Warranty period

Most people seem to say the GE products come with a 5 year warranty, but that data sheets say 10 year warranty on the front page.

Is it 10 as standard or up to 10?

My inverter (5kw hybrid) had a 5 year standard warranty. You can purchase an extended warranty to take it to 10 years, my installer sorted this so not sure about cost. I think the extended warranty has to be purchased within 12 months of installation.

I think this was 5 years on inverters and 10 on batteries. Purchasing via EON gets 10 year inverter warranty as standard.

Though the NEW datasheets say 10 years on everything! Just saw them.

My inverter shows a 5 year warranty on the portal, but my installer says I have 10 years... they say the portal is showing an incorrect warranty period (at least for me).

THALL

That’s one of the things that made me ask.

I want to buy the GivEnergy system and 3 things are causing me brain ache:

1) warranty as if needed I will add in the cost
2) how do the hybrid systems work with the smart solar only chargers like zappi that need ct clamps
3) Availability (particularly around the v2 inverters).

The warranty would be nice to get a definitive answer from GE.

kram the installer's documentation did say the inverter has 5 or 10 years warranty. I assume they offer the extended warranty as a selling tactic. Givenergy say the installer must inform them that they bought the extended warranty so it's added onto their system, which my installer seems to have not done so I guess I'll have to chase them again.

I have a zappi, and so far it's working fine but I've not tested it with the battery installed yet (it's coming today). I already set it to maintain a minimum export of 100w as per recommendations from other forums to avoid draining the battery which seems to be one of the biggest issues with the hybrid installations.

kram Ok so

1 if you buy a GE system now it appears both inverter and battery come with 10 years warranty
2 ZAPPI - you can set the CT clamp on the PV to be GEN and STORE. Then use ECO+ as the default mode and set a schedule boost charge to charge from grid. Then on the GE dashboard set your battery to timed charge for the same time as your schedule boost on the zappi. You can then move the % bar on the timed charge to suite your needs.
3 Not sure. If you check out the trade seller sites like trade sparky that will give you can idea of availability.

I have an AC GE inverter and my zappi setup is pretty much the same as I have listed in point 2. ECO+ set all the time for solar charge, with a timed charge for cheap overnight rate.

Hope that helps. My EV is not due until May so not actually tested this but pretty sure its correct. You should just need 2 CT's, 1 for PV / Store and 1 for grid. if you have a single PV array etc.

THALL you can set the CT clamp on the PV to be GEN and STORE

Good to know about this setting for the CT clamp, I haven't got the CT clamp installed yet for the PV/battery (didn't know we needed it until after the electrician had left and I didn't see the solar panels on the zappi.. duh... he's coming back later to do that.

THALL Then on the GE dashboard set your battery to timed charge for the same time as your schedule boost on the zappi

So when you set the battery to charge from the grid the battery doesn't discharge at all during this time, right? I'm thinking about this to take advantage of the Octopus GO to top up battery at night, we only use excess solar for top-ups during the day when we have driven more than expected (we have a small battery in our hybrid and in winter it goes down really quickly!).

Huntzie Correct when the battery is set to timed charge it will not discharge at all and will only charge from grid to the % you set. So you might might 4% in the Summer and 100% in Winter etc. I am Go Faster 2130 so my Timed charge is set for 21:30 - 02:30 and it does not discharge during that time. So anything else on or comes on in that time benefits from 5.5p per kw keeping my average kw cost low. Currently at 5.99p this month (my export data is not appearing or it would be lower)

Also this will help https://myenergi.com/wiki/zappi-v2/13650-2/ Found this very useful to set everything I needed. Now if I could only get Vauxhall to set to SoC charge limiter to help battery life.....

Tiny bit of extra information...if the battery is set on a timed charge then it will still discharge during this period until the SOC reaches the set charge percentage.

judgepd Mine does not do that. Checking my data my battery does not discharge during the timed charge window and I am pretty sure it should not discharge during that time either. Mine charges to the SoC % then does nothing until the Timed Charge window ends

Are you sure?

