Just had my solar PV and battery system installed. I have solar panels with a capacity of almost 5Kw, a 5.0 gen 1 hybrid inverter and a 9.5 Kw battery. My battery seems to be set to a maximum charge/discharge rate of 2600w so I can not store all the energy at the rate my panels are capable of generating, the rest is going into the grid. Is this a fixed limit of the GivEnergy Inverter/battery or something my installer has done?
Sounds a bit low to me. I have a different set up 3.2kw panels, with AC3.0 and 8.2Kw battery. Mine can discharge at 3.3KW and max charge rate from grid is about 3.0KW (due to losses from AC-DC switch). Have you tried seeing what your rates are set to? On the portal go to the inverter tab (computer screen icon). Select settings tab. Select Battery settings and see what your battery is set to - you use the slider to adjust the value. Then press submit. You get a banner along the bottom of the screen saying if your change has been accepted. If it doesn't take the first time just press submit again. You can alter your charge rate by going to timed charge and moving the slider there in the same way. If these are already set to the maximum it may be something your installer has done or there is something else going on. Changing settings in the portal is more reliable than changing them in the app.
Also - almost forgot. In the portal leave the "Timed discharge" button well alone - it just dumps all your battery power straight to the grid! Best to run just on ECO (dynamic) setting permanently and set a timed charge if you need to top up from the grid at any time.
dnhenderson007 That's the limit of a Gen 1 hybrid.
Karen Your AC3 has a higher limit:
Thanks Chris - I didn't realise that - so there are some advantages to AC 3.0 set up after all. Is this why so many people are swapping to gen 2 inverters?
Karen One of the reasons, yeah. I'm tempted but not sure the extra ROI is worth it.
Thanks for you help. I’ve checked my inverter settings and I’m at the maximum so I’ve reached the gen 1 inverter limit. I’ll have to sign up for Outgoing Octopus to get some money for the amount going to the grid on a sunny day.
Mine is also set to 2600w charge and discharge, but I've actually set it to discharge at 1300w... because it's rare that we go over that... only when boiling a kettle for example.
As for charging... mine will only charge at 2.42kw rather than the full 2.6kw... I assume that's down to the transfer losses.
But even at 2.42kw, I can charge my 5.2kwh battery in about 2hrs.