Inverter response time, act faster to loads?

Just wondering if there are any plans to improve the system response times to load? I have a feeling mine has improved since the battery replacement but I can not find anything documented about improving this.

THALL
How much time are you talking about? I find it's normally just a few seconds.

The only time when mine don't kick-in quickly enough, is when they've both gone to sleep - in 'Waiting' mode - typically late at night / early morning, when the baseload is all that's being consumed. I must confess, they can then take a minute or two to wake up then, and if the kettle or similar goes on, it can get frustrating watching 3kW of import during such times...

Not long in terms of time but in terms of how much power you can draw from the grid was equalling between 10 and 15% of my daily consumption which should be much lower. I noticed this during the Summer and most confess to not looking at it again since having new software and a battery change over. A Tesla Powerwall appears to react much faster to loads. The GivEnergy is good but if Tesla can do it better I think something could be done to improve the reaction speed of the givenergy system. It needs to balance export and import better and act faster ideally.

Another example is right now my battery is at 93% charge, house is consuming 170w but I am pulling 17w from the grid. That background 10% does add up, and then add in spikes for high loads like the kettle or oven etc.

Just checking what you mean by "response times to load". My head is in the digital space so I am thinking load of screens and data in the portal.

But I think you mean response time of the inverter to ramp up its output to meet increases in household demand (load)?

To be fair, the answer is the same to both. Yes

In terms of responding to demand, don't go by whats on the portal. The refresh rate for that is only every 5 minutes. It works a lot quicker than that. Look at your IHD if you have one. They refresh quicker, say every 5s or 10s.

simon_swinburne
Yes - I find the IHD quite useful for this, but my main go-to bit of kit is the myenergi app - which works with the zappi EV charger (well, actually power supply unit!). Now they've migrated us all to different servers on AWS, the refresh rate is normally very good, and the (almost live) energy flow diagram provides a really good at-a-glance idea of where all your energy's going (always assuming you've got enough CT clamps set up etc).

simon_swinburne Hi, yes tried the in home smart meter. I need to retest this as I mentioned I have a brand new battery and software since I last checked it. But previously my house usage was always more than the givenergy system monitored.

I think there are 2 parts to this, looking at the data for yesterday Octopus smart meter says I used 11.37kwh from the grid but the givenergy dashboard says 10.3kwh. Which means CT clamp accuracy? Then secondly maybe because of this accuracy the inverter can not ramp up as fast as a tesla powerwall. Basically through the day I end up drawing 10% of my energy from the grid instead of the battery. Yes I realise some of that 10% will be when load is higher than the rated 3000w output of the device. But I first noticed this in August testing with just background load and 1 device.

This is what I have been told by a man in the know
"The reason for the delays is normally the country rules for ramp up and down. There are rules for the grid that solar farms have to adhere to and batteries have to adhere to too"

I have also seen this: with local monitoring the demand from loads like oven, iron, and heating panels is very spiky once they are up to temp, and the lag in inverter response (both in turning on and off) means that I import and export more than absolutely necessary, so it would be great if the response could be improved. On the subject of the dashboard showing import lower than Octopus, your figures seemed quite high so I've looked at mine and am seeing the same - but one reason would be the 5-minute interval on the portal means it doesn't necessarily read at the same time as Octopus - if I pick a day when the portal reading was taken close to midnight, the difference between the readings is much less.

@"THALL" likewise on the difference in monitoring - the myenergi hub stuff says one thing, the Givenergy another and finally the smart meter something else.

The biggest split seems to be on the myenergi side compared to the smart meter which is ultimately what I am billed for so that's the one the really counts.

The regulatory stuff is the G98/G99 type approval for all the microgeneration equipment including PV and batteries - I would guess that Powerwall can appear to respond faster as it has a bigger inverter output potential so its ramp up and down process for most domestic loads as a % of its maximum value is larger.

Load management in inverters is a difficult business especially dealing with DC to AC conversion, especially as the voltage is also being transformed at the same time from around 50v up to 230-240v for UK use. I know when the PV array is charging my battery I see very small loses in charging compared to an AC source to battery which does produce some noticeable losses.

Comparing Octopus to the Givenergy portal is showing a split of up to 250wh max per day for me - as that's £21.19 for the whole year if it varies by 250wh each day in Octopus' favour I can live with it.

As a single powerwall installation was only a little cheaper than the 6kw of PV, 8.2kwh battery, Zappi, Eddi and Hub installed it would take longer than the life of the powerwall to offset the difference in operation. Even at 15% of daily usage for 20kwh a day that's 18 years to recover the £5k extra in the cost of the Powerwall install - if you use less daily it'll take even longer.