Mode settings - am I being dumb?

I’m having great difficulty getting the mode settings to work with the new portal

Basically - I want it on eco (old mode 1) most of the time, but if I have the car plugged in to charge over night I want the timed discharge mode (old mode 3?) to stop the battery draining to the car during the Go cheap period.

If I have eco mode on on the new portal it works happily. If I then switch on timed discharge, the eco mode switch stays on too and depending what mood it’s in it’ll drain to the car sometimes but not others. If I switch eco off with timed timed discharge on then it seems to shut down and not give any output- or occasionally just starts dumping at max output to the grid.

Then randomly it won’t start charging in the morning when the solar wakes up sometimes and it’s all getting me most confused how to operate it correctly 😕

Eco + Timed Charge will stop the battery discharging. Set it to cover your Go hours.

Note: if for some reason you don't actually want the GE battery to charge during this period, set the max charge percentage to zero.

Hmm. Hadn’t thought of that - bit of a fudge but I guess it’ll work

Also worth taking a look at this thread:
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/311-wwhy-doeas-the-battery-discharge-during-the-timed-charged-period
For an explanation of how it works.
The explanation by other members clarified for me how it was logical to use up excess solar charge from the day before, if the Timed Charge setting was less than 100%.

As mentioned, timed charge, same as your cheap EV rate. It wont discharge in a charge slot, even if full

Woodlands I do get that idea, but (like last night) the battery has emptied itself into the car overnight again, and now its wet and cloudy and yuk today and I'm importing at day rate from the grid as the battery is empty and the solar is producing next to nowt.

It always used to work fine with the old portal so I'm wondering what I am doing wrong with the new settings 🤷‍♂️

@richardsmith99 What happens if you set the "Timed Charge" to 100% and the same period as your Go cheap period?

If we do that it works OK and does not discharge from the battery during the "Timed Charge" period, along as we have left Eco enabled and the "Timed Discharge" & "Timed Export" disabled.

If the "Timed Charge" is set to less than 100%, then the inverter software will try to maintain the lower setting (say if set to 50%) so will either discharge or charge to get to about 50% and then maintain that level, by charging & discharging 1% or 2% to try & keep it balanced.

BTW, Not sure why it is designed to do that as it seems very inefficient. When set to 100% it appears to go into a "Waiting" mode once it reaches 100% and stays there, until the "Timed Charge" period ends and then goes back to normal "Eco" mode. It would be good if when set to a lower % it would do the same.

I'm having a similar problem I think.... dashboard seems to totally ignore what I set and changes the settings of ECO on and off at will!
I set to charge 23:30-05:30 and discharge 05:31-23:29.... despite that my battery is charging and it's 16:30..... eh!?!
No idea - but the scheduling is definitely not working.

Timed charge worked fine last time I tried it - although it did indeed do that waving up and down by 1-2% as you mention.

Its just got me narked as it used to work fine just flicking between mode 1 and mode 3 on the old portal and now I can't replicate that behaviour 🤷‍♂️. Occasionally I've made it do what I want but that seems to be more by accident. The problem is that I'm asleep while its misbehaving so don't see the result until morning 🤣. Maybe a job for next round of night shifts!

Last night as suggested set it to eco and timed charge (I set an arbitrary 15% as there was plenty of charge in the battery) and it still dumped everything down to the charge level into the car 😡

Is this actually a firmware bug or something more to it. I know I’m not being thick as it always used to work happily with no issues

The behaviour I observe with eco on and timed charge is :-

• If at the start time the battery SOC is above the charge to percent then the house draws from the battery
• If at the start time the battery SOC is below charge to percent the battery is charged from the grid to charge percent and for the remainder of the the charge to period the house draws from the grid (assume as battery SOC == charge to percent so will not draw from battery)

Which seems to agree with what I’m observing

What I want is to make it behave how it used to behave in what was mode 3. I don’t want to be faffing about adjusting and guessing the charge level each time - I always used to just click it onto mode 3 when I was charging the car over night with the times set as 0430 to 0029 and it worked happily.

I’m definitely more convinced this a software/firmware issue with the inverter - which I updated about the time the old portal was switched off, and the timed discharge function is not functioning correctly.

The article in the knowledge base still refers to the old system too 😕

Couple of thoughts :-

• if you set the charge to 100% during the timed charge period. As long as the battery is not already at 100% SOC I would expect both battery and car to be charged and once battery is charged for no draw from it until the end of the charge period
• In battery options there is also a charge and discharge power settings Never used but would expect if discharge power is set to 0 it will not discharge.

richardsmith99 To support you Richard, I have noticed the exact same problem, where we used to have both Eco and Timed discharge set to the same hours as you, since a week or so ago, we seem unable to have both, when you set timed discharge it either automatically switches OFF eco, or accepts it but doesn't work.

For now I've cheated and set an iPad up to use Apple Shortcuts and the GivEnergy API to essentially switch the battery OFF over those times.

Paul

I've put a support ticket in to see if there's anything amiss 👍

Eco and Timed discharge isn't a valid combination. Eco implies discharge to meet demand 24/7. If you want to restrict discharge to a set period then turn Eco off and use Timed discharge.

Eco and Timed Export would be valid since you are exporting at full power in the time window you specify.

If you turn eco off, with timed discharge (not timed export) on, it just dumps at full power (as you'd expect timed export to work)..... 🤔

richardsmith99 That is bugged then. But nothwishtanding that, you can see why Eco + timed discharge doesn't make sense conceptually.

richardsmith99 take it youve tried a full reset to default settings on the portal and tried again?

have made a suggestion to Giv that they publish a guide on how each mode works including in relation to working with eco mode. This can then be used to help users understand what is expected and to validate if observed behaviour matches (or not)

Yes. I only left it on because switching it off dumped at full power! The old portal of course switched one mode off when you turned another on....

hoggy

Yes. Same results.

locked The knowledge base still has a guide to the old system on but not the new one.

richardsmith99 the info really needs to be easily accessible from the portal. Not sure the KB is readily accessible from there or even the right place to put for most users

I recently sent in this feedback:

"Is it possible to have an inverter mode which allows you to keep "dynamic mode" on whilst having a timed export period? Thus "dynamic" would be over-ridden for the period of export, then reinstated.

At present, if I select "timed export", the batteries do not charge outside of the export period."

The reply I got from GiVenergy was that it currently was not possible "because of how the registers have to be set", but was something they were considering for implementation in the future.

Hope this helps.

Timed charge and discharge is working for me with eco on. I set in app and then checked portal to confirm settings. App sometimes shows battery to charge to 4% instead of 100% as it is set.

Giv-HY5.0
Firmware Version
D0.450-A0.451

My firmware is D0.534-A0.534, battery is 3005.

locked 100% thank you
First thing a new user like me wants to know is how to get the best out of my investment.
The current documentation is out of date.
I would love to see them set out some use cases or scenarios and provide guidance on how to best setup a system

can anyone point me to a user manual. I've had the storage battery for about 18 months now but the installer never provided any info/documentation. I've assumed it was set up for the battery to be used before my household used the grid. I'm not so sure! It will become more important and relevant once my wife gets hold of her electric car in about 10 months time. I need to understand if the battery is becoming fully charged or not... for instance. Currently the green flashing lights only seem to indicate a very small amount of charge...and its never been any different!

jeffbentley https://kb.givenergy.cloud/article.php?id=13&oid=2

LeiChat if you call that a manual 😉