Battery Current Short Circuit - Master Battery Red Light

So this morning both the master and slave were red lights and upon checking the error log in that fantastic Inverter App I see a whole string of errors that GivEnergy deem too unimportant to show us.

It started at 1:08 this morning with a Battery Low Voltage 0.0v
Followed immediately by a Battery Current Short Circuit message
30 seconds later a BMS Voltage High 51.3v Message was recorded

Then during the course of the early morning it clocked after various time intervals Battery Current Short Circuit as I guess the BMS kept checking if it could clear the fault.

At 6:56 I clocked there was an issue and shut down each battery and left it until 7:17am

Upon powering back up the batteries the Slave stayed green but the master made a nasty warning beep sound I have never heard before and went red.

BMS Voltage High 31.6v
Battery Current Short Circuit

I have e-mailed GivEnergy support and for the first time ever got a Reply response and a ticket number.

The whole GivEnergy web page for support has been revamped and looks very professional.

https://givenergy.co.uk/contact-us/

I am hoping they have got the right leader in place and they are now making tangible differences to the back end support.

More to follow.

P.S. I am guessing there is $od all I can do to rectify this?

Just doing some googling and this is quite a serious problem.

My System is an AC3 with a 5.2 Master and a 2.6 Slave

Inverter on D0.212-A0.212
BMS on 3020

I note that the BMS release notes talk about fixing a rare BMS Short Circuit Message.

https://community-beta.givenergy.cloud/t/battery-firmware-3020-is-this-new-or-old/3424

Ohh and to add the battery / inverter setup has not been moved / touched / cables played with so baring me opening the unit to do the BMS updates it has been stable since install January 2022 and the 2.6 going in Nov 2023

OK just phoned support and got answered really quickly by a lovely lady and she was competent and took down the details and is passing it to the support team. She did say it could take up to 72 hours for a response due to the volume of tickets.

So far 10/10 for the support process.

M_J great to hear a positive experience for a support issue. 🤞it gets resolved quickly

Did you see any similar notification errors in the givenergy portal for your inverter?

M_J Trustpilot reviews suggests the "lovely lady" (and others) is someone working from home who has no access to remote tools/training to use them and simply answers the phone/passes messages on. Its an improvement for sure but they're going to get some amount of stick if that's the case - there's a lot of outstanding issues and unhappy people out there. I do hope they have very thick skins....

Best of luck with your problem. It is interesting to see the error messages which GE suppressed 🙂

geoffreycoan nope, but you know they are there as you get a message count number which when you check no messages show.

The Inverter App shows the exact details.

I am hoping it will give them pause to thought as to how I know the actual error message.

The BMS wakes up every now and then and fires off another message as it tries to wake the battery up.

When I get chance on my PC I will update the analysis on the health of my batteries on the other thread.

This might be battery drift? What voltages are both packs as if they lose sync beyond about 0.5V they do seem to go into a hibernated state and it may well be a poorly worded or even repurposed alarm for some other warning that we simply don't have documentation for (there has been many FW revisions)
I say this as the alarms don't make a lot of sense - BMS Voltage high at 31.6V or even 51.3V doesn't make any sense as that is a low voltage / "normal" voltage.

"Short Circuit" might actually be the sheer voltage difference causing inrush current between the two packs when it briefly tries to connect so perhaps not as terrible as it sounds. (I have another system with Chinese packs that throws this kind of error but it's purely from the inrush current into the inverter capacitors on first cold start trigger the overcurrent threshold. Pressing the reset button and they are happy until the next time the inverter gets switched off) Givenergy batteries do that precharge ticking thing which pulses the charge into the inverter which negates that issue.

If you turn the slave pack off and try and start from the master battery only does it work?

Just to caution that the fault messages shown in my app are based on the notes in the GivTCP source code which were taken from a document translated from Chinese which may not have been 100% accurate in the first place.

What I will state is that if a fault is recorded it means that some fault has occurred. I think an inaccurate description (even if it's slightly misleading) is better than a hidden one.

On the messages BMS Voltage High or BMS Voltage Low, the voltage displayed is measured at the inverter and doesn't come from the battery.

hoggy great idea and alas no the master fails.

It makes quite an alarming alert set of beeps that I have never heard before then goes to red.

This morning the slave when I turned it on after the master went green.

This evening that goes red.

I have turned both off overnight as no one from support will be looking at them. I will turn on again in the morning and get on my PC to post details about voltage and the battery monitoring that has been running.

Thanks to everyone for the advice.

I powered back up this morning in the hope that the service desk will try and log on and see what the issue is.

The Master same routine. Green a few secs a set of emergency beeps and then red.

The Slave the same...

Just checked the slave and that fault has cleared and is showing green.

I have managed to off load the screen shots from the Inverter App and here they are...

geoffreycoan Hi just a quick update you do get to see a couple of the messages on the GE Portal

The ones you get to see are

BMS Communication Failure - Basically when I turned the batteries off.

Battery Voltage Low - This does not match exactly any of the low level messages for exact time but was sent shortly after the voltage high message yesterday morning at 51.3V

I had a similar message in August but the battery sorted itself. Which is the same day I upgraded to the latest BMS firmware.

M_J From later Trustpilot reviews it appears the telephone staff all say you'll be contacted in no more than 72 hours. I'm sure it'll come as no surprise that doesn't appear to happen. Hopefully you'll be the exception to the rule.....

Vestas so far no contact and not quite 72hrs yet...

