As the title says, I woke up this morning and my battery was at 5%. Checking the history it made a massive drop from 48% down to 1% at 08:00. Then started to charge from the grid until 08:27 when it reached 5% and then let the PV take over the charging. Any ideas what is going on? This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this happen.
Everything looks normal from 06:22 to 07:33
Then after 08:00 we drop from 48% to 1%,
Seen it several times on my system too. Suggested causes range from SOC drift to individual battery cells going out of sync. Not sure that there is a definitive answer yet or (perhaps more importantly) a definitive solution. As far as displayed SOC is concerned, I have learnt to expect the unexpected!
Woodstock thanks. This is a brand new battery I got 3 weeks go to replace a previously faulty one.
It doesn’t give me hope that I can rely on what battery capacity is being reported.
feidhlim similar happened to me a while ago. I was told the following by support:
This will occasionally happen due to the percentage we display in some cases drifting slightly away from the cell voltage readings, the battery operation however is based on charging/discharging from the cell voltages, it should not be service affecting as it is just the percentage displaying incorrectly occasionally, this will sort itself out after a couple of days, and you may see a jump in the charge when it does. We are actively working on a solution to better display this percentage figure.
Huntzie
I’ve had the same thing, several times in the 3 months I’ve had the battery. Also had the same reply from support.
It does seem to have sorted itself out now though, maybe it takes time to properly calibrate?
Huntzie Thanks. I never seem to notice a jump in charge graphs. Only discharge. And the total discharge metrics for the battery since it started to discharge last night doesn’t add up to it actually being empty at 08:00 this morning either.
feidhlim may be worth reporting to support then for them to have a look
Huntzie Yeah I’ll do that Monday. Cheers
feidhlim I had this a few times, then it stopped doing it but I then noticed that charging from 4% to 100% was not even close to 8.2kWh. It was more like 7kWh and sometimes less. After a firmware update, SOC calibration and then a site visit, GE are coming out next Friday to replace my battery. I'm feeling worried that from the sounds of this your experience and others on the forum that there could be a design flaw in the 8.2kWh battery.
I've been running GivTCP for a while and pull the data into home assistant and have a reasonable idea of how my system is working.
Firstly I have a 3.6kW hybrid inverter with 2 strings of 6 panels totalling 2.37kW each (15deg off South and west) with a 8.2kWh 100% dod.
At a battery voltage of 45v (this morning 44.9v) it kicks in a battery charge to rebalance the cells - roughly 1kWh gets pumped in from what ever source is available - grid in my case this morning and probably always will be in reality) to get the voltage over 52.5v when it stops charging and then the voltage drops back to about 51.53V
This took my percentage to 5%.
I haven't particularly looked at the amount of charge for the battery to get to full - but I've not noticed it being way out of range. Voltage when full is about 55.5V
I have experienced two different scenarios where the displayed battery SOC does not reflect reality.
In the first I believe the battery SOC drifts and is OVER reading, which causes the "Battery Reserve % Limit" and "Battery Cut off % Limit" to be bypassed. The battery continues a normal discharge until the low voltage limit is reached (true 0% SOC) and an automatic charge then kicks in to bring the battery back up to the "Battery Cut off % Limit". Battery charging then continues as normal.
I have also had the battery cells go out of sync and this caused the battery SOC to drastically UNDER read. In my case the displayed SOC dropped from 84% to 0% and again an automatic charge to "Battery Cut off % limit" kicked in. The difference in this scenario is that the battery SOC continues to under read (displayed 4% equalled real 88%) and the battery charges normally until it hits the upper voltage limit, when the displayed SOC suddenly jumps to 100%. The battery then recalibrates itself to have a capacity equal to amount of energy taken in from the start of charging to when it hit the high voltage limit. As there is actually quite a bit of energy in the battery at the start of charging, the battery is recalibrated to have a capacity less than what it should be.
As can be seen, both scenarios have the displayed SOC suddenly dropping to 0% and an automatic charge to "Battery Cut off % Limit" being initiated. The crucial difference is that first more or less sorts itself out (albeit that it shouldn't have happened in the first place) while the second leaves you with a reduced battery capacity which might not be immediately apparent. In my case the second scenario was corrected by running a calibration from Remote Control but I cannot say that this would always be the case.
I've had this recently, albeit between two batteries (5.2kWh). The second slave battery effectively wasn't holding it's charge. I forced a battery calibration, which seems to have solved it, but I wonder if it'll drift again.
Had something similar yesterday where my battery went from 97% down to 0% instantly as soon as the kitchen cooker was put on. Battery has been unusable since, and only showing 0.5KWH capacity on the portal, should be 8.2kwh. Spoke with Givenergy this morning about it, and apparently they are looking into it but heard nothing since.
