I've noticed a few times after an overnight charge that the home batteries appear to be in 'pause' mode, even though ECO is set both locally and on the portal. A restart of the Inverter via the portal cures it.
Could anyone advise of a way round this - would there be a givtcp command to restart the inverter every morning for example and would this be recommended please?
Thanks in advance!
J1m how long after the charge has finished?
When it gets to 100% full or
When the end time of the timed charge is reached?
The first would make sense, whilst the grid is cheap, run the house from the grid (to avoid round trip efficiency loss and thus a financial loss).
The other scenario, not ideal. I've seen it mentioned on here a few times, maybe check the search facility and/or try contacting GivEnergy by email, phone, web chat.
TX200
I'm currently charging to 100% on IOG which ends at 05.30. By the time I get up at 7a.m. it's sitting at around 95% and using the grid. Battery doing nothing. Obviously when it's sunny the battery gets fully charged and solar is exporting. It's only when it's cloudy like today that I notice the issue. As mentioned a restart of the inverter seems to sort it..
J1m have you enabled an explicit timed discharge e.g. for evening peak or similar?
Timed discharge didn't always play nicely. Although it has changed in the newest firmware I believe.
The standard advice on here was always enable eco, setup a timed charge overnight (for those with cheap rate overnight), set the required charge to/discharge to percentage and leave it at that.
Timed discharge and timed export get a bit messy without automation e.g. home assistant (although that may have changed a bit as above).
If all else fails, reset to defaults first, then enable eco if not already enabled and setup timed charge again.
TX200 Okay thanks for that. I've got a timed discharge which runs in the evenings, via GivEnergy.local, followed by a 'reset to Eco mode' command. I've recently installed GivTCP and am looking at installing Predbat (if I can get my head around it!). My discharge automation does seem to work reliably but I do suspect it might be causing this problem. I was wondering if a 'simple' automated reboot of the inverter each day might sort it. I have got a Gen1 inverter and am on an early firmware (450-A0-451), which obviously could be the cause. Maybe I need to contact GivEnergy support?
J1m Perhaps you can tell us a bit more about your system - hardware type and firmware. Gen-1 systems don't have CRCs enabled, and some report that messages can get corrupted. You mention GivTCP - are you using that to schedule charging? What version (release or development) ? Are you also using predbat? You mention IOG - are you using an integration to co-ordinate battery charging and car charging, or just running with smart car charging turned off ?
When you say battery is paused, can you be more specific - you've ruled out eco mode being turned off. Has discharge power been reduced, has the pause timer been activated, is it still within a charging time, or in a forced export period with an elevated reserve level? Or maybe just the overall reserve has been elevated?
If the change is being made by api or portal, it should be recorded in portal activity log; if locally by GivTCP, by its logging. Rebooting (to me) seems like overkill - I'd prefer to understand what's happening, rather than just work around it.
J1m Maybe I need to contact GivEnergy support?
They'll probably just blame whatever home automations you're running - you'd probably have to turn all those off and then contact them only if it still happens. (Or at least that's what I'd say, if I was them. It's hard enough supporting your own software...)
J1m
My Gen1 Hy 5.0 would not reset to Eco after a timed discharge/export.
I went to Home Assistant and set an "Eco reset" automation after the peak afternoon export. That worked well, but I then added Predbat and that does it all for me and makes sure I make best use of charge/discharge time slots and rates
DD I've a 5kw hybrid inverter, solar pv and two 9.5 kwh batteries. I'm not using GivTCP at all yet. I've only just installed it with a view to getting Predbat up and running if I can. When I first started using HA I installed GivTCP but was getting log errors. @geoffreycoan advised installing a beta version, but then had an issue with my batteries auto discharging overnight (there's another thread about that!). This appears to have been caused by the fact that there is no CRC checking as you mention. I reinstalled HA and started again. I understand that there is a 'fast response' firmware due for release which has CRC checking and would be compatible with my inverter as it is a late model Gen1, so maybe I should wait for that, or at least push for a later release of firmware. My EV charging is controlled by Octopus, no other automations are being used and charging finishes at 05.30. My thoughts were if an automated inverter restart sorted the issue pending the firmware being sorted then that would be my best option in the meantime...
J1m I have got a Gen1 inverter and am on an early firmware (450-A0-451), which obviously could be the cause.
My understanding is that gen-1 inverters require that eco flag is turned off in order to force export to grid, so it does need to be explicitly turned back on afterwards. (Newer systems simply temporarily override eco flag for the duration of the timer.) But you're already checking for this.
No point asking the portal if the change was made locally. Oh, and no point asking portal to turn it back on, since it seems to have a habit of only sending changes it thinks are necesary. If you turn it off locally, best to turn it back on locally.
