Hi all
First of likely many pists from a newbee.
Ive just had a solar & AIO battery installedvand now trying to get my head around the functionality of the app.
My battery is charged by solar during the day to 100%. Ive noticed that by bedtime the battery has depleted to 2%, yet the hoyse load is typically less than 0.5kW during the evening.
I duscovered that my battery is discharging at 5kW+ to the grid 
So all the free solar energy gained during the day is wasted exporting to the grid (currently unpaid for until i transfer to octopus).
Then overnight im actually importing from the grid and having to pay for it! Crazy!
How do I prevent the battery discharging to the grid? I cant see any way of controlling this in the app.
Changed to eco modeā¦now battery stops discharging to feed the loadcand the load is fed from the hrid!
Last pic is what it looks like with ECO off, not on.
Have you checked for any timed exports set up? Canāt see why else it would export like that unless on Intelligent Octopus Flux
Hi
Thanks for your reply.
As metioned , im not on any export tariffs at present.
The last pic does have eco enabled, it did cease the huge export.
Iām clutching at straws at the moment.
I cannot understand why with a full battery it would be feeding the grid, it doesnt nake any sense!
My wife had a shower just now so she asked me whether she should use the mixer that is fed from the gas combi boiler or the electric shower.
I checked the app so seeing that the battery has 23% charge i told her to use the electric.
I am bemused to discover that the shower is pulling 10kW from the grid!
Why is this?
The point of having a charged battery is to utilise its energy usage as an when required isnt it? or am I missing something?
I find this totally baffling. Iām beginning to wonder if I have made a huge mistake shelling out Ā£14k for a system that does not function as I want and expected.
Clearlt the the āecoā mode is useless!
Depending on the battery you have installed (hybrid, or AIO), you could be limited to a battery discharge of 2.6Kw, 3.6kW.
ECO will balance charge and discharge from solar to home/battery.
Pulling 10kW for a shower will always use a good load of grid, the AIO is limited to 6kW max inverter, Hybrids 5kW or 3.68kW
Still looks like ECO is off in that last pic as noting is coming from battery, when at least 25% should
If you have an AIO (i assume you do as battery voltage is 300v +), and you have the full on AIO, then you should be able to pull 6kW from the battery continuously.
Put up a pic of you eco mode setting, and your export and discharge settingā¦
Hi
Yes, it an AIO battery, and yes, eco mode is enabled.
The shower is around 9kW, so with sufficient capacity in the battery, my expectation is that 6kW will be fed from the AIO battery and the remaining 3kW imported, is than not correct?
Another observation, iriginally there was a round icon in the bottom centre, similar to a āplayā button with different options to srlect such as pause and charge/discharge the battery. This has mysteriously disappeared, I have no idea why?
Also, referring to the screenshot belowā¦why is 16W being imported from the grid when 2.8kW is being genetated with a houae load of only 324 W?
The play, pause, charge and discharge setting buttons are switched on/off by the three lines icon, settings, preferences, āshow quick setting buttonā
There will always be a few watts in or out as the inverter and battery have to see what the load is, then react, so there will be a tiny bit in or out for a few seconds. always.
Also, on this page, check the battery options for charge and discharge rates to see if they are on maximum.
also export and discharge settings.
Finally, I think Iāve heard some people say the iphone version of the apps has some crossed settingsā¦ so double check via the web portal.
I am having a similar issue with my 3 day old system.
For some reason I am discharging 6.1kw to the grid and importing at 6.3kw from the grid.
Very odd.
That will be a current clamp on the wrong wayā¦for the importing reading at the meter box I would think
Then you just need to decide if you really want to discharge the battery via settings.
Thanks for the reply.
After speaking with GivEnergy, seemingly it is something they did incorrectly during the commissioning process. All working well for the time being.
1 Like
Thanks for the heads-up with the pause/ play button, now reinstated.
Thanos for the clarification on the short term gris exportš
Ive checked all the settings that you mention. The timed export/ import/ discharge are disabled.
