Inverter error - Consistent Fault

Hi. We had 20 panels, hybrid inverter and 9.5kW battery installed at the end of November, and have had problems since. The inverter keeps going into error with 'Consistent Fault'. I have to keep restarting it via the cloud. I've spoke to Giv several times about it. They tried sending some hex codes but that didn't solve it. Our installer has requested a site visit by Giv to check the installation, but they can't arrange a site visit until some time in the New Year. Every time I've spoke to Customer Support, nobody has seen this error before, and there are no posts on the community regarding this error.

I'd love for there to be a way of the inverter restarting automatically, or being able to restart it via API but I can't seem to find any way of doing this. Giv are on radio silence about it and I'm seriously losing sleep and checking/restarting it through the night. It happens at least 4-5 times daily.

Has anyone seen this issue before and if so, any resolution? Any advice appreciated, thanks!

send it back under warranty. Request an RMA

https://givenergy.co.uk/installer-faq-the-new-givenergy-rma-process/

Warranty job but if its driving you mad over Xmas then:

So if you use Home Assistant you can restart the inverter through that. I don't think the API has the option. (You can (atleast in the past) copy the command the portal restart triggers if you try hard enough but it's a massive faff with keeping state so I'd not recommend that)

As for the error, never seen it but I guess it's this one
It sits between errors around the internal chipset, so may infer that (as they run master and slave) there are discrepancies between the 2 chips measurements that it is getting upset about. But I don't know for sure.

You'd hope, given they make the damn thing, they know what makes that error flag up, but they may need to speak with people in China who actually produce them.
I do have a very Mandarin copy of the registers somewhere, I can try and translate the error part to see if it reveals anything a bit more useful but it likely won't help too much.

SteveCook thanks for the link. I'm sure our installer would have this document. Should they be swapping it out? When I suggested them replacing the inverter, they're insisting that GE need to inspect it first. Am I being gaslit by them?

"The inverter maybe faulty, were just unsure as this will sit with the manufacturer to confirm the equipment is faulty, I’m pretty sure after discussions and the portal that they / you can accept its not an installation error- But we need the manufacturer to confirm all once the site visit has taken place.
It may well be the inverter but I know they will want to inspect the inverter and set up ( Which they can clearly see from the commission pictures). If we swap it out they may state that’s down to you or the installer to make that decision & they cant process a refund due to potential liabilities as the existing inverter has been replaced"

gedhart
Sorry no idea what the procedure is but i think ramping things up might be the way to go

hoggy thanks for the suggestion. I'm probably not going to go down the Home Assistant route. It sounds like a lot of work to do - stupid question, can you use it remotely or does it have to be on the same WiFi network? We live remotely from it, so need to control it remotely.

gedhart I appreciate the position of your installer, but it doesn’t matter whether there is an installation error or not, the equipment is not working properly so it is up to the installer to resolve the issue. They should be replacing the faulty equipment that they supplied and then taking up the warranty issue with GivEnergy.

Your contract is with the installer not GivEnergy. Sale of goods act and all that.

Think you’re going to have to escalate it. Maybe a call to your local trading standards might help put pressure on.

Givenergy are supposed to have made the whole RMA process a lot simpler to prevent problems like this happening….

gedhart you don't need need a full blown home assistant install to get local control.

Ideally you want local WiFi access. In principle you could open a port on your firewall, but because there is no security on the link, it would be effectively putting your inverter directly onto the internet.
You could use a VPN.

geoffreycoan Thanks for your advice. I've just spoken to Citizens Advice. It seems the installer is within their rights to request a site visit from the manufacturer in order for them to inspect the equipment and installation and therefore I have to wait for GE to visit some time in the New Year (no dates given - could be waiting weeks as there's very few engineers).

However, under the Sale of Goods Act, we could pursue a claim for consequential losses as it goes against our investment in the PV system when the inverter stops working and starts drawing from the grid. That would be fairly difficult for us to calculate, as PV performance is very much weather based.