Iām charging the car via IOG, charging the battery to 100% between 23.30 and 5.30, exporting excess all day except when iBoost heats the water, discharging between 18.30 and 20.30 and repeat. Even with the hopeless July weather we have only run out once for an hour on peak using about 3/400 watts at the time so inconsequential. No automation of any sort except basic GE stuff via the portal. No need to over complicate
SteveCook Thanks for that. Yes I've got that set on my discharge/export automation to activate eco mode at the end, but that doesn't seem to work even though it shows as set both in the app and portal. Looks like I have to get Predbat up and running, if I can get to understand it!
SimonClarke I think that's okay unless you are on Gen1 like I am? Unless I'm wrong the GE app commands to export don't work?
J1m
J1m. I have to reset ECO via GivEnergyLocal in my automation (when i was using it pre Predbat)
DD Maybe I should try altering the automation to switch off eco mode at the start of the discharge/export cycle, then switch it back on at the end? Obviously the discharge works okay so eco is obviously being toggled off during the discharge but maybe actually switch it off then on again might work?
SteveCook Yes that's what I've got set Steve..
J1m that doesn't seem to work even though it shows as set both in the app and portal.
ah - no, you can't trust the portal or the app (which just gets the info from the portal rather than actually asking the inverter). Those just show the last value sent from the portal, but if you change it locally via modbus, it won't know about it. Better to use https://givenergymonitor.wixsite.com/tutorials or the bbc basic app on iOS - those do ask the inverter directly, via modbus.
What all do you use givenergy-local to control? If it's just a forced export in the evening, have you considered just using the api instead? I'm happy to share the scripts I use. Or even just use wonderwatt.com ? I've resisted going the home-assistant route so far since I don't have anything else to automate, and HA seems a bit overkill for automating a single system in isolation.
(I am keeping half-an-eye on predbat - there seems to be moves afoot to separate it from HA, at least to some extent. I might give it a play if that happens. Or if I move to Agile, I guess I might have to go with it, HA and all.)
DD Yes, I am only using HA to simply set a timed discharge in the evening and don't use it currently for anything else, so you are probably right in that it is a bit of overkill at the moment. Surely though you need a PC or whatever permanently 'on' to control it, or is it via smartphone? I'd be interested to see your scripts if you don't mind?
J1m my pre Predbat automations..
J1m gen 1 5 kw on the new software D0.191-A0.193, 9.5 battery on 3012. Eco on.
SteveCook Many thanks for sharing that Steve! Interested to know why you do a forced charge during the day? It's looking more and more like I need to get Predbat up and running. Wish it didn't look so complicated though!!
J1m
Jim. Before Predbat. I set a forced charge ( 90 mins at standard rate) just in case the battery was a bit low, so that should we put the cooker on during the peak import 16:00-19:00 slot, there would be enough juice in the battery so we did not import at peak rate. It was a bit finger "in the air"
SimonClarke Is that the new 'fast response' firmware that I've read about Simon? I had thought that Gen1's couldn't be controlled via the app for timed exports. Now I'm totally confused!
J1m mine seems to be working! Mind you I haven't changed anything since it's doing what I want but when it was first updated I did and it was fine
J1m https://github.com/divenal/givenergy-scripts
yes, needs an always-on computer, but I have an rpi doing misc. stuff 24/7 anyway. For just a timed discharge, you could use wonderwatt.com if you don't have a suitable computer. Or I believe you can possible use Octopus R&D facility ..?
README is already out of date - I've been updated to firmware 309, and that's now slightly broken the timed-discharge-to-limit. So the overnight pause is now implemented by the modbus script just turned eco off and on. (I'd prefer to use a timer built into the inverter, so there are no issues with network outages, but...)
J1m Is that the new 'fast response' firmware that I've read about Simon? I had thought that Gen1's couldn't be controlled via the app for timed exports. Now I'm totally confused!
On gen-1, the app does allow timed-export to be configured. But doing so disables the eco flag. But if you go through the remote-control part of the portal, you can have both timed-export and eco enabled. Maybe on the new gen-1 firmware that does export to grid ? (as it does on gen2+ systems). Also, if you already had it configured before it was removed from the app, the UI change wouldn't affect existing systems.
GE have removed timed-discharge from the app for gen-1 systems (even for the new firmware, which might support it ?)
DD Thanks for your help. Wonderwatt looks interesting, will take a look...
DD Just wanted to say thanks for pointing me at Wonderwatt. It's a breeze to set up and I've just done a test export for ten minutes and it's worked fine, with the battery feeding the house load afterwards as it's chucking rain down at the moment! Will try it out on a full export this evening, but as it stands it would be doing all that I want, pending me looking further into Predbat.
Thanks again š