Battery options:
Reserve 4%
Charge power 6000W
Discharge power 6000W
I dont have Apple, Iām on android
Iād also make sure you have the latest firmware installed on everything :
I have had 5kw solar plus 13.5kw AIO installed with a Gateway in early May. After a couple of days getting used to the app, I can assure you that you have not made a mistakeā¦I am obtaining all my electricity needs, providing some free power to my EVās and selling 13.5kw (on top of any solar direct export) back to the grid each day using my Intelligent Octopus tariff.
Make sure your application for export tariff is in and being processed - I found Octopus communicated well and the whole process only took two weeks. Until then I used surplus power on my immersion heater (which I have fixed a wifi control to) and my EVās.
I donāt recall having the problems that you have with exporting rather than serving home demand but I do recall having problems with the quick buttons: the āpauseā did not work for me which could be your problem. I think that by playing with the settings I usually achieved my aims but I suspect your problem has arisen because of last weeks update to the Android app: there are several community strings referring to problems following this and I contacted GivEnergy Support about it, who say they āare working on itā. I suggest you email Support and get them to check your settings or otherwise confirm that it is a problem at their end. They will respond within 24 hours.
I use Eco Mode by default and enable Timed Charge Mode to coincide with the 23.30-5.30 cheap tariff with IO. I have also enabled Timed Export to discharge to the grid between 21.15 and 23.30 so that the battery will empty (to 6%) and then recharge overnight at cheap rate. However after the App āupgradeā it appears that enabling Export Mode disables Eco Mode so I have to remember to manually toggle the switch each morning to ensure that the battery serves home demand in the absence of sufficient solar. I expect that this will be resolved in due course but to be honest, it is less than 1kWh/da if I do toggle it late.
I have not had any problems with the grid serving high demand - it always makes up for any shortfall in the battery (ie if demand is over 6kw). If GivEnergy cannot spot an issue in settings I think you may need to get your installer to check the configuration.
Donāt worry about minor flows of 16wā¦it could be meter inaccuracies, it may be real flow but it is insignificant over the day. Check your Energy Graph and you will see what I mean.
You can use timed discharge at the same time as eco mode, in so much as that switching it on doesnāt turn off eco mode, but you still need to save the setting each day to actually enable exporting to the grid. Thatās marginally better than forgetting to turn eco mode back on and leaving the battery full all day, but still quite buggy.
Thatās not the case for me: I posted a reply on a related thread yesterday: https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/4549-timed-export-settings/42
I am now achieving what I want without intervention. This may be because GivEnergy Support have altered an inverter setting that I am unaware of but I have Eco, Timed Charge and Timed Discharge enabled at same time and all operate automatically (as my timings are same every day).
I am on the Octopus Energy Flux Tariff and I have written software to discharge our battery in the evening when the price is high and recharge in the morning when the cost is low. I have 10 off 550W solar panels in the garden and a 8.2kWh battery in the garage. I find that the charge/discharge has three benefits: it helps average out the energy usage on the grid, it reduces the amount of energy we use from the grid - particularly in winter, and it saves us some money - particularly in summer when the days are longer and the sun is higher. On discharge, the battery never goes below 30%, except on some days when we expect to do more in the evening, e.g. ironing.
In summer, I also boost the water temperature in our water tank just after the battery has recharged - all the boost energy comes from the battery. I use a MyEnergi eddi device to control it. The battery then charges up quickly in the sun and the eddi uses the excess energy to maintain the temperature in the water tank. There is still quite a lot of energy exported to the grid. I havenāt tried this in winter yet. This has meant that we have been able to turn off the gas pilot light, minimising our use of gas over summer.
We live in a detached dormer house in North Hampshire and our bill for May was Ā£6.34 and we are expecting out June bill to be in credit.
We are still thinking about more ideas on how to save both energy and money but we only change our components when the old one breaks as a new component involves a lot of energy to make and deliver.
