sharing prices) — check it in Homey, then press Refresh prices. No price devices means it is running but has no electricity price device yet. No device chosen / Price device is gone means PELS needs you to say which of its price devices prices your home. Prices only start at the hour you pick the source; earlier hours of that day stay blank, which is normal.
• For price-based temperature shifts, the device needs Price (or Setup → Price-based control) enabled and When the temperature changes outside PELS set to Return to mode target, and Respond to prices must be on globally.
• A Smart task that stays at Building plan… is usually waiting for prices through its ready-by time — tomorrow's prices may not be published yet.

EV charging starts at the wrong time or won't change current

• Charging current never changes: confirm the charger is configured as EV 1-phase or EV 3-phase. For Easee, check the path you chose: Use built-in device control, or the existing current-control Flow. For other chargers, re-check the EV charger current (A) Flow in Configure an EV Charger.
• The charger starts outside the plotted task plan: an active task keeps some hours without planned energy (cheaper than its planned hours, or needed because it cannot finish otherwise) and charges there when power is available; a deferred hour is held off. Turn Power-limit control off to prevent normal run-when-power-is-available behavior when no active task controls the charger. See Smart Tasks → Power-Limit Control and Tasks.
• Battery percentage doesn't appear: if the value lives on the car device rather than the charger, use Report battery level for charger.

My battery is stuck in Homey or API mode

While PELS holds your home battery, the battery's own app shows its Homey or API mode. That is PELS at work: the battery's card on the Overview reads Supplying, Charging or Limited · Charging and says why. When the job is done, PELS hands it back to the mode it was in; after a limit, that happens at the battery's turn in your priority order, once your home has room for it to charge again. PELS also hands it back at once if your meter stops reporting, and when PELS restarts.

• Want it back now? Turn off Managed by PELS on the battery's device page (Settings → Devices → the battery). PELS hands it back and leaves it alone.
• Changed the mode in the battery's app? PELS takes that as your decision and turns Managed by PELS off for the battery. Turn it on again when you want PELS to use the battery.
• Uninstalled PELS while it held the battery? Switch the mode back in the battery's own app.

PELS isn't using my battery

Check these, in order:

• Managed by PELS is off. Turn it on for the battery (Settings → Devices). If the device page or its row in the device list says you changed its mode in the battery app, PELS stepped back on purpose; turning Managed by PELS on again hands the battery to PELS.
• Power-limit control is off. PELS then never takes the battery over, for your limit or for your solar, and its card reads Power-limit control is off: its own app is in charge. Turn on Power-limit control so it can hold your limit and share your solar on its turn.
• The battery is in a meter area. A battery in a meter area keeps its own mode; PELS uses batteries in the Main home.
• Simulation mode is on. PELS leaves every battery in its own mode while simulating (Settings → Simulation mode).
• A Sessy signed in with its cloud login. PELS needs the local login in the Sessy Homey app to switch the battery to API control. Its card then reads "PELS can only watch it: its app does not accept control". Switch the battery to its local login in that app; PELS tries again after six hours or when it restarts.
• The battery's app cannot take commands from Homey. PELS needs an app that lets Homey set the battery's charge and discharge power, and offers a Homey or API mode. Sessy and Marstek Venus are examples of apps that do. Without one, the battery's card reads "PELS can only watch it: its app does not give Homey control" and offers no Power-limit control.

The card reads PELS takes over when your limit or solar needs it when everything is set up and PELS simply has no job for the battery right now. Its place in your priority order matters too: a battery high in the list only discharges once the devices below it are limited. See Solar and a home battery.

My battery's night charge stopped

If your battery charges from the grid on its own schedule, for example in cheap night hours, that charging is a load like any other. When your home nears its limit, PELS limits in priority order, and the battery's charging is capped at its place in the list: its card reads Limited · Charging with Waiting to charge faster. This is how your car or heating keeps running instead. The charge comes back in priority order once your home has room, and the battery returns to its own schedule.

To let the night charge go ahead of other devices, move the battery up in your priority list (its device page → Reorder, or the Modes page). To keep PELS from ever capping it, turn off Power-limit control on the battery; PELS then leaves it to its own app for your solar too.

A device doesn't appear in PELS

• The device must expose a supported capability and device class (a temperature target, an on/off, or a recognised EV charger). Check Configuration → Devices.
• If expected usage looks wrong, verify Device → Advanced Settings → Energy in Homey so PELS has an accurate power estimate.

Still stuck?

If a problem doesn't fit any of these, the Technical Reference explains the underlying behaviour, and you can ask or report an issue on GitHub. When reporting, say what you expected, what happened, and which devices and settings are involved.