Hello all. It's all new to me.

Hello all. I have a system that was installed in October. This has a factory setting for battery discharge to 1% with a top-up from the mains to 4% when required. The inverter is set to ECO. As there isn't enough solar at this time of year to charge the battery to more than 10% and this quickly discharges will it be ok to run the system like this in the winter months, or should I have a periodic charge to 100% to keep the battery exercised? I don't have a cheaper night tariff supply yet. Thanks for any advice.

You should be fine leaving it as it is and it will look after itself. Get yourself on a split tariff as soon as you can - you are wasting an opportunity to save money from the get go.

Having sead that there is a thread (https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/713-firmware-3007-has-not-fixed-sudden-soc-drop-to-0-problem/1414) which details a problem some users are having with the Battery SOC getting out of kilter and, annecdotally. it seems regular charging to 100% reduces the problem. If you experience any of the issues in that thread (basically the battery SOC jumping down to 0% or up to 100%) then consider an alternative strategy.

Many Thanks cluelesscris for your lightning-fast reply. Split tariff for me! Ian

IanJameson
I agree with cluelesscris.

I am in a very similar situation to you. Very little solar to fill up the batteries, so mostly floating between 1% and 4% for most of the time. Even though it says the battery is at 1-4%, the reality is that it is probably at about 10%, as GE adds in a safety buffer. I say 'probably', because if you have the SOC drift issue, it could in reality be much higher (new inverter software due out soon).

If the system does think the battery is getting low enough to present a risk, it does do a quick charge from the grid. But there is certainly no harm in doing a 100% charge every now and then, as long as you accept you will lose c.5% of the energy in charging it up, and then another 5% discharging it back to the house....

Hello, I’m new to this game also, system installed last month. I’m down in the SW so we do get some sunshine, I had just over 4kWh today. I’m using Oct Go, so I charge to about 80% on a night in the cheap period & I'm finding that is sufficient to run me through the day together with any solar top up (unless there is lots of washing, tumble drying, cooking etc), still playing with the % & weather forecasts.