Apologies if this has already been commented on but I searched and couldn’t find anything.
I just noticed a new setting in version 3.4.4 5604 of the mobile app to force a charge and discharge for 10 mins when the temp gets down to 2C.
Good spot. I think that must be new, I hadn't seen it before either.
This arrived a couple of days ago.
I've turned it on, as above 2c it does nothing, below 2c it may mean I can keep using my battery.
In my app it was automatically selected although doubt it will trigger as my battery is in my garage
Probably a lot of inverters outside stopped working in the recent cold snap and this is GE's crude response.
anthonypar Its marginally better than ignoring it as in previous years 😉
I daresay Octopus (for one) are on GE's back regarding, well how can I say this... "a lack of visibility in advance as to how bad GE standalone battery performance is when installed outdoors" and "moving the goalposts" with charge rates without documenting it in release notes.
I've not had issues with our two batteries being outside (so far), however I am near the south coast and the lowest I can recall the temperature of the batteries going is 3°c. Let's wait and see if it activates.
Why don't GE tell anyone of these changes.
I do not see this (perhaps cos I am on beta parallel)
I have also lost most of the settings in the cloud remote control
Daveb01 ...maybe because I said "standalone battery". The AIOs have inverters built in which keep the batteries considerably warmer - not a design choice given how fast they rushed it out, more a happy accident 🙂
Other than people whose batteries are outside or don’t use their batteries much, I have to question how much benefit will this bring.
My batteries are in the garage, on the outside (uninsulated) wall. Here’s the cell temperatures for my two batteries through winter last year, only dipping below 10 degrees on a couple of occasions:
Similar picture for October and November this year, where the lowest any of the cell temperatures have got to so far is 12 degrees C.
My single 8.2kW battery in a brick out house got down to 6C when it was -4C outside recently.
Where do people get historic battery temperatures from? Looking at the Givenergy app and online portal (givenergy.cloud) I can't see where to look back beyond today and the Reports seem to be high level info, rather than detail...
Ah, I found it (thanks YouTube) - "More Information" on the battery tab in the app. A year in, I'd not noticed that before!
Joe88 Ah, I found it (thanks YouTube) - "More Information" on the battery tab in the app. A year in, I'd not noticed that before!
Be aware that the temperature that is being shown on the app is the Battery Management System (BMS) temperature. i.e. the temperature of the battery motherboard. This goes up and down very rapidly with battery activity and is often different from the battery cell temperatures which I don’t believe the app shows.
I've tried using this, because my batteries live outside, and it has kicked in a few nights recently. I must say, the implementation is worse than useless and I've disabled it.
The message says it supersedes the stored charging/discharging slots but what it actually does it overwrite them. This means if you have cheap electricity overnight and the conditioning kicks in just before that, it will change the timed charging slots to a 10 minute period just before but not change the back. The result is you don't charge overnight and wake up to low-charge battery.
The idea is great but the way it was done is terrible and not clear when reading the text.
bunny that’s good to know. I’d assumed that it left the charge as scheduled but ignored it for 10 minutes of self-charging if the temperature is too low.
Not overwrite the schedule. That’s awful
geoffreycoan That was my expectation. However, I woke up in the morning to find a battery that had not done the expected charge (2-5am) because it did the conditioning kicked in about 1:30am and the scheduled charge in the settings was a 10 minute period around 7:30am, which logically was the conditioning.
I assume it would also override any export settings if the battery was at 100% and needed to do the conditioning.
If you have more than 1 charge slot (FW support dependant) then if Winter Battery uses slot 1 then set your overnight charge in Slot 2 instead. Then it'll do both things.
If your on Gen 1 then I guess your a bit stuffed, but neither will a 10 min charge and then nothing help either so probably best to leave it off on those?
All my fixed 'must have' charge slots are in position 2, 3 and 4.
This leaves slot 1 available for whatever automation wants to mess with it, be that Winter conditioning, Predbat, Octopus or Smart Tariff Beta.
I have gen 1 inverters so as you say hoggy a bit stuffed with the winter conditioning overwriting slot 1.
I use Predbat though and if it finds that the inverter charging setup is not what it expects it to be, it will rewrite it back to the correct settings so it should self-correct.
Looking back over the last couple of days, doesn’t look like my batteries have reached 2 degrees C and winter conditioning kicked in, lowest was 6 degrees on Saturday with the outside temperature in my porch was -0.5
Yes Predbat will no doubt say "hang on, I didn't tell you to charge/discharge" and force it back again. I don't know how often the server checks temperature or if it has any cool down period timer or if it'll just fight Predbat the entire period.