My battery was installed in Dec 21, and has been a little temperamental since day 1 (SOC all over the place, and resets required). I'm still hopping its just a loose DC connection somewhere, but I'm starting to feel something more fundamental is wrong with either the battery or inverter.
Mine is brand new and only getting 8-90%, 14% lower usable than expected. How is a calibration done, maybe I should try that?
jd A calibration should have been done when it was commissioned. But I think it can be done in the portal or send GE Support an email and they'll trigger it for you.
Last night it did a normal charge to 90% again and then jumped to 100% instantly, odd! I'll trigger a calibration at midnight as I imagine it takes a charge cycle (if I can find it that is!)
Update: it's back to only charging to 90% and the calibration options are greyed out. I'll need to try support, I've just not got time to sit on hold
jd
email them. Or send Feedback. They will respond
Sorry for the slow replies folks. It slipped my mind. But today I had the same thing happen so I have emailed support with the details and screenshots of both events.
The battery was reporting 88% capacity at 18:00 on April 14. Which should be 7.2kWh (this is one of the newer 8.2 batteries that should give an actual usable capacity of 8.2)
Counting up the metrics for what the battery reportedly discharged from 18:00 April 14 to 07:53 April 15, it only sums to 3.29 kWh so I should have around 3.9 kWh left in the tank.
But at 07:53 April 15 it dropped right to 1% again.
I'll update with what support says. I also plan on doing a manual calibration tomorrow.
Support have said the below. But to me it doesn’t add up with the metrics for what the battery discharged.
The battery was reporting 88% capacity at 18:00 on April 14. Which should be around 7.2kWh (this is one of the newer 8.2 batteries that should give an actual usable capacity of 8.2)
Counting up the metrics for what the battery reportedly discharged from 18:00 April 14 to 07:53 April 15, it only sums to 3.29 kWh.
So I should have had around 3.91 kWh left. I can’t imagine “drift” is accounting for this.
This will occasionally happen due to the percentage we display in some cases drifting slightly away from the cell voltage readings, the battery operation however is based on charging/discharging from the cell voltages. This will sort itself out after a couple of days, and you may see a jump in the charge when it does. We are actively working on a solution to better display this percentage figure.
If you run it from 100% (or whatever it thinks 100% is) all the way to empty does that equate to about 6.5kWH by any chance?
hoggy I meant to do a calibration from 100% on Saturday but forgot (I get free electricity from the grid 9-5 on a Saturday). I've a reminder to do that this coming Saturday and see. Calibration will discharge everything and re-charge.
However, on the days that it as dropped to 1%, when it does get back to 100% I can see the charge amount is around the expected 8.2 kWh
This happened again this morning. Battery was reportedly at 53% at 2022-05-07 06:33:43 and then dropped to 1%.
Battery was full and started to discharged at 7pm yesterday nice and slow and steady as there's barely a load on the house. There's a dip between 02:00-02:30 which is expected, water heater doing a cycle. But then a sudden drop. From the numbers I have, the battery would have only used approx 3.7kWh between 19:00 yesterday and 06:30 today.
I've gone back to support, but I don't accept that "occasional slight drift" is the reason I'm losing 4.5kWh of capacity. It is neither "occasional" or "slight".
I can't have faith that my 8.2kWh battery can actually service 8.2 kWh. I have to assume I only have half that capacity.
There was a page on the old dashboard that showed the actual battery capacity. I really want that data to be shown on the new portal too to keep an eye on degradation.
Have you asked for a calibration cycle?
THALL I did a manual calibration after the first instance on April 2nd, but not since, and had the second instance April 15th. So I’m not that confident a calibration will do anything either really unless I did a calibration weekly. But that would be a ridiculous cadence.
I don’t want a calibration to happen outside of 9-5 on a Saturday because I have a tariff that gives me free electricity then and I don’t really want to pay for upwards of 8+ kWh to come from the grid to recharge.
feidhlim It might very well be an GE engineer needs to come out for a visit. I would not accept 3 calibrations in such a short time span either.
THALL I figure as much. This battery was only installed new mid-March, after the previous battery pretty much failing completely. Not having good luck with GE batteries.
feidhlim I am on my second. My install was last July and got a new battery September. I have had no issues since though.
Had another battery SoC plunge event this morning.
Decided to dig back and see how many times since 23 Nov when my 100A switch was replaced have resulted in a 0% SoC condition (which it shouldn't do as it should hold at 4%).
