Helping a newbie interpret graphs

Hi all,
We've had our system (PV, battery, hybrid inverter) installed on Jan 18th this year and we're trying to understand what's happening. This forum and the unofficial wiki are super useful, but I'm a little overwhelmed by all the new information! To be honest, it's more complicated then I thought. Would somebody be so kind to help me interpret the data from the dashboard? I'm not sure if I'm not understanding things right, or if our system is still a bit funky and I might need some more support from the installers/givenergy.

Here are three graphs from January 23rd. Some background info: we charged the battery from the grid from 00:00 to 04:00 (just to try it out, I've disabled that now), and our energy usage might be a bit high because we have an electric boiler for heating our home.

Usage graph from our grid energy supplier:

Givenergy power graph:

Givenergy energy graph:

First of all, our energy supplier says we've used 33.1 kWh on this day, whereas the givenergy graph gives a total of 13.54 kWh of which only 8.29 kWh comes from grid. This can't be right? I guess the battery charge from the grid is not included in this figure as grid import (why not?)? Looking at the power graph you can see the battery charges at about 2.4 kW for 4 hours, so that should give a energy usage from the grid of 9.6 kWh right? However, even adding this figure doesn't total to the 33.1 kWh our supplier says we've used (13.54 + 9.6 = 23.14). The battery discharge is given as 4.42 kWh in the givenergy dashboard. Again, looking at the power graph you can see it discharges at roughly 2.55 kW from 4.00 to 7.30 so that should be more like 8.925 kWh?? If adding this figure again (23.14 + 8.93) you come to 32.07 which is closer to the energy our supplier says we've used up, but then it still doesn't make sense, because the battery discharge shouldn't be seen as usage from the grid and we shouldn't be paying money for that twice. So confused...

Second, am I correct that 'load power' in the power graph refers to the total power our house is asking i.e. converts to the total energy consumption? In that case, it doesn't make sense our energy consumption is really high when the battery was discharging and that our consumption rises exactly with the generation of solar power. From the grid import line it appears as if we have a baseline energy consumption with some peaks (probably when the boiler is working or we turn on the washing machine etc.). I would think that would mean the solar power at that moment should actually be excess and should go to charging the battery, which isn't the case? Or is the 'load power' more like a total of all sources of power on the system i.e. solar + battery + grid? Even so, in that case the energy usage is still very high between 4 and 7.30 as seen from the energy graph. I can't think of any reason why our house would use that much energy at those times, and it just seems silly the battery was discharging at those moments?

I'm definitely going to read loads on this forum to learn more, but for now a bit of guidance on this would be most welcome!

Hi Daniel

I had my system come live on the 23rd January 2023, and seeing similar things with mine. We don't have electric boiler.

I will watch this feed with interest.

I currently have battery charge of 67%, 0%% load on the house? I'm currently importing 6 watts from the grid and it showing the grid import going to the house and the battery. Not sure why I would need to Import charge when I have 67% in the battery 7.2kw charge from the solar panels today. Total generation today was 11.3kw with 4kw consumption.

Lets hope we have someone that can explain how we should be looking at the graphs/system in an easy understandable way 🙂

Are you on an E7 or E10 tariff?

cluelesscris I'm with Utility Warehouse and not using any of the off peak energy tariffs at the moments

Heath The thing that sticks out to me is the missing import on the middle graph when the battery charges. Import only really shows after about 6am and then looks pretty much as you would expect.

The battery discharge is at full power until dead. Now one might expect some of this this to be exported but it essentially shows it is meeting a load demand from the house. I think the load and import/export are reversed.

Check the clamp on the incomer. It might be the wrong way around. There's an arrow on it (you might need to open it up and the arrow is on the inside). The arrow should follow the desired flow of energy - from supply (meter) to your distribution board.

cluelesscris The arrow was the opposite way. I've turned it round so will see what reading we get. Cheers

Heath I really don't get why installers get such a simple thing wrong . . . We had someone else on the forum last week with the same issue.

cluelesscris Thanks for suggesting! I tried turning the clamp, but ot resulted in grid export while it was dark and no load at al, so I think the clamp was actually the right way around.
Any other ideas? I find it suspicious that our consumption always exactly follows solar generation i.e. there's never excess power to go into the battery. In the last two weeks the only battery charge ever was when forced from the grid, which didn't show up as import and the discharge was weird like in the graph: at full power until dead.

danielledejonge Odd. I would have put money on the clamp being the wrong way around. I assume you checked the clmap was in the right place - on the right cable? I think you need to get the installer out. Something ain't right!