GivEnergy EV Charger Hybrid mode

I've been using the GivE EV charger (with dedicated OB115) for off-peak timed charging quite successfully.
The reason I purchased this charger was for the hybrid mode - i.e. to direct potentially exportable energy to my EV (when above 1.4kw) before sending (more of it) it to the Grid. But I am struggling to make this work on the few sunny days we've had so far in December!
Energy priorities for daytime should be:

1. Power the house (primarily from PV)
2. Charge the batteries to 100%
3. Charge my EV to 80% - varying the charge rate depending on the excess PV from #1
4. Export power to the Grid (presumably when batteries and EV are charged)
   My system is 3 strings of 4kw PV each, 2 x (Gen2 Hybrid inverter + 9.5kwh battery+ EM115).
   I have had a few occasions when my system has been exporting 2kw to the Grid - but the EV charger is staying in idle
   I have been in touch with support and they suggested that the "Plug and Go" needed to be enabled - but all this did was pull energy from my battery and grid to charge the EV.
   What is the correct configuration for Hybrid (excess PV) mode charging?

I've disabled plug and go since that experiment didn't work

Sorry, can't help, but I'm quite interested in how this system is configured. Are the two inverters paired up in some way, so that they share one config (in a master/slave sort of way, if that terminology is still used). Or do they operate independently, and if so, presumably only one of them is integrated with the EVSE - I can see that being quite hard to get right. Can you get into a situation where one battery discharges into the other, for example?

When I got solar, I envisaged charging car from solar, but the hassles of passing clouds, and the min requirement of 1.4kW, make it seem not worth the bother, when I can import overnight for 9p and export excess for 8p. (And for those on intelligent, import for 7.5p and export for 15p, which reverses the thinking entirely.)

Rather than filling house battery before considering EV, I think there's a case for reversing that - prioritise ev when power is above 1.5kw, since house battery can accept energy at lower power. If filling batteries takes until after midday, there may not be much "high-quality" power available, and once drops below 1.4kW, you can't harvest what's left.

The whole thing does not really make sense. GivEnergy really could do with releasing some documentation with examples in showing what each setting does.

Surley the solar option with plug and charge enabled is just hybrid ? And if I am in hybrid I want it to start charging straight away which is why I am in hybrid. I struggle to see what the actual use for plug and go is.

I am happy with mine and its working well with a schedule set. Unfortuatly I dont get enough excess solar or time at home at this time of year to test the solar divert features.

Lab140 Thanks for the comments. I agree improved documentation is required. Including the RS485 port polarity. Hopefully someone from GivE will chime in....please?

Hi DD
The 2 inverters are not paired - I believe that bit if tech is still in R&D? What I will say is that the software upgrade a few months ago (910/3012?) massively improved the responsiveness of the inverters and there was a lot less instances of what I term "chasing" (where 1 inverter discharges into another).
Although (IIRC) GivE do have an "Inverter Control" option planned - where the EVSE would be more integrated with a specific inverter - this is not that case.
I like your idea of prioritising the PV power by power level (<1.4kW to the battery, >1.4kW to the EV) - it makes a lot of sense - but that would require the "Inverter Control" (integrated) option IMO.

AdrianSharman Sorry I have just reread your post and realised I missed that you have hybrid inverters already. I have a gen 1 hybrid and my EVSE is set up in Config D. ( You can see this in the app under the settings tab on the EVSE page ) This negates the need for a seperate meter as the inverter is feeding all the data to the EVSE.

It does not really help with your origonal post though.

I still feel most of the isses / confusion people are having is down to a lack of documentation. Givenergy have provided instalation manuals but I think worked examples showing what each mode did would be useful. Maybe @GeorgeRawding could do a video on it ???

I'm having a similar problem with mine.

Single Hybrid Inverter + 2x5.3kw batteries + EV Charger.

My batteries just hit 100% and theres excess going to the grid. So I plugged in my car, chose Solar mode + Plug & Go.

I expected the excess to go to the car...but its just taking putting 7+ kw into the car and importing 6kw.

Apart from stoping the charging, nothing I do changes the behaviour.

I did manage to get mine to work i.e. charge from excess solar when batteries were full. I just set Solar mode and left it at that; when activating PlugnGo or Start Charging it pulled from the grid so I turned those off/hit stop. The inverter/EVSE took about 5-10 minutes to decide to start charging again but it did eventually at a rate of around 1kWh going into the car. When a cloud came over and solar dropped below the 1.4 threshold so pausing the charge, it then took another 5 minutes of thinking time after solar returned to +1.4 to start charging the car again. I had to just leave it to get on with it as constant monitoring was too stressful at my age! That was a couple of weeks ago, not had conditions to try again since (batteries not 100% and sunny)
HY5 Gen 3 with 2 x 8.2 batteries. Config D. EVSE installed 22nd Feb

Trying to achieve something simple on the Config D.

Charge off the PV or drain the battery and never import off the grid.

I think these are my settings to achieve this:

Set the Mode to Hybrid
Set the Max Battery Discharge to EV at 3kw
Set Solar Export Split % to 0%

In Settings > Other, set the Max Charge Power to 12A or under.

I think these settings keep it so it's either using the PV and then using the battery to sweep up the difference. If the PV goes over 3kw (rarely as I've got a split panel setup), that should charge the battery.

I still can’t get mine working. Essentially I want the same as @AdrianSharman in that it charges my battery primarily and then the EV up to 80% and then excess goes back to the grid.

Right now, I’m on config D so it’s on ‘inverter mode’, I’ve got a fully charged battery, over 3.5kw of PV and it’s not charging the EV. I simply don’t understand how this works. Can someone from GivEnergy explain please

SamA Try setting to mode to SOLAR and clicking on the 'Prevent Battery From Discharging to EV' ....I have found in a similar situation you describe it seems to make the inverter 'wake up' and assess if it can charge and often does after 15 seconds or so - got mine to start charging this way in the last hour.
Not what you expect of supposedly integrated solutions I agree but might work for you until perhaps you get an official GE response

Config-D (solar) worked for me for a while - but stopped working after 5th April for reasons I don't understand (see log snippet below). I can see evidence in the inverter remote control logs of it working on 5th April - interestingly the same command was written to both of my inverters - I had previously assumed there was just 1 lead inverter for config-D but I guess since it is in the cloud it can aggregate multiple inverters?
So now I am limping along in Config-C...and occasionally trying config-D to see if it has fixed itself / is working again.