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) or breaker limit — a physical fact about your home, 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 or trips the breaker. 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. Simulation mode is off (Settings → Simulation mode) — in simulation PELS calculates what it would do but never switches anything.

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 hourly 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 hour.
• Don't raise the hard cap. It reflects your physical limit. If breaches are routine, the real fixes are bringing more big loads under management or pacing the day with a daily budget.

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's physical.)
• Review device — the device couldn't deliver enough, capacity pressure shortened the usable hours, or a replan reduced the window. 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.

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 or limit lower-priority devices. Both 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 with Power-limit control off keeps a device idle outside its planned hours by design — common for EV chargers. That's not a fault.

See Plan States for what each Overview chip (Limited, Resuming, Idle, 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 your meter has Tracks total home energy consumption enabled and that Power source is set to Homey Energy (Settings → Limits & safety). See Using Homey Energy.
• Using a Flow? Make sure a Flow calls Report power usage (in watts) every time your meter updates.

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

• Confirm a Price source is selected and shows data available (Settings → Electricity prices).
• For the Flow tag source, the external payload must contain full-day JSON.
• For price-based temperature shifts, the device needs Price (or Setup → Price-based control) enabled, 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 and the Flow uses the EV charger current (A) tag. Re-check the current-control Flow in Configure an EV Charger.
• The charger starts in an expensive hour on its own: turn Power-limit control off so charging only happens during planned Smart task or Flow-booked hours. 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.

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.