The (slightly) good news is that as far as I can tell asking around, old old gen1 fw (4XXX) doesn't give a damn about cold temps and charges at full speed anyway, so the benefit of this new server based service is weakened quite a bit anyway.
Anyone tried a low wattage silicon pad sump or lead acid batter heater?
Switch it on based on a min on max off basis although wether you’d just heat the metal of the battery or the air in an enclosure is a complete unknown.
These sort of things:
https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/brand/wolverine-heaters/
kram I think for it to be really effective you’d need to place the heater on the battery cell packs.
But the cell packs are easy enough to get to, just take the front cover off the battery pack, but you’d have to leave the cover off for the cables to the battery heater.
There is 4 cell packs in the 9.5 battery and at £150 a heater, that’s a lot of money.
I think you’d get better results with an oil radiator. I have one in my wife’s horse shed; she doesn’t want the saddle leathers being damaged by it getting too cold so I heat it with a temperature monitor and a home assistant automation controlling an oil radiator on a smart plug. It is surprising how little electricity it actually consumes
kram
Another less expensive option perhaps a seedling heater mat for long slower heating £23 including a temperature sensor
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DCG4LRSM/
I know Givenergy is a fairly new company but you would have thought/hoped someone working there would have some experience of these issues with temperatures being either too hot or too cold and have some clear documentation or warning or perhaps even an auto solution.
Obviously no-one called Goldilocks!
Robgy Their budget brand (Polar-ESS) is even worse - can't install batteries anywhere but indoors (which will be illegal soon for most domestic situations).
So no it doesn't surprise me at all that no thought whatsoever was put into this until the (many) battery failures last winter which (apparently) is one of the reasons Octopus terminated their contract with GE.
Vestas I don’t think it is as black as that for the GivEnergy batteries and inverters.
There’s clearly descriptions in the product data sheets as to operating range, the IP ratings and photos on the website of outdoor installations.
e.g. Welcome pack p23 https://givenergy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Battery-and-Hybrid-welcome-pack.pdf
Those statements and photos would have had some degree of prior testing beforehand. None of us have seen that testing so we have to take the published information at face value. Same with most things we buy from manufacturers, we have to trust that they did a good enough product development and testing job and that the statements made are true.
Pretty much all the people on here have already bought into the GivEnergy system; we bought the batteries and inverters and we use them in our homes. For all of our benefit we want GivEnergy to continue as a business and I have to say this continually company bashing that occurs on this forum is getting a bit boring and destructive.
There are some people here that are potential future customers and the more we as existing customers bash the company, the more we turn those future customers off and ultimately that leads to a less viable business and that impacts us in the service we receive and the warranties we rely upon.
If we don’t like something we bought then we all have the choice to either put up with it or to replace it. Same with any purchase we make. Can we focus on helping each other rather than moaning about GivEnergy?
This started off as a thread on the new winter conditioning option
geoffreycoan You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.
You are NOT a moderator.
geoffreycoan There’s clearly descriptions in the product data sheets as to operating range,
That's correct it states that at temperatures between 0 to 50c the battery will operate normally but that's not correct now after the recent firmware updates.
Have I missed the bit in the sales brochure that states below 20c the charge rate is reduced.
Robgy From what I see there is limited information in the public documents about temperatures.
There’s the -10 to +50 operating range, and the only other bit I see is in the welcome guide linked above (not the installation manual or product data sheets) that says:
“ Keep your battery at the right temperature
Your battery will operate normally from 0°C-50°C. Between 0°C- -10°C, it will function with reduced operation. It’s a good idea to charge any outdoors batteries from the grid overnight during severe winter weather, to help protect it from a temperature dip”
Agree I see no mention of 20 degree threshold (which we learnt about being included in BMS 3017 and 3018). I did see someone say that in BMS 3019 the thresholds are different, I think for the better, but this is second hand recollection.
Our battery is on BMS 3015 since April. I can't remember what version it was before then but last winter the battery worked fine at 12C but this winter it has a reduced charge rate below 20C which is annoying during Octopus free electricity times. Also on a sunny day we export some rather than putting it all into the battery until it is full. No real difference if it hits 100% but lose a few pence per unit if it doesn't.
geoffreycoan Hmm, I can't seem to find any mention of 3019 anywhere, have you got any more details about it?
arczi19 There was mention of BMS 3019 being installed by support on the BMS 3017 thread
I can’t find the reference to temperature changes, either on this forum or github. I have a feeling it said that there was no de-rating of charging until 10 degrees C in BMS 3019 but I may have remembered this entirely wrong
nophead what size battery do you have?