I've got 12 events ranging from very low SoC around 5% up to 34%. Various states of load, ie just background to full export settings.
Battery is regularly run up to 100% SoC and has plenty of opportunity for the BMS to complete cell balancing etc.
Over 2 events per month is not ideal frankly especially as a lot of folks don't have any!
yandards GE support have told me a fix should be coming in the next week or two for this. I dunno if it’ll be battery or inverter firmware but keep an eye out for an update.
Had this happen lastnight for the first time. Its the first time the battery has been below 50% for quite a while.
I hope fix is released soon.
I also have had this happen twice now. Installed 4 Apr 22 (2 x 8.2 batteries with a 5.0 hybrid inverter) ; dropped from 25% to 0% on 20 Apr and from 51% to 0% early this morning. I presume the firmware update will happen automatically, please correct me if I wrong
Mine did the same in the wee hours of the morning..
I've also just noticed that it discharged to -16kW and now is showing 100% at 24kW!
Not bad for an 8.2kW battery! 😆
I've seen a couple of these drops but from am already low level. (<15%). I see my battery firmware version is 1042, not sure how updates should get triggered, if that has anything to do with it?
SilverArt that's a really old firmware, current release is 3005, there is at least 3 or so updates from your version.
You should be able to go into the inverter card on the web portal, select the software tab and then hopefully there is an option to update.
I couldn't see an option to do an update, I'll check again.
From what I gather from Facebook I think inverter firmwares are still updatable by the user on the portal (if there is one available) but battery ones you need to contact GE for them to do it.
No idea why but someone over the weekend tried to update their system & it only did the inverter - the above was fed back to the group about the battery one being a support request still after they'd spoken to someone at GE.
Had another instance of this again overnight. 5th time in around 3 months. Pretty fed up of it to be honest. Especially since each time I report to support they tell me a firmware fix is “coming next week”.
There is any option to change from % to remaining kWh? Or this is intentionally so people cannot claim that declared capacity is not what they advertise?
My battery has been installed 2 days ago and from what i have notice that my 5.2kWh battery minus 10% DOD should be around 4.7kWh usable capacity but from my calculation is below 3.5kWh. Its like i have being 25% robbed.
feidhlim I sent an email to support yesterday asking if they could recalibrate our battery or apply the latest firmware. They came back the same day and applied the firmware update (3007) and the battery went through a full discharge/recharge cycle (I was advised this would happen). Might be worth giving that a shot?
Early days, but it looks like this has solved our problem with reduced battery capacity. Time will tell if we see any more of these SOC drops.
paultottie cheers. I got back onto support and they said I should see the firmware update on Monday.
HipHopAst I don't think there's anything in the system that tracks kWh properly beyond SOC, some Voltages & kWh in / out per day (which won't be any use if your battery is floating up and down all day with load.)
I did a 1 line wonder via the API for my 80% DOD 8.2 which just converts SOC to kWh - I guess they could stuff in the app in seconds - var kWh = (SOC/100)*6.56).toFixed(1);
BUT it obviously relies on the SOC being correct such that 100% is truly 6.56kWh of stored energy (in my 80% DOD case).
It sounds like yours is not - hence this is pretty useless as it'll just drop faster anyway.
feidhlim Any indication if that is a one-off release of 3007 to you or a general release to everyone?
Woodstock I don't know. Guess we'll find out Monday.
feidhlim My take is 3007 is in testing for a wide release and not something that needs to be requested, but if you do you stand a chance of getting it earlier.
I feel the need to say "me too". I've had 5 sudden drops to zero since the last SOC.
22-03-29 02-30 through 06-00 SOC cycle
The drops to zero were at:
22-04-23 06-05 39%
22-05-23 22-40 9%
22-06-16 08-45 53%
22-06-25 04-15 34%
There were others before the last SOC which was done after a firmware upgrade to 3005 which was supposed to fix it.
Needless to say I'm not happy with this.
Firmware 3007 was available for me so I pulled the trigger. Battery was "100%" when I hit update and once things rebooted the battery shot to 0% but is discharging it's full load (expected)
Time Voltage (v) Power (W) Temperature Percent (%)
2022-06-27 9:03:33 52.91 2315 24 0
2022-06-27 9:03:22 53.39 1383 24 0
2022-06-27 8:53:28 53.93 0 24 100
2022-06-27 8:48:05 55.04 -2262 24 100
2022-06-27 8:42:42 55.03 -1863 24 100
2022-06-27 8:37:15 55.23 -2426 24 97
2022-06-27 8:31:53 55.12 -2241 24 95
2022-06-27 8:26:29 55.06 -2321 23 92
2022-06-27 8:21:06 54.67 -2061 23 90
Hopefully this is the last time for a while a battery calibration is needed.