If your current SOC is below your set percentage it will charge up to that and hold it. If your current SOC is above your set percentage it will keep discharging until it reaches the set percentage (if it does) and then hold it.

For me this makes sense.

judgepd I can test it. But I was under the impression during that period all the system will do is charge until the SOC % is met. Effectively the discharge is turned off during that time. My batt is fully charged I will set the SOC to 4% tonight and see if my background tasks drain it to 4%.

So are you saying the SOC is the overiding the factor? Not the time, or somehow turning off discharge, it is all SOC based?

Thanks for confirmation on the warranty.
On the zappi front, when it’s on eco+ how do you stop it from discharging the battery? I thought it needed a ct clamp on the battery AC so it didn’t discharge and obviously this can’t be done on DC connected battery.

kram supposedly setting the zappi to always maintain either 50 or 100w of export stops it from eating into the battery (this can be done on the wall unit, within advanced settings). But I haven't tested this yet as only had the battery installed today.

Huntzie

Be interested to see if it works for you as that’s a blocker if you can’t use solar only top up.

Am I wrong in thinking a car needs 1.4kW of power to charge? If so when you get 200W of export output surely it would pull the extra 1200w from the battery?

My aim is to plug it in when I’m at home during the day and have it take the excess to the car battery, but nothing else. I want the home battery full for the overnight use.

If they’d just hurry up and support v2g in the world already.

Huntzie My inverter shows a 5 year warranty on the portal, but my installer says I have 10 years... they say the portal is showing an incorrect warranty period (at least for me).

Ours is the same. We paid our installer for the extended 10 year warranty, but on the portal it only shows 5 years.
Installer said it is a common mistake made by GivEnergy, but it is clear on our invoice that the extended warranty was paid for.

kram if in Eco+ you move the percentage bar (Minimum Green Level) to 100% it will make sure to only start charging when there is at least 1400w export available (or 1450/1500 depending on the minimum export guaranteed you set it to). Then it will charge at at least 1400w from solar only. If the export goes below 1400w it will pause charging and wait for the next time your export level is at above 1400w again. It's good for if you have time to wait. I think any other setting will just drain the battery whenever it needs a top up to charge at maximum speed.

Thanks 👍
Sound like what I’m after for refilling slowly and cheaply when I don’t need it for a few days. Can then switch to fast to finish it off the night before I need it 👍

Just need to understand how it’s different to the behaviour on an ac battery.

Edit: - looking at it essentially you get eco+ or fast. The standard eco becomes a solar and battery or grid so a bit pointless .

Back on the warranty piece I notice a term that says no third party controls in the warranty doc. Does that mean using the API or letting an energy supplier such as octopus control charge/discharge for a tariff such as agile?

judgepd Looks like you are right. My system is still discharging down to the set soc which is not what I want it to do! I thought timed charge meant discharge was disabled. So in Summer if i lower the soc my ev is still going to eat any remaining battery. I guess thats not a bad thing but that is not what I wanted. Very annoying.

THALL For me that operation would make sense. My cheap time starts at 00:30 so I could set essentially a minimum battery level and discharge some solar from the previous day in to the car while at the same time knowing I have enough battery to get through the morning until the solar takes over again. If my SOC is lower than the percentage set it would charge up to that level.

judgepd For me that opens the idea of a second battery etc. IE spare capacity I could put into the car. Which is frustrating as I thought my current solution was finalised....

My warranty is supposed to be 10 years. Install date is 27.8.22 and showing expiring 27.8.27. Installer (Halo renewables) are saying the warranty extension is done but blames the inverter supplier/wholesaler for the delay. I think they said it was Midsummer that they bought the warranty from.
Is this a normal state? Should I chase this with Midsummer as Halo are not very talkative very quickly. Can GivEnergy say if the warranty is in process?