So it seems I'm just going to have to wait it out and keep manually restarting it several times daily until GE inspect it. Not great for something that's just cost us 4 figures and has never worked properly.

gedhart Thanks for the feedback you got from Citizens Advice. In terms of the engineer visit from GE, have you got a date for that? When I had to have a battery replaced under warranty it took a couple of days to get the GE internal approvals - there is a person that does the field engineer books so keep pushing for your case to get approved if it isn’t already. I had to have a battery replaced under warranty so went through this myself. From what I remember they book a week at a time to try to minimise travel around the UK, so I didn’t get a precise date until it was actually booked to happen.

Regarding the consequential losses, there are three potential things you could claim for:

• the loss of PV generation. It’s actually quite easy to estimate this, create a free account on solcast.com.au, put your co-ordinates, number of panels, capacity, etc in and it will give you a daily forecast with 10%, 50% or 90% probability of happening. Obviously it’s only a forecast but a generation estimate of around the 50% is usually likely to happen.

• the loss of saving from importing and storing electricity on an overnight cheap rate tariff. The financial loss therefore is your battery capacity x the day-time and night-rate difference x 0.8 to allow for up to 20% conversion losses. Might be a bit harder to prove if you are currently on a standard variable rate and planned to go to a smarter tariff when you got the solar, but its what most people do so is reasonable to claim.

• compensation for hassle and impact of all this. Plenty of ways lawyers estimate this, basically assign a typical hourly rate for your time

All a load of hassle and not the best for your relationship with the installer so might be best if you push for a flat compensation figure to recompense the impact this has had on you.

For my own scenario can you tell me how you contacted and were able to speak to anyone at GE?
I have tried phoning as a 'customer/homeowner' and the recorded message says that that line is now closed. Advice is to use the form on the website which I have done today. Prior to that I had sent an email on Monday evening and Tuesday evening. I am not a user of the platform previously known as Twitter nor Facebook so they are not an option.
I guess that I need to get to the (unknown) email/web request list?!

gedhart No idea what the error means, but it is either a faulty piece of equipment or something installed/wired incorrectly. Do your own diagnosis.

Start by turning everything (power, battery, panels, and energy meter) off. Wait 5 minutes, then turn just the inverter (AC power) on. Give it a day and is the error still happening? If so, the problem is with the inverter. If the problem goes away turn back on the energy (gem120 or em115) meter. Is it that? If that's ok try turning the panels on, and if they are ok try the battery. Let us know which piece of equipment is causing this error.

geoffreycoan Thanks, that's very helpful indeed. I'm a bit loathe to sever our relationship with the installer - to be fair, they've been brilliant. Punctual, decent set of engineers, tidied up, professional.

Fortunately I've just had confirmation from GE that they're booked for 6th Jan, so at least we have something in the diary now.

Based on your comprehensive comment, I could get a ball-park figure, and it won't do any harm to keep it in the arsenal. Thank you.

GrahamShaul I too tried contacting them by phone but I believe the storm knocked out the phone lines (according to one of the Facebook groups). I had already had a ticket in with them, and they've replied to the ticket this afternoon with a site visit date - at last!). I have been communicating with their support email address, but I had to get a bit snotty on my last email as they hadn't responded for 10 days. Not the speediest customer service.

Good luck in getting hold of them, but keep persisting.

Rubikcube That's very helpful, thank you. I'll give that a go and let you know. I'm actually remote from the property but fortunately my partner is there this week, so he'll turn the dials. Cheers!

As I have not heard anything from support I am going to ask the community.
For the past few days my inverter has become 'Idle' when the battery charge gets down to 26%. I have the system on a timed charge overnight as you would expect so from first thing all is well. But on Monday, Tuesday Wednesday and Friday I have seen that when the battery gets down to 26% it goes Idle. This didn't happen on Thursday as we were out for much of the day so the state of charge didn't get that low. When the system is Idle the green indicator on the inverter is flashing.
My system was installed in August 2021 and I haven't had any issues with it at all, but also I have never updated any software. The battery is a 8.2 with a PV Hybrid Inverter model HY 3.6.
I have done a full restart of the system following the directions from the site as presented by EVM
Any suggestions please?

GrahamShaul you ought to start a new thread rather than hijacking an existing one.
Simplest explanation would be that the reserve is set to 26%. Which firmware is it running?