No accurate home demand and grid import/export data

I have had a GivEnergy 5 Hybrid Inverter, 8.2 kWh battery and 12x Trina Vertex S solar panels with 1x EM115 with CT clamp installed about 6 weeks ago.

My inverter cannot get any data in regards to grid import/export as well as home demand. My home demand often shows as 0 kWh or just whatever the solar generates. I have set my battery to discharge according to home demand too but it will ignore that completely and just discharge it at the full 2.6kW, or whatever I cap it to. I have chased up my installer to fix this but they have been ignoring me for the past 6 weeks.

I pulled up schematics for my system, everything is wired up correctly, I have checked all the wiring and polarity. The EM115 meter works fine and gives accurate grid import/export readings but the inverter is just not taking the data from it.

Can anyone suggest what the issue might be?
A hardware fault with the inverter, the EM115 or just a software issue?
It should really be resolved by my installer but they have been next to useless and have ignored all of my requests.

tcheung if your home demand is 0 or matching your solar generation it sounds like your CT clamp might be the wrong way round. Check that first.

Otherwise it could be that it's not receiving data from the EM115, make sure the cable is ok with no cuts. If all looks ok, your installer needs to come out. If they're part of HIES you can complain to them and escalate to HIES if required.

Thanks for the reply.
The CT clamp was the first thing that I thought it would be. It was installed in the correct direction but I flipped it around anyway just in case but that didn't do anything apart from reverse the readings displayed on the EM115. Checked all the cables, they are all good and have continuity.

They are indeed part of HIES so it looks I will have to escalate through them, thanks for that suggestion!

tcheung Reset your inverter to defaults in the web portal (inverter card -> settings). Check that ECO mode is enabled and all timed settings are disabled. Check that your charge and discharge limits are all at maximum and that your reserve is set at 4%. It may be that your installer didn't leave it in ECO mode.

ECO mode will use all available PV to supply house load, charge battery and then export. In ECO mode, if there isn't sufficient PV, it will pull from the battery to supply house load but not export.

Tim Thanks for your reply. I have tried resetting things already. The Eco mode switch doesn't actually do anything for my problem though although I do have it on.

For example at 1am my home demand is 200W and I'm charging the battery at 1800W with 0W solar generation at that time of day. So the inverter should be showing 2000W grid import, 200W going to home demand and 1800W going into the battery. But it shows 0W grid import, 0W home demand and 1800W to the battery. So the 1800W is being pulled out of thin air...

During the day when there's solar my home demand is shown to be whatever the solar generation is, so right now it's showing my solar as 3400W and my home demand as 3400W even though I have nothing turned on and the real demand is about 250W. If the solar changes to another value my home demand will match that. My grid import/export is always shown as 0W.

I think it's just down to the inverter not being able to receive any data from the EM115 meter but I'm not sure what's causing it. I think either a fault with the inverter itself or some sort of a software error. I'm leaning more towards the hardware at this point as I've reset things already and the latest firmware is already installed on the inverter. Anyhow my installer should be the ones sorting this out so I will escalate it through HIES to get it resolved if there's no way to do it myself.

tcheung Is your Meter Tab on the inverters card showing anything? We had a similar problem on initial installation of our two hybrids - one EM115 was working fine, the other not. After a couple of days, the faulty EM115 was swapped out and all's been fine since.

Good luck getting your installer back, I'm sure they're just swamped by work, which can't be a bad thing for the economy

Tim The meter tab shows everything as expected except for the import and export columns showing 0W. My EM115 looks like it works, I'm able to cycle through the different values on the small LCD screen by pressing the small button and they all seem within what I would expect them to be. Was your faulty EM115 in a similar situation (appears to be working but not sending data to the inverter)?

I don't mind waiting, they already had to delay my installation 4 times but kept communications with me during that period. After the installation and taking my money they have completely cut off communications with me, seems like I wasn't the only one with this particular installer either from looking at recent reviews and social media. Up until that point they were good and they were listed as a GivEnergy Advanced installer which is why I went with them in the first place.

I guess on the positive side I've now learned more about how the GivEnergy systems work. If it would've just worked first time then I definitely wouldn't have looked into schematics or EM115 meters! Might be useful if I have to do more self troubleshooting in the future.

tcheung they all seem within what I would expect them to be.

Does the EM115 display show import/export? ie is it the case that the EM115 is seeing the data but the data isn't being sent to the inverter, or is the EM115 not registering import/export?

Tim EM115 is seeing the data but it isn't being sent to the inverter.

tcheung How is the EM115 connected to the inverter? It should be a shielded twisted pair cable. Many installers use cat5/6. The data connections should be wired A- to A- and B+ to B+. ie If the blue wire is connected to A- and white to B+ at the EM115, the other end should also be Blue to A- and white to B+ at the inverter end. if you want to check the terminations at each end. However, this is a fundamental check which I think will have been photographed during commissioning by your installer.

Tim Yes it's connected using Cat5 cabling, the wires are installed in the correct +/- terminals. I did reverse them just in case but still nothing. The cables and terminals are in good physical condition and have continuity, I checked with a multimeter.

I sent an email to GivEnergy support, maybe it's something that they can resolve remotely if it's just a software issue.

tcheung Was your faulty EM115 in a similar situation

TBH I didn't get involved in solving the problem; the installer just kept on the phone to Givenergy until they resolved to change the EM115. It was changed the day after they initially tried to commission everything. One inverter was fine but the other wasn't. In fact they did swap the meter connections over to prove that it was the EM115 that was at fault.

All fine since. I suspect that replacing your EM115 will solve all issues. Hope you get a resolution soon.