Hello - just joined - GE Gateway and AIO installed last May. 10 Solar PV on my garage. All working nicely but had a few queries recently. Appreciate any input.
GE app has been showing GRID to battery on certain days - the opposite of what it should be doing. Understand there should be a small trickle in this direction but here I have been seeing several kW (see attached screen shot - shows 3 kW). I waited to get my Octopus smart meter bill (on Octopus Go) and on that day it shows nothing like that volume of GRID coming into the house. So the app is showing something odd that does not match the GRID smart meter data.
Someone told me that in order to maintain the battery efficiency you need to NOT charge to 100% all the time. I charge my AIO to 100% overnight on cheap rate and my daytime export with Octopus pays me double what I pay to but at cheap rate. I googled it on GE and got two conflicting responses - no issue charging to 100% and then the opposite. Hoping someone here knows the real answer!
Hey,
I think I saw someone else post this similar issue before.
I think it was their CT clamps was wired into the gateway the wrong way round or atleast configured incorrectly in the installer portal when they set the IDs in the gateway commissioning.
Is the inverter givenergy or a 3rd party one. I.e do you have any other app to independently view your solar generation.
That way you might be able to verify you generated 3kw which is showing as grid import and only actually imported 1.6kwh to battery.
Thanks Bob.
No GE Gateway and AIO.
I am not sure that would be the issue as it would show GRID to battery all the time / more regularly if the clamps were not in the correct position. Attached phot shows a different day in the same month looking more like what I would expect.
Hey Chris,
Thanks for confirming. As it was a new install didn’t know it had appeared to have been correct previously. Have you delegated any access to octopus? Been on a previous tariff such as flux would do this. You could remove the access if previously that’s been the case.
Few other things to check.
Is eco mode still on?
Do these spikes coincide with demand in the house?
Edit:
Check your charge / discharge limits on the AIO. If demand exceeds the discharge rate it would pull from the grid.
No delegated access to Octopus.
Eco enabled yes.
Very random and absolutely don’t coincide with demand in house. If was this that alerted me.
Do I check those charge and discharge via the GE App? I only have timed charge set for cheap rate. No limits on discharge activated.
Thanks again Bob.
Regards,
Chris.
I’ve got exactly the same set up and the battery regularly charges to 100% during these sunny days.
This appears to be the default install setting.
I spoke to Givenergy and they weren’t concerned with the 100% max. setting but advised increasing the discharge setting from 4% (default) to 5 %.
Anyone else have a view over charging to 100%?
its absolutely fine to charge and discharge the battery between full and empty, its what they were designed to do. The “100% charge” isn’t actually 100%, I think it’s something like 92%, and likewise 4% is actually slightly higher so you are not getting into problems by totally filling and emptying the batteries.
It is worth ensuring you do regularly exercise your battery over the full range, say once a week or so. Keeping the battery semi-full all the time as can occur in summer can cause the battery to lose track of how much charge it actually has.
And when working out your profit of charging and discharging the battery don’t forget the circa 10-20% energy conversion losses you’ll occur for the round trip. If you’re on an EV tariff its still worth doing though
Ah I see Bob.
Mine are both 6000W.
Good point on discharge and pull from GRID - I had not thought of that.
My demand is typical domestic, nothing big by way of pull (exceeding) what the battery can give. EV charger happens at night only.
Regards,
Chris.
To be fair you should be able to see if house load demand spiked during similar times.
If you go to the 2nd icon from the left (power graph) in the bottom of the phone app.
Go to a day where you see grid draw and see if load spikes up. At same time. You can filter to just grid and load to make it more obvious. I would expect to see battery dip as low as it can if it’s discharge rate is maxed out.
Just take the GivEnergy power graphs with a pinch of salt.
The data is only captured in the portal/app from the inverter every 5 minutes or so, so its quite possible that spikes such as from a kettle boiling or the oven coming on won’t be seen.
We’re 5 months into our installation. As you we charge to 100% overnight. But if i see its going to be a good sunny day then i charge to 40% and let the morning sun take it to 100% (usually a couple of hours). I timed discharge to 40% and that easily leaves us enough without having to think about it. Also ive just switched off the battery winter temperature management option.
Unless your batteries are outside I think it’s unlikely that you will see the winter temperature management doing anything. My batteries are on the inside of the outside garage wall, and got down to about 11 degrees on the coldest days. Using the batteries keeps them warm, in winter doing a slow charge overnight can help rather than a full rate charge and leaving idle for hours
But the rest of the year, unlikely to get cold enough
Hoping someone here knows the real answer!
