Is my battery dead?

My battery hasn’t been working for almost a week now. I noticed the other day on the app showing 0.0%, when I went to investigate I found the battery off. I powered it up and got a long bleep followed by a red light and then it powered itself off. This was earlier this week and I put this down to the cold temperature given that the battery is mounted outside.

The weather has been slightly milder the last few days here in London, so today I tried to get it going again. This time no red light when I went to power it up, but got a rattle noise from the battery and then it powered itself off. I see BMS communications failure in the logs.

At the start of the year I had an inverter issue which tech support fixed remotely by doing a full cycle on the battery. When I tried to restart it over the NYE period myself, it wouldn’t work via the portal. Seems like tech support have additional admin privileges. I’m not sure if the inverter issue is related to the battery issue I’m facing now.

Anyone else had this issue with their GE battery? Mine is a Gen2 9.5kwh battery with a Gen 1.5 inverter. It’s been installed for a year now with little to no issues until the last few weeks.

See posts on here about click of death.

If it sounds like that, try isolating the battery from the inverter (Via the breaker) and switch the battery on.

If the battery stays on (longer than a minute or so) the inverter may be broken and will need investigation by GE.

If the battery turns off within a minute then the issue is with the battery not the inverter. Also a job for GE or perhaps your supplier/installer under the new ways of working.

TX200
Thanks for the response. Click of Death…wow!

Let me try isolating this and see what the outcome is.

I was told by the tech support to reach out to the installer, however the installer thinks it’s strange he should come out to look at it given that it’s been working fine for a year and it’s not an installation issue. Plus it’s a bit far for the installer to travel just to carry out some basic troubleshooting that i could potentially do. Not sure why they didn’t just tell me to do what you said. I’ll give it a go and let you know.

I haven’t read up on the click of death but if it relates to the inverter making a continuous clicking sound then it’s definitely the inverter. I noticed in December the inverter continuously clicking. When I asked tech support they ignored it.

I just isolated the battery via the breaker, switched it on and it stayed no. No rattling noise from the battery. I see it sitting with a 73% charge.

Will reach out to GE tomorrow.

It will click every so often, it's just how it works, it's the relays I think that click as they connect and disconnect circuits.

The problem is when it clicks fairly soon after being turned on, continuously, then the battery turns itself off. That's the click of death.

raj I was told by the tech support to reach out to the installer, however the installer thinks it’s strange he should come out to look at it given that it’s been working fine for a year and it’s not an installation issue.

Unfortunately this is an issue, passing the buck as to who is responsible.

GivEnergy don't have very many field engineers so rely heavily on the installers to do the field support. They quite naturally say "well I installed it and it worked fine, so its not an installation issue, talk to GivEnergy".
Unfortunately this misses the point that your contract is with the installer as they supplied the equipment.

Hope you don't get batted back and forth between the two. See other chats on this forum about that

geoffreycoan
Hmm Im all for saying use installer in initial warranty period (aka installers warranty period) over GE.

Outside of that its GE's warranty then surely, and I think GE is taking the mick in expecting a installer to be on call for their full warranty cover (what is now 12 years warranty) post installation to offer resource for fixes especially when its clearly a hardware issue.

What happens if Installer goes bust what do GE say then? Do they make customer pay for a different installer to have a look?

TX200 the rattling sound that I hear after switching the battery on, could this be the click of death you refer to? Cos once this rattle (or series of clicks which are very close together) stops, the battery switches off.

With the battery breaker off and the battery switched on, I didn’t get any rattle. It’s still powered showing 53.2v (71%), just not discharging cos it’s disconnected.

Could it be the inverter? Or is it the battery?

raj it'll be the inverter.