Hmmm, Not sure if I am losing it but I thought the default Battery Charge and Discharge levels I seem to think it was 3000W but now I notice on the App and on the Web Control Panel these are now at 1300W.
Has something changed - no audit trail that I can see?
Am I mis-remembering things?
Hmmm I couldn't get it above 1305W and decided to do a re-set to defaults and it is now back at 3000W.
Not sure how or why they got to 1305W without any input from me?
If anyone has an idea how this can happen it would be good to know as I guess it can mess up a planned charge / discharge session if you don't notice it.
I wonder if it got confused about the battery capacity. The max charge rate is half the capacity I think. Perhaps a reset/reboot cleared it's confusion.
Just really odd no audit trail showing how it got changed. The reset defaults cleared it.
Don't like these unexpected and unexplained happenings...
I am pushing the batteries more as I am manually managing them since my switch to Agile on Friday.
I will choose an automated approach at some point once I work out what I want automated...
M_J You can setup limited smart tariff automation using the GivEnergy portal, but most people have now moved to other solutions.
There are three cloud based solutions that you can use for automating your battery charging and discharging : Octopus R&D, WonderWatt and MyEnergy Optimiser.
You’ll find other forum conversations about all of these and there are people on here that use all of them (although Octopus R&D did have some problems a while ago and not sure whether they are resolved).
The alternative is to run Home Assistant on a PC or Raspberry Pi in your home. This gives local connection direct to your inverter (no cloud and internet connection required). You can then automate the charging and discharging yourself (the script GUI is reasonably easy to use), or use apps like predbat that will automate it for you to optimise your spend based on predicted solar generation, EV charging, house load, etc.
Again, plenty of posts on here about predbat
Hmmm the power has dropped to 1305W again on All and 1300W on Web portal. Again I didn't set this. Again I can't get it back to 3000W. I guess another Reset to be done...
I was using the app yesterday to discharge so I am guessing linked some how. I will raise a bug...
I suggest folk using the App need to keep an eye on it.
Reset did indeed get it back to 3000W. Shouldn't have to do it. Something is not right.
M_J Hmmm the power has dropped to 1305W again on All and 1300W on Web portal.
"All" = "App" ? Internally, the power is actually represented as a percentage of battery capacity, is so is quantised in relatively large steps (95W for me with 9.5kWh battery). The small difference is presumably because the two implementations are using slightly different values for the scaling factor.
Can you remind me what battery size you have ? I have hybrid rather than AC, but probably similar.
I find it a little odd that the portal is aware that it's around 1300W - with corruption problems, the portal would tend to think it was the last value it sent, rather than what's actually on the inverter. And it won't send an update back to the value it thinks is already there. But that doesn't seem to be the case here. Did you try forcing the portal to read back the register from the inverter ?
Other suggestion, if you use android, is to install https://givenergymonitor.wixsite.com/tutorials - that reads the registers directly from the inverter, rather than the portal's possibly incorrect memory. For iOS I believe there's a similar bbc-basic app available.
Damned auto correct. yes APP not all!!
I have two batteries - original 5.2 and then extended by adding a small 2.6 end of last year.
No I did not try forcing portal to read - not really sure how - but will google that / see if I can find how to do that. I might get the App mentioned.
At the moment it is fine and not happened again but due to the weather I am not doing a forced discharge of the batteries and I think it might be related to that.
I am now checking after each action I take using the App to see if I can isolate what causes it to drop to 1305.
I think I will do this week manual and then investigate the various options to automate what I have been doing to make best use of Agile...
M_J No I did not try forcing portal to read - not really sure how - but will google that / see if I can find how to do that. I might get the App mentioned.
See https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/4043-charge-schedule-ignored/23 - the green circles are the buttons to force a read
1300W is suspiciously the maximum allowable power that a single 2.6kWh pack would give you if you just had that battery.
(it's 0.5 x total connected battery size that sets the scaling up until you hit the inverter limit (2.6, 3.0 or 3.6kW depending on which inverter you have)
As by default the inverter is set to "auto read bms" it scales the power sliders based on the connected total rating of all batteries connected. So...after my waffle, basically I think for whatever reason your 5.2 battery pack is not being detected (or intermittently) or something like both packs are set as master - therefore it's just seeing the 2.6kWh pack and scaling 0-1.3kW as it's maximum charge rate.
The largest was and is closer to the inverter. The smallest was added after the 1st and daisy chained on and configured ok confirmed by GE at time of commissioning. But something is happening when I use the App to force discharge is my guess...
If sun returns this week I will monitor closely...
M_J One question... is it actually limited to 1300W, or is it reported as limited to 1300W ?
As was mentioned, the actual inverter register is stored as a percentage of battery capacity. 50% being the maximum value. Is it possible that the register is correctly stored as 50, and it is simply the UI that is incorrectly translating that to 1300W ?
Did you try rubikcube's app ? That shows the actual register value.
A very simple experiment would be to start a short charge from grid. Would only need to be for a few seconds - just long enough to see what power it actually charges at - so the cost would be irrelevant.
Do you ever use 'pause' on the app ? When you do that, it has to temporarily set charge and discharge power to 0, then when you unpause, it should put them back as they were. (Or at least I assume it ought to - I never use it.) Could there be a bug there somewhere when it tries to restore the registers ?
DD Other suggestion, if you use android, is to install https://givenergymonitor.wixsite.com/tutorials - that reads the registers directly from the inverter, rather than the portal's possibly incorrect memory.