I have a 9.5 and a 5.2 on separate 5kW inverters. Both on BMS 3015. The charging reduction is part of the reason why I don’t want to upgrade to BMS 3017. On my 9.5 I get 2.4kWh charge rate but on the 5.2 its 1.8kWh. All the time.
arczi19 Hmm, I can't seem to find any mention of 3019 anywhere, have you got any more details about it?
If you are interested then you may want to join the beta forum https://community-beta.givenergy.cloud/ and then dm Paul L and ask to be included.
We have a 5.2 kW battery. Can charge at 2.6kW when above 20C but only 1.8kW below since we updated. Will never change the firmware again.
nophead We have a 5.2 kW battery. Can charge at 2.6kW when above 20C but only 1.8kW below since we updated.
Same behaviour as my 5.2 battery. A bit annoying. I’m going to look at some battery insulation but don’t think I’d practically get it above 20 degrees C, 10 maybe
One of my cells is already down to 5.1 deg C
I have just thrown a couple of extra blankets over the top, - 5 deg C predicted for tomorrow. :0
Henry3rd Mine were down to 8 degrees when in Eco mode about half hour ago. Now that they are discharging for the DFS saving session they’re between 9.5 and 12.
A blanket is a good simple solution. Or an old duvet
I understand why certain firmware has been changed, but therein lies the problem it's being changed retrospectively, in other words I bought the battery and inverter based on the sales information at the time but that is now being slowly changed.
It feels that bit by bit I'm having functionality taken away without warning.
When I bought the system last year it was possible to charge the battery from 10% to 100% between 2am and 5am but now with the reduced rate I can't.
My battery is in an insulated but unheated room which during the night, air temperature can get quite cold 14c.
The thing is that last year the battery would charge at 3.5 kW and warm up quite quickly within the three hour window but now because of the reduced charge rate 2.6 kW it takes much longer to warm up and according to home assistant some cells temperature only increase by around 1c per hour so can't reach 20c in the time period.
In general I'm pleased with my purchase and if I had been told in the sales brochure that I may have to buy some fans in the summer to cool the inverter and that 100% dod is really 96% or that I may have to throw an old blanket over it in the winter to keep it going would I have still bought it? probably yes!
My two 9.5Kw batteries have been hovering around 8° under the normal house load today with an outside temperature of 1°. When charging at the cheap rate and evening peak export that rises to 14° & 20°. I'm not sure if they have had the winter battery conditioning kick in yet but maybe as we are in the warmer south it's not been necessary.
According to Facebook posts the dragon has invited people to test 3019 with improved cold weather performance.
anthonypar that's interesting, shame they feel Facebook is more important than the GE forum.
I don't do Face ache but would be willing to try 3019.
My four layers of insulation seems to have just been enough!
Henry3rd I recognise the other cards but the battery charge prediction graph looks interesting.
How does it work?
Robgy It's one of the Predbat templates I believe, but I have taken out some of the clutter.
Henry3rd My batteries are inside the garage, but on the outside-wards wall (i.e. not the house side).
No insulation on them. Looking at the HA graphs for last night, cell temperatures ranged from 11.6-14.1 degrees at peak at 1am to 5.2-7.1 degrees now, but they have been idling all night. Yesterday they were in the range 12-20 degrees when discharging during the peak.
Its the periods of inactivity where the cells obviously drop the most, but I’m still above the 2 degrees winter warming; the garage affording some protection
Henry3rd thanks for the txt, predbat, I haven't installed that yet.
I wondered if it was some sort of standalone script.
Maybe one day or three I'll take the plunge.
Robgy Don't do it, you will become an addict. 🙂
Henry3rd my wife already thinks I am addicted to solar stats 🤪
Henry3rd
I'm kicking myself because a few weeks ago my wife discovered a small rip in our mattress topper, then decided to upgrade our duvet to one with a higher TOG rating. The originals were binned. Now I realise they could have found new use as battery / HW tank jackets or even extra loft insulation.
A lot of the telecoms kit out there are essentially in cabinets with one or two fans and one or two tube heaters on thermostatic control.
Again, insulated box with a fan and a tube heater would keep the battery in a pocket of warmer air.