Problems with a Full Battery

Hi Guys, first post on here.....

Set up is 12x 425w Panels (=5.1Kw), GE Gen2 5.0Kw Hybrid Inverter, plus 2x 5.2kw GE Batteries. Had this installed mid Feb23. Been on Octopus Flux for a couple of weeks.

On the whole, happy with the system, seems to work as expected and can happily charge up batteries overnight on cheap electricity, and then sell any surplus to the grid the next day for a bit more. System does revert to Eco mode when not charging between 02:00 and 05:00.

Problems come when the batteries are full - dashboard reading of 97% - 100%. Actual battery levels are currently 84% (Primary) and 98% (Secondary. Note: Batteries are often at different percentages and Primary doesn't always have less power).

Batteries seem at that point very reluctant to give any energy to the house, eg when I put a kettle on, all the additional power needed at that point by the house (Base + Kettle) seems to come from the Grid. Same happens with 9.0Kw electric shower, dishwasher etc.

Prior to 97% things seem fine - kettle on = discharge from batteries. Shower on shows amount from solar (say 2kw), amount from batteries (3.5kw), and balance from grid (4.8kw) - includes approx 3kw base load. Also, tried discharging the battery to the grid when batteries are showing as 97% - 100%, and this doesn't seem to work either.

I've also noticed when the batteries are trickle charging from the solar (100w - 200w) - showing on the dashboard as 100% and "Charging", then the dashboard seems to mis report the solar generation, often with 0-100 reading, which then will slowly climb up to 300-400w before going back down again. When the dashboard shows batteries at 100% but discharging, solar generation seems more accurate to actual conditions outside.

I've spoke to GE on a number of occasions, and they've basically confirmed that when the batteries are at high percentages, they won't discharge. They've done a couple of re-calibrations, numerous resets of the inverter, changed the inverter firmware back and forth from the latest to the most recent versions, and also asked me to source a couple of USB sticks for the batteries. Opening them up (the batteries) USB sticks were present and correct, but GE still wanted me to remove them (both stuck in with some kind of wax/glue), download some firmware to both, and replace and restart. This didn't seem to do anything.

Currently we're doing work arounds in house to stop using from the grid: Only filling the batteries up overnight to 80% so that we've got some time in the morning to have showers, do the washing, etc. before the batteries are fully charged. Also of note, when generation is low, ie less than the house base load, the batteries discharge down past 96% and things work as they should so evening cooking is from the batteries, rather than the 16:00 to 19:00 Flux price.

Currently, not sure if this is just how the system works (or doesn't) in some scenarios, or whether there maybe something wrong with the inverter and/or batteries.

Anyone else had similar issues, or can offer any suggestions?

Thanks in advance

Colin

Not sure this helps but.....

When the batteries are full, and the house is running from solar, the batteries/inverters go into an idle state (actually called 'Waiting' in the inverter status field). Sometimes they fail to wake out of this state, when they are required to discharge to the house. I'm just wondering if this is happening to you but much more frequently/always - if you look in the Inverter section of the Portal (hover over the little coloured screen on the left), you can see the current status (and this gets logged in the System Data logs).

If your system IS getting stuck in this mode, then it may help GE to understand what is happening in your case (as they will understand what conditions should trigger it to wake up again).

colinchatfield Apparently this is a known issue on gen 2 inverters.

Hi Chris

Thanks for the info. Had a message back from GE this morning saying that they were waiting for a response from China. And following my suggestion of them setting the charge level down to 95%, they’ve said that they can do this for me as a work around. Typically, it’s a poor day for Solar today so not much chance of getting the batteries full.

I did try to see the current status in the logs, but could only find numerical data under the system data tab. I have seen the idle status, but problem exists when idle, charging or discharging.

Hopefully GE setting charge limit to 95% will enable more consistent battery availability/usage.

Cheers

Colin

To see the inverter status, in the Portal: Click 'My Inverters' on the left. Click 'Inverter Data' on the right (its the 3x3 box). Status values can be seen in the second column, which you can check back through.

Mine do this sometimes (dual AC3), although a large enough load wakes them.