Newbie charge/discharge question

Hi all

I am a complete noob, so apologies if my questions are basic and have already been answered elsewhere (I cannot find them).

My GivEnergy system has been commissioned today. I am on Economy 7, so I would like to charge my batteries overnight and discharge them during the day. Whatever settings I try I cannot stop the batteries from charging during the day and they won’t seem to discharge to reduce the reliance on the grid (charge level is currently circa 60%). I have tried changing the settings on the app and via the portal, all with no effect. Can anyone point me in the right direction.

My installer did say the system would take a day or two to settle down. Is this correct and could this be the cause of the problem.

Many thanks

David

It will do a full calibration run first, which will fully discharge the battery to zero and then fully charge to 100%. This will take a while to complete.
Once thats done then:

• Go into the web portal.
• Go to My inverter.
• Go to Settings.
• Click "Reset to Defaults"
• Go to Eco. Move the slider to Enabled. Click on Submit. Make sure that it reports back that it has been saved. Eco will try to minimise both import and export but using any solar generation to power the house. Any excess will be sent to the battery before the grid.
• You can then set a Timed Charge to coincide with the cheap period and set the slider to the percentage SoC that you want to exit the cheap period with. Again, click on Submit.

Don't enable Timed Discharge or Timed Export. Also, use the web portal first as it seems a bit more stable/intuitive than the app.

Zakalwe Thank you, I will leave it to do its thing.

Hi, I think when the system is installed it has to do a calibration run, so it charges up - discharges and then fills back up again. Unfortunately, you can't control what tariff it uses when it does this, so your calibration run may use " full price" electricity.

Once this is done you can think about setting your charging period to take advantage of ECO 7. You should go to the inverter icon, and select settings. Make sure ECO is enabled as this makes the most efficient use of your solar generation and battery to minimise import of expensive electric from the grid during the day. To charge overnight keep the ECO setting enabled and then set a timed charge for how long you want it to charge for.So say your battery is currently at 40% charged and your ECO7 runs from 00.30 to 7.30am you can decide how much extra % to charge by moving the slider (e.g. in current no sun weather you could charge up to 90% as this leaves a little gap that can be filled by solar if we have any) and input your times e.g. 00.45 to 07.00. The battery will charge at full power until the selected % is reached and then bobble along keeping it topped up to that level as you use your base load overnight until the charge period finishes. Then ECO mode takes over to minimise expensive import from the grid.

I can look a little off putting at first because on the dash board you will see a tiny amount of import each time you switch appliances on. This is because there is a slight time delay between you throwing the appliance switch and the battery kicking in. This is normal so don't worry about it - it's a piddly amount of electricity as it only takes a few seconds for the battery to catch up. If you really want to minimise grid import use your big energy hungry appliances (oven, tumble drier, dishwasher etc) in series rather than in parallel, because the inverter can only convert so much juice from the battery. If you put them all on together then it will take the maximum your inverter can deliver and then import the rest from the grid.

Oh, and some people say it is best to change settings using the dashboard rather than the App even though the screens refresh less frequently. So change settings on the dashboard and then look at the App for real time (ish) data to make sure what you have set is working

Karen Thank you, that’s very helpful.

Zakalwe My batteries and most of the installation kit arrived today ready for the start of installation on Wednesday.

Your very useful description describes everything I'd like to do except I also have an EV which I need to charge periodically. We have a Zappi going in alongside an older dumb charger which we'll keep. How do I configure the system to charge the car at the same time as the batteries please? We are on Octopus Go Faster, 9.30pm to 2.30am.

There's also an Eddi going in but later as it's currently unavailable.

Many thanks

Set the Timed Charge in the GivEnergy portal to match the Go timings. Then set the Zappi to charge in the same period. Or set the car to charge in the same times.

Zakalwe Great, not as bad as I thought. Appreciated.

sponev Building on what @Zakalwe said, if it's not too late, ask your installer to put in a "solar" CT so you can see the Givenergy system on your myEnergi app. If you wanted to use the Zappi with an AC-Coupled, you'd probably specify one anyway. It's not essential for a hybrid, but a nice to have and an alternate source of information if you're questioning the Givenergy app display.

Our Zappi is set to ECO+ with 100% Minimum Green Level, 100W minimum export and 20 seconds time delay. Those settings work well with our hybrids to divert grid export to charge the car once the Givenergy batteries are fully charged. We also have a scheduled charge on the Zappi which coincides with the Givenergy Timed Charge period so both systems charge off-peak.

Tim Excellent info thank you. I've taken a screen shot for reference. I'll also see about that additional CT, there is a spare I believe.

Hi, I'm going to piggy back on this post. I'm also new to this, had my system a week, 2 x 5.2kw, GivEnergy 3kW AC coupled inverter.
After pulling which hair I have trying to figure out the best settings Givenergy told me just to leave it to do its thing on eco and timed charge with Octopus go. Now my question, 100% after charge then when I get up in the morning it's down to about 90%, washing machine sometimes on at the same time as charge. And by the time 8.00 at night comes battery is just about dead with only limited things on during the day.
Does this sound about right? I was expecting around 8-10 hours of normal use from the battery.
Any comments would be great. I know it's early but it's becoming obsessive looking at the app and cloud.
Cheers.