How much charge should be in the batteries - mine only has 2% and maybe 4 on a good day - is that right? My electricity bills have increased significantly over the past months but no one is being of any help explaining if/where/what the issue is!
1yddolsy197dj We will need more information in order to attempt to help. What is your set-up, what battery/s do you have, what inverter generation etc. You could also take a look at the web portal for your account and check that you have ECO switched on. You might even consider doing a reset to default of the inverter, but as I say, we do need more detail
Thank you, I've taken this on for a pensioner who's bills have sky rocketed ...... I shall go to there's and get as much info as I can.
Once again thank you
1yddolsy197dj It would be worth looking at the history of the battery charge (SoC) using the Givenergy app or the Web portal. With relatively little sun the batteries may not be charging very much, or when they do charge the house soon drains them down.
Potentially could charge the batteries overnight but for that to make any benefit you’d need to be on a time of day tariff, Economy 7 as a minimum or something ‘smarter’ with different charge rates at different times of day.
Some screenshots of the app and graphs from the portal would help indicate if the system is working correctly or not
If the battery is not ever being scheduled to charge from the grid then it will only charge from the sun which has been in short supply this November. That might be why the charge level is so low. Have you scheduled it to charge from the grid at all?
You will presumably also be seeing less export (assuming you have set up export with your supplier) which will thus not be offsetting your import on the bills.
I would not expect to see an inverter and battery system add significantly to bills even with no solar unless the battery was being charged at expensive peak times and then used off peak (the inverse of what you would want to do). There is some electricity consumption by the inverter but it will be very modest whilst idle.
Depending on your electricity supplier there may be a solar and batteries tariff or just an off peak tariff you can sign up to, and then schedule the batteries to charge during those cheaper periods to meet your needs during the day. That saved us a lot of money last year, although you may need to either manage battery levels or restrict using ovens/dishwashers/washing machines/dryers during the most expensive times if you have a smaller battery system.
You can schedule a battery charge in the app or web portal, and there are some basic automations available through GivEnergy if you can input tariff details or your supplier has a GivEnergy integration.
To save money with a battery outside of sunny weather you will really need some variety of time of use tariff as obviously charging at standard variable rate and then using the electricity later at standard variable rate times won't save you anything.
Even an old fashioned economy seven tariff could potentially work if your batteries are large enough to see you through the day, but you would need to schedule the batteries to charge fully during the off peak period so that they can cover usage when it is more expensive.
Lastly, if you have anything like a dishwasher or hot water that you can schedule to run overnight when the electricity is cheaper anyway then that will save your batteries for usage that cannot be so easily shifted.
If you do heat hot water with electricity then you might want to check the timer wasn't set to take advantage of solar during the summer and is now pulling at peak rate from the grid now that there isn't enough sun to support that.
As @CW said, more information is required
Here is a non-exhaustive list:
Energy Supplier
Tariff
Number of Panels
Size of battery (one guesses Givenergy)
Inverter Generation
Car - EV, PHEV, none
Heat Pump?
How is home heated?
Location
Simply too many variables for a simple answer