Advice please just had the batteries put in unfortunately the dongle did not work when fitted, when it was up and running we had two bad days weather wise and now battery is down to 7% but it still shows as exporting to the grid, surely this should be topping up the battery and not sending to the grid?
Is there a setting that needs changing?
thanks
Just start by setting your inverter to ECO mode and sit back until you understand a bit more.
This will only charge from solar and discharge to the house (unless the battery gets really low in which case the inverter will charge from the grid to the lower threshold to protect the battery).
Don't be tempted to add any tariff unless you are sure you know what it will do because they can overrule everything.
The next stage is to consider when to charge from the grid. If you have a spit tariff then you can use the 'Timed Charge' option to set when you want the battery to charge. Outside of this time (if you enter one and enable it) it should revert to ECO.
If you get in a muddle 'Rest to Defaults' and ECO will be enabled and everyting else off.
There are ways to automate this but it's best to keep it all manual until you are sure you have it working as you want it.
Thank you - 3 batteries were sold to me as being able to be all most off grid, after 2 days down to 4% battery so no chance of that
25_lilyholt The batteries carry out a calibration when first installed (and after firmware updates) which involves a discharge to 0% and then a charge to 100%. The time spent at 0% while discharging and at 100% while charging can be quite long. The 0% and 100% displayed State of Charge (SoC) are actually 15% and 95% of the complete range that the battery can operate at. (See this link). These top and bottom stops are reserved by Givenergy for warranty purposes. Once the calibration on each battery is complete, you will normally operate between 4% displayed and 100% (actually 95%).
Can you please tell me why one of the batteries flashes when at 4% but the other doesn't thanks
25_lilyholt
Hi could you let us know exactly what you have fitted please.
Also do you have a "Time of Use Tariff" - Peak and Off Peak?
How many and what type/size of inverter
How many and what size of batteries
Also just to be clear, confirm which inverter they are connected (some people have an Inverter + Solar PV then have an additional, separate, inverter and batteries installed).
You will want to set ECO mode on your inverter (if you haven't already done so).
ECO MODE IS GIVENERGY'S SETTING THAT TRIES TO BALANCE BATTERY STORAGE, PV GENERATION AND HOUSE USE.
On the left hand side choose
"My Inverter"
Across the top of the page on the right hand side is
General, Software, Notifications, Settings, System Data, PV Data, Battery Data, Grid Data, Inverter Data, Meter Data
Choose
"Settings"
Just below those headers you will now see
ECO
Timed Charge
Timed Discharge
Timed Export
Battery Options
Reset to Defaults
Click on each sub header to change options.
You want ECO - Enabled
Timed Charge - Enabled
You need to set the start and end time to match your Tarif.
(this is the amount that the battery will charge up using the Grid @ Off Peak electricity).
How much you choose to charge the batteries at night will depend on the total that your batteries will hold and how much electricity you use in your household.
One the weather gets better you can adjust this so that your batteries aren't fully charged over night and more Solar will be used to charge up your batteries.
WARNING: CHANGING ANY OTHER SETTINGS WILL AFFECT HOW THE ECO MODE WORKS.
You should be able to see this using your Smart Meter In Home Display - somewhere in there will be your meter reading(s), At the minimum you will see a single number. But, depending on your IHD, you may see a meter reading for Day Rate and Off Peak (night rate).
For example we have a single 9.5kwh battery - we charge to 100% at night, during the off peak rate, at the moment and typically we will have run out of battery by the time it starts to get dark. Ideally we would have another 5kwh of battery which should cover our entire household load for 24hours.
Take your Meter Reading, AT THE SAME TIME, for a few days, a week is ideal, then simply deduct the following days reading from the previous days to give an approximate daily electricity use. This will give you a rough estimate of how much electricity you use each day.
If your daily use is, for example, 10kw and your total battery size is 15kwh then you should set your battery Off Peak charge to about 70%.
If your daily use is, for example, 5kw and your total battery size is 15kwh then you should set your battery Off Peak charge to about 35-40%.
If your daily use is, for example, 10kw and your total battery size is 10kwh then, whilst the weather is still poor (not sunny) you should set your battery Off Peak charge to 100%.
Just one thing to note is that when your use exceeds that which your inverter can supply you will still draw from the grid to meet demand.
If you have a 3.6kw AC Inverter is limited to 3.6kw peak
If you have a 3.6kw Hybrid Inverter Gen 1 is limited to 2.4kw peak and Gen 2 3.6kw peak
If you have a 5kw Hybrid Inverter Gen 1 is limited to 2.4kw peak and Gen 2 5kw peak
Assuming I recall those numbers correctly
So if you have your kettle on 3kw and you Electric Oven, say 1kw, and an electric hob, say 3kw that's a total of 7kw PEAK your PV/Battery system can only supply 2.4 to 5kw so the balance will be drawn directly (imported) from the grid.
I'm not using the batteries as too expensive to charge up - waiting to have a smart meter fitted (changing suppliers now as not happy with current supplier letting me down). The 1 battery had this when they were fist fitted and they did something online to stop it but now 2 batteries are doing it and 1 is ok so just wondered if this is a fault. system is set to eco and only fitted in Oct / Nov so not really used yet - have charged up batteries to 50% 3 times when they were supposed to be changing meter but quickly discharged. and not using the heating as cannot afford it
Ok I think I understand.
If you can get onto a time of use tariff with cheap rate @ night time then you absolutely will want to charge them up during that period. This is called "Load Shifting" (or sometimes Peak Shaving).
Essentially you are moving the bulk of your electricity cost to a cheaper rate by charging the batteries and then using that stored charge to power your house when the rate is more expensive.
Just an FYI lots of people swap to Octopus Go (EV Tariff) even though they don't technically have an Electric Vehicle. Octopus don't seem to concerned.
The TRICK with Octopus is to call them and transfer to them as your supplier. Once you have switched over they allow you to change from their Standard Tariff(s) to Octopus Go or Agile etc.
If you do go to Octopus then quote "Open-YAK-351" to them and we will each get £50 credit on our bills.
https://share.octopus.energy/open-yak-351
There are some other suppliers that offer time of use tariffs too though most seem closed to new customers - whether the swap then switch method discussed above works I don't know.
If you are solely relying on Solar to Charge your batteries up then whilst the weather is poor, sun is low in the sky and depending on your Solar PV Orientation (South facing panels are best) you will likely find that you have little charge going into the batteries.
ECO Mode prioritizes solar PV generated to;
1 - House Use
2 - Battery Storage
3 - Export
As an example upto 2:15pm today we have the following numbers;
Generated - 12.23kwh
Solar to Home - 5.08kwh
Solar to Battery - 1.82kwh
Solar to Grid - 5.33kwh
Our battery is currently 100%.
If I have wanted to I could have checked the weather forecast yesterday and seen that sunshine was forecast for the day and instead of charging my batteries to 100% @ 7.5pkwh I could have gone for 50-75% and saved a little.
The standard GivEnergy Application ie. ECO mode is not particularly "smart" so you can manually change the battery charge amounts manually using the weather forecast as your prediction.
You can use Home Assistant (or other computer based scripts) to automatically attempt to adjust this but that takes some interest/knowledge in how to set up Home Assistant/alternative software and setting up scripts to do this.
So the answer to your query whether seeing low battery percentage is normal, the answer is - yes it can be depending on many factors.
Once the better weather arrives and if you still see low percentages all the time then that is an indication you may have an issue.