"Update Firmware" button has appeared for me too. Sod's law that it is currently 100% cloud cover and raining! Going to wait for a sunny day before taking the plunge. It's going to be a race to see if I can get the update installed before the next SOC sudden drop to zero as I am currently showing 84% SOC with the battery voltage at 49.7V !
Woodstock I tried to update the firmware on both batteries this weekend when the buttons appeared. One took the update to take it to 3005 while the other failed and remained at 3001. In the early hours of this morning the one at 3001 fell from 82% SoC to 0% and topped back up to 4% (fed from the other inverter/battery). The portal shows both batteries now at 3005 but each with an Update Firmware button.
Since one battery was at 13% by the time I looked, I decided to update the firmware (to 3007?) on that battery. It's now discharging (3% SoC) and the other inverter/battery is soaking up the excess. Fortunately, it's a lovely sunny morning here (showers promised though) and I'm hoping that the battery will be able to complete a charge to 100% SoC before the end of the day. If that works out, I'll know which firmware version the battery is on and update the other tomorrow, weather permitting. The EV will also be able to take a charge tomorrow, so it can soak up the discharge if I get things lined up ideally.
Tim Well the cloud cover broke up a bit so I decided to give the update a go. I was on battery firmware level 3005 and the update has taken me to 3007. As suspected, I was very close to getting a sudden SOC drop to zero and when the calibration started my battery (single 8.2kWh 100% DOD) went from 93% SOC to 0% after discharging only 0.8kWh! Battery is now charging on a not particularly sunny day and, like you, I am hoping to get up to 100% before night time.
Waiting with interest to see if this update will give me continued use of my stated battery capacity rather than suffering repeated slow declines to less than a quarter of it. I had my battery installed in November '21 and last winter was the second worst for sunshine in the 12 years I have had PV. At the time I attributed the higher than expected grid import to this lack of sun but I now believe that it was, at least in part, due to my actual battery capacity being much less than I thought it was. If 3007 has the desired effect, next winter will reveal the truth!
Glad 3007 is available to you.
0% after 0.8kwh is a sure sign that the battery wasn't right internally. It was operating daily below 5%. Hopefully the 3007 and re-calibration will sort it for you.
I found the firmware version didn't update till after the calibration had finished. Well it didn't on a manual firmware load via USB key. Maybe different now its on the Portal
TheDragon (GivEnergy) That's interesting. My firmware update went to 95% complete quite quickly and then took a fair while to finish the last 5% while displaying a "verifying update" message. Battery calibration did not start until the update progress bar had reached 100%. My upgrade was via the portal button.
OK totally opposite to doing manually.
Done via USB, you load the supplied bin file to the root of the USB key form the battery. Put the stick back in. Status flashes once, Then flashes red/green for around 10 seconds. Beeps and reboots. That's it. It looks like nothing has happened
Did them all, Portal reported old version. Got installer to initiate the calibration, once done, 8 hours later, the Portal showed the new version as 3007.
TheDragon (GivEnergy) Yes, my system was showing 3007 as soon as the progress bar reached 100% (battery is still only up to 60% and still charging). Did you happen to notice if your calibration charge to 100% was a forced charge all the way (see my thread "3007 Battery Firmware Update" for why I am interested)? If it was an old school stand alone manually initiated recalibration then I expect that it would have been a forced charge as ever was. It is just that the automatically initiated recharge, after installing 3007 via the portal, looks to be doing something different.
Yes. Forced to 0, then to 100. Pre upgrade SOC was showing 15% in the portal, after update, the SOC showed 69%
SOC initiated, SOC dropped to 33% gradually, before plunging to 0%. Then re-charged.
Had loaded in 2kwh that Morning, dumped nearly 7 before it hit 0% So I was missing 5kwh across 3 batteries
Surrounding this - 3007 has been released on the online portal after being in testing for some time.
This should have improvements made to this particular issue reported in this thread, and the changelog has been updated on the knowledge base - https://kb.givenergy.cloud/article.php?id=22&oid=11
Dual battery users may need to do local updates, contact support@givenergy.co.uk for the relevant firmware file for loading this on the batteries locally.
Requested a firmware update to be emailed on 30/06. Ticket is still open. The "new" update button does not work for me. Trying it loads to 6% and then sticks forever. I also notice the SOC option on the inverter remote control has gone missing. Had another drop from 48% (3.9KW) to zero this morning. Who do I need to kick to get f/w 3007 emailed?
Has anyone had success with 3007 preventing these sudden drops to zero?