Battery not charging?

Hi guys, my system was only commissioned yesterday, all seemed fine, now today our smart meter is showing we are exporting 1.5 kw, however the battery does not seem to be charging?

paulsammy Not your fault that the installer failed to brief you on what to expect. When they finish the installation, they kick off a battery calibration which will fully discharge the battery and fully charge it from grid. It can start as soon as they select it, or it can take a couple of days before it starts, or it may never happen. Check the charts on the web portal to see if the battery has fully discharged and charged yet. It's quite an anxious time when it first goes live but give it a few days or a couple of weeks, and the novelty might wear off; or you may end up lurking this forum answering questions or posing new ones.

Hi Tim
thanks for your reply
it seems to have charged to 62% yesterday when they were setting it up, and then it discharged to zero and now seems dead - no lights on the battery, is that what should happen?

What capacity is the Portal showing? It should automatically do a "recovery charge" if the battery gets empty.

Out of interest, what Inverter model is this?

paulsammy Go to the 'My Inverter' card on the Portal > Select 'Settings' then go down to the bottom of the list 'RESET TO DEFAULTS' and click 'SUBMIT'. Make sure it gives a positive acknowledgement. If that doesn't kick it into life it might be an idea to contact the installers next.

Hi Riscy
thanks for the interest
The inverter model is GIV-HY5.0
On My Inverter the battery capacity shows as 10Ah-0.51kWh-(0 packs)
is that what you need to know?

Hi SilverArt
thanks for your reply
I have already done as you suggest plus reset the inverter all to no avail
Thanks

zero packs! no lights on thje battery.
check the dc switch has not tripped, if on press the button on the side of the battery to turn it back on..
if the switch tripped see if you can smell any burning around it and if you can leave it off and ring your installer.

Hi positor 1
Where is the DC switch? and how will I know if it's tripped
Is the button on the right hand side at the top of the battery? can I just press it anyway?
Thanks

dc switch should be close to the batteries, they connect through it to the inverter.
If it is off there is no point pressing the battery buttton, yes its top right hand side.

positor1
Hi done as you suggested, now have a red light on the battery plus one flashing green segment
Thanks

paulsammy A call to Givenergy is in order. A red light on the battery isn't good news!

Tim
Ok thanks Tim will do

paulsammy Could it be that it is expecting to charge but has no power to do it? Try Selecting 'Timed Charge', on the My Inverter > Settings say for an hour and see what happens. Keep a check on the cables going into and out of the isolator switch to make sure they don't get warm, especially close to the switch.

Morning guys
I spoke to the installer last night, he told me he could see what the problem is and that the battery would go through a full factory reset over night and the problem would be sorted
It's not, the only thing that has changed is that now there are no lights on the battery
I'm loathe to do anything else until the installer has been back to me

Yesterday was sunny, but the battery had'nt charged, when the installer called in the afternoon, the switch had tripped.
Re-setting the switch it then started to charge off the Grid.
At 10am this-morning I found the switch had tripped again, I reset it & seems ok now & the battery has since charged.
We are keeping close tabs on what is going on.
Monitoring, we found that occasionally the battery discharges to the Grid, whilst powering the house at the same time.
Can anyone explain this please.

Jamescolwill01 Get your installer back! The DC isolator is a known weak point in the gen1 installation and I guess, the reason why the gen2 has bespoke cables and no isolator (other than the one on the underside of the inverter). The isolator contacts can fail to connect properly, causing overheating and a trip, or the termination of the DC cables can be flawed, also leading to heating and then a trip. Ours lasted less than a week but has been fine since it was swapped out by the installer. It will trip again and only a careful re-termination of the cables (if that's the reason) or a swap if it's the contacts will resolve the problem.

Jamescolwill01 the battery discharges to the Grid, whilst powering the house at the same time

That's probably the inverter trying to catch up with the appliances switching on and off. There's always a small overshoot on the ramp up and ramp down. If you want to cringe, watch your In Home Device for your smart meter while there's ironing going on.

Update
The installer has now been back and said that the problem was his fault, battery now reset and is now commissioning (whatever that means) but battery is now charging, so watch this space.

paulsammy battery now reset and is now commissioning (whatever that means) but battery is now charging

The batteries are delivered with about 50% charge. During commissioning, the battery is discharged to fully empty (beyond the usual 4% limit) and then fully charged to above the normal 100% operating limit. This is to enable the Battery Management System to work out where the high and low buffers specified by Givenergy are. Once fully charged (which can take a couple of hours after reaching indicated 100%), the battery then supplies house load (as long as your inverter has ECO mode enabled) and charges from PV if available. The battery will discharge down to 4% in the absence of a timed charge or PV charge, which is the normal "Empty" value.

Thanks Tim
Fingers crossed all seems to be working fine