Tips and Best Practices

This page is for the tuning phase after your first working setup.

Start small

Do not hand the entire house to PELS on day one.

• Start with a few flexible loads
• Confirm that power reporting is stable
• Watch the Overview tab during a real high-load hour

Once the behavior matches your expectations, expand the managed device set.

Priority advice

• Water heaters are often good low-priority candidates because they store heat.
• Living-room thermostats are usually high priority because comfort loss is obvious.
• Bedroom heating is often higher priority at night than during the day.
• Different modes should use different priority orders if comfort changes by time of day.

Capacity tuning advice

• Set the limit slightly below the actual grid limit if you want extra safety.
• The Getting Started default of 0.3 to 0.5 kW for the safety margin is a reasonable starting point. Narrow it if PELS keeps limiting devices when the home is well below the hard cap. Widen toward 1.0 kW if PELS reacts later than you want — a larger margin pushes the safe pace further below the hard cap, so PELS starts limiting sooner.
• Use Simulation mode first if you want to see what PELS would do without touching real devices.

Price optimization advice

• Thermal loads are usually the best targets.
• Start with modest temperature adjustments such as +3 °C and -3 °C.
• Set a minimum price difference so comfort is not traded away for tiny savings.

Daily budget advice

• Treat daily budget as pacing, not as an emergency brake.
• Leave the advanced tuning values at their defaults unless you have observed a real problem you are trying to solve.
• Change one value at a time and observe a full day before making another adjustment.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to check
No power samples received	Make sure a Flow calls Report power usage whenever your meter updates.
Devices do not appear	Confirm they expose supported capabilities and device classes.
PELS is not controlling devices	Verify Managed by PELS is on, Power-limit control is enabled, and Simulation mode is off.
Expected power looks wrong	Check the device Energy settings in Homey or set a more accurate load in the device settings.
No price data	Confirm the configured source is correct and external Flow payloads contain full-day JSON.
EV charger current does not change	Check the EV control mode, the EV charger current (A) Flow tag, and the charger app action that sets available current.

For a symptom-by-symptom guide across all of PELS, see the full Troubleshooting guide.

When to dive deeper

• Use Daily Energy Budget if you want to understand whole-day pacing.
• Use Configure an EV Charger if PELS should manage charging current.
• Use Technical Reference if you want exact planner rules.
• Use Plan States when the Overview tab wording needs interpretation.