What is the minimum power that the battery will charge from solar?

I have a solar system from Enphase, a GivEnergy AC coupled inverter (Giv-AC3.0) and a GivEnergy 9.5kWh battery (Giv-Bat9.5). There are CT clamps from the inverter to the solar power, and to the main consumer panel.

How high does the export from solar to grid have to be before the inverter sees it and starts the charge the battery?

On my Zappi display I see there is an export but when I go and look at the battery it doesn't show any charging. Yesterday the export to grid was about 1kW. To avoid wasting the power I plugged in the car at a minimum charge rate to use what I was exporting.

I'm a brand new user and may not have seen or know about what settings to look at and/or change.

Very basic instructions please.

TIA

Peter

Around 100W of export and it will wake up, then maintain it +/-50W

Thanks for that. How can I check that the inverter sees that and does indeed start charging the battery?

bunglesmate Yesterday the export to grid was about 1kW.

Was your Givenergy Battery fully charged at this time? We don't have AC-coupled, but I'm assuming it should be set to ECO mode with no timed charge/discharge settings enabled.

My recommendation would be to take the Zappi out of the equation until you understand how the existing PV and AC-coupled inverters work together. Does the AC3 supply house load from battery when you need it? Does the AC3 divert grid export to charge the battery when PV exceeds house load? If this is working OK, then look at how this works with your Zappi. If not, then you need to get to the bottom of why the inverters aren't working as expected (CT orientation?).

If the inverters are working as expected, you should think about whether you want to prioritise diverting grid export to AC3 or Zappi. Assuming you want to prioritise charging the house battery, check that the Zappi has a time delay (20 Sec?) on to prevent it from grabbing export before the AC3. The minimum the Zappi can charge at is 1.4kW, so you could set that as the minimum to see being exported before starting charge. If you don't the Zappi will start to charge, and if it's working correctly, the AC3 will see this as house load and discharge your house battery to the car. That might be what you want, but maybe not?

I have only just got the battery. They plugged it in and left. It did a commissioning charge etc and now it's sitting at 4%.

As stated in original post the house was exporting 1kW to the grid not the battery above what the house required. I only connected the car to stop the export going to the national grid. Nothing was going to the battery before this as afar as I understand it. But how can I check? This is what I'm trying to find out, how to make the battery charge when there is an excess going to the national grid when the car is not connected.

How do I prioritise diverting stuff?

If the inverter is exporting to the grid when the battery is flat/4%, that tends to imply that the CT is fitted the wrong way around and is reading the export as an import.

bunglesmate and now it's sitting at 4%

Check your Battery DC isolator. It may have tripped, which was a regular feature amongst Gen1 hybrid installations. The green lever should be pushed up to work correctly (like your consumer unit isolator and MCBs). If it has tripped, it's worth reporting to your installer and asking them to return to check it out. They often tripped due to overheating caused by poor termination of the cable - either not tight enough, or the insulation being caught in the clamp, or simply high current passing across the contacts. I think it was a key reason why the Gen2s have special cables with factory-fitted terminations.

WRT to prioritising grid divert, time delay is a key one as is power threshold. I'm assuming you want to prioritise charging the house battery over the car, so as per my previous post. FWIW, our Zappi is set to Eco+ with 100% Minimum Green Level and 20 seconds delay. This ensures that the car is only ever charged by grid export and not from grid import or house battery discharge.

At the moment my main issue is that I can't communicate with the inverter at all due to ongoing connection issues. I've been trying to get the dongle to connect to my wifi rather than the neighbours, which was used for commissioning.

bunglesmate make sure your WiFi is on 2.4Ghz rather than 5Ghz - turning off 5Ghz until it’s connected if you need to. Once they are connected then turn 5Ghz back on as they tend to stay on and reconnect ok in the future.

Just started having connection issues after a couple months of nearly flawless performance.

It started happening on Thursday 20/10/2022 and since then we have experienced numerous communication losses with the resultant data not being available in the Online Dashboard (widows pc).

I have tried unplugging, waiting a few minutes then replacing the USB dongle. That has helped for a short time. But still seeing odd behavior.....

For instance when I checked today @ around 16:22 today it said it the inverter was offline since 10amish, removed/replaced the dongle around 16:22 but now says Inverter Last Online Time 2022-10-23 15:22:21. Seems to be an hour difference which can impact network communication.......

Looking in the Inverter Data I see:

1. 00:54:07 - 00:59:12
2. 02:18:42 - 13:03:12
3. 14:11:56 - 14:32:07
4. 16:22:21 - no new data

Battery & Grid data states:

1. 00:54:07 - 13:03:12
2. 14:11:56 - 14:32:07
3. 16:22:21 - no new data

PV & Meter data states:

1. 00:54:07 - 00:59:12
2. 02:18:42 - 13:03:12
3. 14:11:56 - 14:32:07
4. 16:22:21 - no new data

Seems very odd to different time gaps between the various systems if it's just a WiFi communication issue?

The guide says WE and WF are 2.4ghz, WZ are dual band 2.4/5ghz

Does anyone know what WO dongles are?

magician2905 has anything changed on your network?
Failing that can you force the AP to be 2.4Gz?

Mines a HF dongle and that is 2.4Ghz.

Absolutely nothing has changed. Current router has not been changed, and uses WPA2.
No new neighbours, no new wireless networks showing up, I use an app on my Android phone to carry out a site survey and scan for 2.4/5ghz networks and the channels they are on for interference.
Even in the house (Garage wall and Cavity House Walls) I can still see a moderate WiFi signal broadcast from the Dongle.
Its showing @ -66dBm where my home network is -60dDm on Channel 6 (lower number is stronger). One other person is on Ch6 but they are such a low signal they keep disappearing (-84dBm+). No one else is on channel 6 on the survey. We have someone on Channel 1(-60dBm) & 10/11 at low signal rates -75dBm+
I am 99.99% certain that it only had the option of 2.4ghz when it was setup as it's the kind of thing I keep note of.
I can reset the adapter and start again but with the disparate reporting being shown @ various times, despite Inverter claiming not being online, gives me pause and makes me wonder if the fault lies elsewhere?

When you said

anglefire9 hours ago
bunglesmate make sure your WiFi is on 2.4Ghz rather than 5Ghz - turning off 5Ghz until it’s connected if you need to. Once they are connected then turn 5Ghz back on as they tend to stay on and reconnect ok in the future.

Were you referring to turning off the 5ghz on your router? I initially read it that you were suggesting turning the Dongle onto 2.4ghz and afterwards turning 5ghz back on again..........??? Apologies if I completely misunderstood.

Many people run their provider supplied routers using the standard settings which effectively combines the 2.4 and 5ghz frequencies using the same SSID and password.

Whilst I am not an expert by any means I am not a novice either and purposefully separate out my 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks onto their own SSID's with different passwords. That way I maximize my wireless throughput in the house so that my PC gets the fastest connection + bandwidth possible (4x4 AC Router to 4x4 AC Media Bridge). Tablets, phones and other devices run on the slower 2.4gz as they typically only have 1 or 2 aerial's built in.

bunglesmate
Try this:
Here is the connection guide for the Dongle:
https://kb.givenergy.cloud/article.php?id=1&oid=1

You will need to RESET your GE WiFi Dongle see the Guide on where/how to do this and go through the setup process again.

If you are looking to connect to the system to review performance data or make changes you would need to use either:

• the App (Android or Mac version) or
• the Desktop version which is connected to through a web browser (RECOMMENDED)
  The desktop app can be accessed by typing the following into the top bar of your browser:
  https://www.givenergy.cloud/login
  Enter your details as required.

Hope that helps.