Hi, I'm new.
First day with Givenergy 5.2 Inverter and 13.4 batteries. I was warned about the calibration period but what surprised me were the periods of battery to grid. Under normal running in ECO mode, is this something to expect?
codgerbodger Yes it has to discharge to somewhere. Put the kettle on or the immersion heater/washing machine for a bit to self-consume rather than export for nothing. Once it's fully discharged, it'll charge at full pelt from the grid. Look forward to consuming 13.4 kWh of electricity to fully charge your batteries. Once that blip's out of the picture, as long as your inverter is set to the default of ECO/Mode1, you should see a significant fall in grid import.
you can expect to dribble around 1kwh in and out of the battery per day. - less in the summer and more in winter or when not producing. The system has to sync to the grid and demand changes by the second,
All the little delays to release battery power and stop releasing battery power are take up or absorbed by the grid.
Only Tesla works differently, These almost disconnect you from the grid.
Hi,
Newb here.
Off the back of this discussion, I presume the little trickle to grid from the batteries (post calibration) is completely normal?
I'm trying to get my head around some of the 'pips' on the app graphic to show what's receiving power from where.
Example 1: last night my house was consuming 0.55kW, the batteries (fully charged) were supplying 0.63kW to the house, though apparently the grid was also supplying 0.01kW to the house. Despite the numbers not stacking, is this normal? Are the app numbers a little bit off?
Example 2: This morning, my PV was supplying 0.49kW (early & cloudy). It was sending this to the house (consuming 0.32kW) and topping up the battery (consuming 0.22kW). This seeming about right (despite numbers not quite stacking), however, the app also suggested the battery was pulling 0.03kW from the grid. It's set to Eco, so is this just communication with the grid, rather than a proper draw down?
Apologies if these have been asked lots before, I'm a little overwhelmed whilst trying to understand everything 🙂
Thx,
S
sprucejuice You can get addicted to watching the power flows but they are snapshots in time. The app updates every 10 seconds or so in "Home" mode but every 10 minutes otherwise and the portal seems to update out of sync with the app but I can't tell which get the data first. I look at my Bright App (Smart Meter updates every 6 seconds), Zappi app (shows flows even when EV isn't connected) and the Givenergy App. Trying to work out which one is the most up to date is like a computer game and eventually I got to realise that I just need to sit back and look at the data hours after the event.
As far as I can see, a "normal" inverter system will respond to changes in house load as quickly as it can, either from PV if available, or battery if not. However, switching on an appliance such as a kettle is pretty much instantaneous and while the inverter ramps up to meet the demand, the deficit is made up from grid import. When the kettle switches off, the inverter exports to grid while it ramps down. This cycling takes maybe ten to twenty seconds.
The "worst" appliance for me is a 2.4kW steam iron that switches on for maybe ten seconds to boil a tiny amount of water, then switches off for twenty seconds and does it again. The inverter works very hard during the ironing and grid import can be up to 1kWh as a result. The only way to avoid this is to iron while exporting to grid. I've not tried broaching that suggestion with the chief laundry person.
Thanks for the response Tim. I know it probably sounds petty (and largely an OCD thing on my part), but I still find it frustrating that I lose up to 1kWh/day to the grid as a byproduct of the syncing and checking. It seems quite a lossy process.
Cheers,
S
Has anyone from GivEnergy ever explained why the inverter / battery are so slow to react in the change to load?
Will the newer models be more responsive?
Interesting reading this thread as it was exactly what I was wondering!
Because it appears to take a few months to get anything set up for financial gain from feedback to the grid - apparently it take two months for your DNO letter to come and you need this for your Energy supplier! Ridiculous - anyway in the meantime I appear to be giving quite a lot back to the grid for nothing!!!
Am I being a bit OCD and worrying unnecessarily??
Sorry - all a huge new learning curve for me!
jhunter Our kit was installed in January and it was the end of May before I started getting credited by Octopus for export. It's not a massive earner at just 4.1p/kWh, but I'm hoping that over the year, it'll go a long way to cover the daily standing charge for the EdF EV Tariff we're on. We could have completed the SEG application sooner but I wasn't that motivated because of the rates.
The DNO letter does take a little time, but there's nothing in it for them other than a potential headache of too much local microgeneration. It was much easier for distribution companies when there was only the national transmission network to supply them; capacity planning and distribution design was a doddle (relatively). Not so any more.