Solar energy going to grid & not the batteries or iBoost+?

General Commisioning
1

Hi,

I’m new to this site, having just had the AIO 13.5khw battery installed.

I also have the Solar iBoost+ installed which should feed to the immersion heater 1st from the CT clamp, then the HyperVolt 3.0 via a 2nd CT clamp & then the batteries.

The system was installed yesterday, commissioned by iVolts. I noticed yesterday it began charging from the grid until the times were set for Octopus Go 00:30-04:30.

But I also noticed that on the cloudy day it was, the batteries were sending 2.5kwh to the immersion heater when no solar was being supplied. I had to remove the CT clamp as the technicians had left.

I tried this morning & refitted the clamp, once again the energy from the fully charged batteries was going to the immersion heater at 2 to 3kwh when the panels were only generating 200w. So once again the clamp had to come off to stop the batteries draining.

So is this a commissioning issue, the batteries & system doing a full load/discharge test? After this will the system then take solar supply to top the batteries up? When full, will it divert to the iBoost+?

Apologies if this has already been mentioned, but I couldn’t find it & with it being a weekend both GivEnergy & iVolts have asked me to contact them Monday.

Thanks for any help in advance.

2

Where is the iBoost CT clamp fitted… and has it been fitted the correct way ( it has an arrow with the correct direction )

3

Also… whenever the inverter is first installed or there is a Firmware update to the batteries it will do SOC ( State of Charge ) test where it will fill up the batteries to 100% from Solar or Grid and then do a 100% discharge to house or grid.

So yes you iBoost would have kicked in… you also have to check if the iBoost was configured to look for 200w or 300w of “Reverse Energy” detected.

I don’t have the AIO I have a 5KW inverter Gen 3 + 2x9.5KW batteries and have a first Gen iBoost - but I have no real choice in what order things get charged, it always does

  1. the batteries first
  2. after 200w of Reverse energy my iBoost kicks
  3. after 300w my Zappi kicks in
  4. dump to grid ( export - but no tarriff yet )

But I am also in a good position at summer… I have a 7Kw Array ( well technically 11Kw but 7Kw will be real world ) - So this means…

Inverter can only put in 3.6KW to the Batteries, I use around 1.5Kw whilst working from home, so thats around 5KW… with 2 KW spare… and the iBoost will then take that 2KW :-)

So I sized my array for how it will behave in Summer… I aim to save 50-75% a year, but in winter I still expect to use gas to heat the water ( central heating is on at same time ).

Mine was only installed 1 month ago so I need a full year to figure out what is best.

I also have HASSIO Home Assistant - so I could technically use that automation to change how much I charge my batteries and do really clever stuff - but I just want 1 year of basic stuff.

(Long message this one :-) )

1 Like
4

This sounds like a poor configuration and/or commissioning by your installer, don’t pay until they have corrected it. It is a complicated system using 3 manufacturer’s equipment all separately monitoring the same excess generation.

5

Thanks,

I’ve just tried again flipping the CT clamp in the wrong direction, but it still didn’t top up the battery.

I haven’t paid fully, just the deposit they needed to begin with.

I’m hoping it will be sorted this Thursday, when a technician visits.

I’ve also called GivEnergy today & they said they would reply via email, that was at noon, it’s now 15:20 & still nothing.

Thanks.

6

Did you get this fixed ?

7

Sorry for the delay in responding. I’ve been working with Adam for support with this issue, it’s still ongoing & is now escalated so if & when we have a good few cloud free days they may send out an engineer as the system is still covered by the warranty. I’ll come back to this as & when that happens.