Deye Copilot — setup, settings and AI strategies

Deye Copilot is a Deye Cloud service that takes control of the battery and dispatches it against electricity prices automatically — charging, holding or exporting based on the tariff you’ve configured, instead of the fixed time-of-use schedule you’d set by hand.

This page covers the whole flow. For the Amber-specific token steps see Connect a Deye battery to Amber Electric; for manual schedules see time-of-use setup.

Before you start

Requirement	Detail
Hardware	A Deye solar inverter and a battery (any brand)
App	Deye Cloud app V3.2.0 or later
Plant	A Rate Plan must already be configured — Copilot can’t optimise without tariff data

Activating Copilot means agreeing that the Deye service team may update the firmware on the devices, and that Copilot overrides your quick settings — any manual time-of-use schedule stops driving the system once Copilot takes control.

1. Set the rate plan (tariff)

Three ways in: Plant Details → ⋯ menu → Plant Info → Edit information; or tap the tariff figure next to “Weather” on the plant overview; or straight through Apply For Deye Copilot.

Set Import Tariff Type and Feed-In Type separately — each can be Flat-Rate or Dynamic:

• Flat-Rate Tariff — a fixed rate, or peak/off-peak.
• Dynamic Tariff — priced off the hourly spot market.

For a dynamic tariff you then choose the Dynamic Tariff Source:

• Electric Provider — the app pulls a live price feed straight from the customer’s electricity retailer using an API token. Deye has integrated a number of retailers, so open the Electric Provider list in the app and look for the customer’s own retailer rather than assuming which ones are supported — the list grows between app releases. The pattern is the same whichever retailer it is: generate a token in that retailer’s app or portal, then paste it here. We document the Amber token flow end to end as a worked example. If a retailer isn’t in the list, the app points you to Deye Cloud service to ask for it.
• Spot Price — queries EPEX Spot, and asks for a market area and segment. EPEX is the European power exchange (the manual shows market areas such as AT/DE), so there is no Australian market to pick here — Australian plants take the Electric Provider route above.

Then work through the tariff detail:

1. Different rates for holidays/weekends? Add a time segment, or pick “Always the same” for a single rate around the clock.
2. Repeat Cycle — options are Always the same, Workday/Saturday/Sunday & Holiday, Weekdays / Weekends, and Workdays / Holidays.
3. Fixed Feed-in Subsidy — switch on if the site has a fixed solar feed-in rate; otherwise enter the import and feed-in rates directly.
4. Taxes and fees — separate VAT % and fixed fee fields for import and export, so the optimiser works on the real delivered price rather than the raw energy rate.

2. Apply for and activate Copilot

1. Plant page → ⋯ menu → Apply For Deye Copilot.
2. Tick Agree to Terms → Confirm. You should see “Deye Copilot is Activated!”.
3. Open Data → Advanced Settings and configure Copilot (below).
4. This is the step people miss: go to Control Mode and switch it from Manual Mode to Deye Copilot, then swipe to activate. Until you do, Copilot is subscribed but not driving the system.

3. Copilot configuration (Advanced Settings)

Import Settings — allow Copilot to buy from the grid. You can set a price threshold meaning don’t import above this price. Leave it blank and Copilot regulates automatically.

The import threshold is a ceiling, not a trigger. It stops buying above a price; it does not by itself make the battery charge whenever the price is low — that behaviour comes from the AI Strategy.

Export Settings — allow Copilot to sell to the grid. Gated behind an “I hold a license to export electricity” toggle, then: allowed selling time slots and repeat days, a threshold (don’t export below this price), and a max export power (kW). Set the max export power to match the export limit approved for that site — check with the installer if you’re unsure.

Battery Optimisation — switch on to have battery cycle cost factored into the strategy, then enter battery price, cycle life and capacity. Worth enabling on any price-trading setup so the optimiser isn’t cycling the battery for less than the cycle is worth.

Rate Plan — jumps back to the tariff screens above.

AC-Couple — if the system is AC-coupled, switch this on and pick Grid / Load / Gen AC couple to match how it’s wired.

4. AI Strategy

Advanced Settings → AI Strategy. The three options sit on a scale from radical to conservative, and this single setting decides more about Copilot’s behaviour than anything else on the page. The Copilot manual doesn’t explain what they actually do, so here is the detail:

Strategy	What it actually does
Maximum Earning (radical)	Actively trades against price — buys low, sells high to maximise profit. The only strategy that routinely grid-charges the battery when prices are low.
Maximize Energy Credit	No active trading. Self-consumption first, sells some surplus PV when generation is high. Built for net-metering billing (NEM 3.0), where exports bank as credits to offset later usage.
Maximize Self Consumption (conservative)	No active trading. PV covers load and battery first, exports the rest. Only pre-charges at a low price when it predicts a large upcoming load.

The most common Copilot complaint

“The import price threshold is set, but the battery never charges from the grid.” This is almost always the wrong AI Strategy — not an inverter or Copilot fault.

Two things are being confused:

• The Import Settings threshold is a ceiling — don’t buy above this price. It is not a charge-whenever-below-this-price trigger.
• The active buy-low behaviour comes from the strategy, and only Maximum Earning does it.

A plant left on Maximize Energy Credit or Maximize Self Consumption will never routinely grid-charge on low price, no matter what the threshold says. That’s why customers report “my settings look right but nothing happens.”

Fix:

1. Copilot → Advanced Settings → AI Strategy → Maximum Earning → Save.
2. If the customer wants to buy low but not sell at high prices: Advanced Settings → Export Settings → turn off “I hold a license to export electricity” → Confirm. Charging behaviour stays, selling stops.
3. Leave the import threshold and everything else as-is.

Before you switch, check two things:

• A dynamic tariff is required. Maximum Earning works off published day-ahead prices — on a flat tariff there is nothing to arbitrage and it won’t grid-charge.
• It cycles the battery harder. Turn on Battery Optimisation and enter battery price, cycle life and capacity so cycle cost is weighed against the trade.

The change is live — have the customer watch it for a day or two. If a confirmed dynamic-tariff plant still won’t charge on low price, escalate: it may be a separate metering or CT issue.

Which strategy for an Australian customer? Maximize Energy Credit is built around net-metering billing, which differs from the usual Australian feed-in tariff arrangement, so it’s rarely the right pick here. Choosing between the other two comes down to the customer’s plan and appetite for cycling — if you’re unsure, ask Suncloud support.

5. Seeing what it’s doing

• Live — the price for each period plus actual and predicted battery SOC and PV curves overlaid on the price curve, so you can see the plan as well as the result. Supported price platforms include Amber, Tibber, Nordpool and Awattar.
• Day / Month / Year — toggle between Earnings and Cost: feed-in energy, charged energy, import energy, feed-in earnings, consumption savings, total earnings and import cost. Tap any bar to drill into that day or month.

6. Turning Copilot off

• Pause it: Control Mode → Manual Mode → swipe. Copilot stops regulating the plant and you keep the Copilot data page.
• Unsubscribe: Advanced Settings → Subscription → Unsubscribe from Deye Copilot → Unsubscribe immediately. This returns the app to the original Data page.

⚠️ Unsubscribing loses your Copilot settings. If you only want to stop it controlling the system, switch to Manual Mode instead — you can resubscribe later, but the configuration won’t come back.

Source: Deye Copilot Manual v3.10.0. Confirm behaviour against the current app version — Copilot is updated frequently, and screens move between releases.