Downloaded the App and having a look at it this afternoon. Couldn't get it working to begin with until I remembered that my tablet has a VPN software working in background. Had to pause that for it to find my inverter.
🙄
Need to decide if I invest £10 for the automated controls...
DD Do you ever use 'pause' on the app ?
Yes occasionally.
I will attempt what you suggest and check the actual values Vs those shown on the App and Web portal. Via the downloaded App you suggested.
The values have stayed ok so far but I have only been setting the charge slots. Last week I was manually forcing a discharge and that could be the culprit.
More testing to do. It's obviously an edge case and I am doing things with the GivEnergy app that the vast majority of users don't do. I.e. changing charge schedules every day or multiple times a day and also forcing a discharge.
I wouldn't mind betting that it's your forced discharge doing it. I had the same issue, I did a forced discharge for one of the Savings sessions and at then end of the discharge not only did it leave the system with eco/dynamic disabled but I found out later that it had changed other settings, one battery was set to zero charge rate and the other was set to something significantly less than the maximum charge rate (I have 2 x 5.2). The only way to see this was is in the remote control dashboard. I believe the different discharge options behave differently depending on Gen version, you could try using Timed discharge which on Gen3 should resume the Dynamic setting at the end of the period - although I haven't really played with this as we are on fixed export tarriff at the moment.
Well I will find out soon as it's a sunny day and cheap rates so I will be doing a forced discharge.
I have early Gen 1 AC3 inverter so I don't think I can use the timed discharge if I have read the forums correctly.
I will check carefully after each step to try and identify what exactly causes the drop.
Quick update I used the App yesterday to do a couple of forced discharge, one lengthy the second a shorter time. The battery charge and discharge power stayed at 3000.
Will be doing some more today. It could be the use of Pause as I used that feature last week.
More testing today as solar is great and good Agile prices...
I'm uncertain if this the correct feed but our battery has been showing 100% charge for a few days now. Normally I would expect it to discharge somewhat overnight or when charging the EV. Can any one suggest if there is anything wrong or I need to do to get it functioning as previously again?
Thanks in advance.
Try to make sure the inverter is on eco mode. If it's showing as on, then try a reset to defaults in the inverter settings on the portal.
TimHutchings
Thanks Tim.
I've tried this and there is no change. The battery reads "Idle" and 100%.
What next?
Looy If resetting the inverter to defaults hasn't worked, then the one last thing you could try before contacting support is switching your battery off for half a minute, then switching it back on again. On the 9.5kw battery, it's the little black button on the right hand side. You have to press it and keep it pressed in for 5-10 seconds. Then a short press to switch it back on.
If that doesn't work, give support a ring or your installer.
Looy Another possible reason could be that the max discharge power has been set to 0. (Though on modern inverters that seems to still result in a discharge of around 200W or so.)
Or maybe the battery reserve has been set to 100%, meaning the inverter won't allow it to go below that level.
You could try using a forced discharge - on the app, you may have a large play icon in the middle at the bottom. (If not, you can enable it via the "inner" cog icon under the 'away' button on the home screen.)
If you press that, it should pop up some icons, one of which should be a forced export.
TimHutchings There's been times when reset to defaults doesn't do what you expect. It's almost as if the portal only resets registers that it thinks has changed. If the value has changed on the inverter without the portal knowing about it, it doesn't actually get reset. (And you might think those are the very ones that you particularly want to be reset.)
One case I can think of, even after a reset to defaults, turning eco off then on again fixed a problem. The portal apparently hadn't bothered to send an eco=on to the inverter because it thought it was already set to that.
Thanks both. At the moment, (Thurs, 11.00, 02.05,) things seem to have been restored but I shall monitor this with interest.
OK just happened again, woke up this morning and it was set at 1300W. I did a restart of inverter and it re-set to 3000W as I could not manually change it on the web portal or App before the forced re-start via the Web portal.
What I did do was check the "inverter" App written by a member here and it showed that the Battery Charge Rate and Discharge Rate were actually 50 before the Restart and after the Restart. So no change? I presume this is the same as the Discharge / Charge Power in the GE App but it did not change, so maybe the App / Web Portal are not actually reporting the right value?
This happened after yesterday where I did some pauses of the Battery to let the Solar get exported. Each time I paused I checked and the value had not been changed. It was OK.
But after a schedule charge early morning to top up on cheap electric the value was changed?
Very Odd..
Next time it happens I will see if it actually reduces the Discharge / Charge and not force a re-start to correct the value.
The mystery continues...
M_J I have two batteries - original 5.2 and then extended by adding a small 2.6 end of last year.
Just reading back on the thread... power is limited to either 0.5C of the battery, or the inverter's limit, whichever is lower. As was mentioned above, with just a 2.6 battery, 1300W would be the correct limit.
I'm guessing the 50 on the inverter is just setting the upper limit on the inverter's budget, but if it's limit is from the battery size, the 50 wouldn't apply.
Did you establish whether the 1300 limit is actually being enforced, or if it's just the UI misinterpreting the situation (ie incorrectly inferring battery limitation) ?
DD you establish whether the 1300 limit is actually being enforced, or if it's just the UI misinterpreting the situation (ie incorrectly inferring battery limitation) ?
Not yet, that's the next step when it happens again I will leave it as is and see what the actual discharge / Charge rate is.
I can't find out why it changes. I checked every time after pausing yesterday and again after putting it back into "play" mode...
Odd, it's been ok with just discharge / timed charge the last few weeks, so I am feeling it has to be linked with using the pause option...