I hold no illusion about the potential grief I am going to encounter. I am just going to report it here for folks to read as I progress.

The battery is still trying to clear the fault but failing as I hear the beeps as it tries.

Once diagnosed I will switch the 2.6 to become the sole battery in the hope I will get some power as I think that one is ok.

I don't want to do that until GE have attempted an investigation.

It's frustrating, but I have to give them a reasonable time frame to respond.

Come Monday morning I will be on the phone again...

From the symptoms and messages described, it seems likely the the AC3 inverter and slave battery are fine, but there is a fault with the master battery.

What I would do is (probably not take advice from a stranger on the internet ... but anyway) I would use my app to set the max charge power and max discharge power to 6 (or about 600W if using the portal). Then turn off the master battery using the black button.

If you look at the cables you will realise the inverter connects to the master and the master to the slave, so that any power flowing between the inverter and the slave must pass through the master. We think the master is faulty, and passing a high current though it may cause further damage or cause it to heat up (if the issue is a poor connection), hence the need to limit the power.

Hope this gets fixed soon, and very interested to know what the actual solution will be.

Rubikcube If you look at the cables you will realise the inverter connects to the master and the master to the slave, so that any power flowing between the inverter and the slave must pass through the master.

Yep, I don't intend to use the master unless GE explains why it's ok to use / fix it.

If I don't get any resolution I will disconnect the master and make the 2.6 the master.

Let's see what happens next week, that will be 72 hours and the SLA they gave me. I am of course documenting the whole process as I am not unfamiliar with the small claims process (will need to Google the current claim limit = £10k so easily a small claim).

Hopefully I won't have to go down that route and GE will provide an acceptable level of support.

No response within the 72 hours.

Just read Trust pilot reviews... Occh..

Mind you some one is monitoring the reviews and responding so they are trying to turn things around.

The trouble is that there are a lot of people waiting so it's going to take time to wade through all the issues before they get on top of it. A thankless task...

M_J They ignore the reviews until it gets really bad, then they cut & paste responses which look helpful but nothing actually happens. Rinse/repeat every 3 months. Been going on like that ever since Octopus binned them for crap products & support.

They're not remotely interested in turning things around - current "message takers" working from home on the phones with zero knowledge or training is nothing more than a sticking plaster (and one that doesn't stick either!). I strongly suspect the ONLY reason they've been taken on is because someone has pointed out that GE are contractually obliged to provide phone support....

M_J Do you have any update since then? Did they fixed it?

bRhFDKtjRMK9

😁 Nope just tumble weed..

I am on holiday enjoying life and next week I will chase them and raise a formal complaint.

If no joy with that I will try and get the CEO involved.

If after a month I don't get any further forward I will raise a small claim for the replacement cost of the battery.

Hopefully they will eventually get around to me, until then the batteries are switched off awaiting their support.

I will update the thread when anything changes...

M_J There's several installers on Trustpilot who have stated they've begun legal action/instructed solicitors against GE as customers/CC companies are now taking legal action against the installers* because of GE's appalling attitude to customer care.

I think the house of cards is about to collapse and it'll be the installers who bring it down.

I wouldn't be waiting a month were I you.....

*end-users have no contract directly with GE, as GE have been busy telling anyone who complains.

Vestas wouldn't be waiting a month were I you.....

For a small claim to be successful you need to be reasonable and show you have followed all possible avenues of recourse.

A month is a reasonable time frame for such goods.

As for contract and liability I will be examining the distinction that installers are actually GE agents as they run a closed shop in that GE must authorize the installation by their installers.

It is a slightly different business model to just flogging white goods as you are tied to GE servers to commission the system and installers are effectively agents for GE.

The warranty should also be enforceable as the battery has failed with an error message that only GE can deal with / explain.

Anyway worse case is I don't get anywhere so not the end of the world.

Just a 1st world problem in the grand scheme of things... I could have been born in Gaza...

M_J As for contract and liability I will be examining the distinction that installers are actually GE agents as they run a closed shop in that GE must authorize the installation by their installers.

Indeed but bear in mind that won't set a precedent as its on the small claims track. I think you're entirely correct in your surmise but even if the district judge finds in your favour that decision can't be used by anyone else as grounds for bringing a case.

Also you have to serve a notice before action letter which is normally 28 days. Add that to the 6 weeks "reasonable time to repair" guidance* and that'll be 10 weeks minimum before you can put any sort of claim which won't get booted instantly.

Hence the CEO stuff isn't part of the "reasonable time to repair" time and I wouldn't bother with it were I you. Its not something any district judge would expect you to do as a consumer.

Some of the cases I referred to appear to have been going on for over a year & in that time every GE board member has changed/been dismissed/left/whatever. Nothing much has changed for customers in that time except customer support has got worse if anything.

Hopefully you don't need to go down that road as it'll probably take 18 months to be heard if GE enter a defence..... 🙁

Edit - anyway I'd be giving your installers a heads-up that they'll be getting a letter before action as well. You'll have to do both of them if you want your "distinction" clarified....

*reasonable time was in some court case decades ago where the high court judge said 6 weeks was long enough for any repair/replacement for a domestic appliance. Probably superseded by Consumer Act 2015 now.

Vestas I looked into this when I was having serious problems with my system, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to claim against my installer, who performed very well, and helped me as much as they could. I decided in the end to stick with it, and be persistent with support, its slow but I have made progress in getting my system performing more to specification. I still have many open support tickets but I continually grind away, not letting up. As you may well have no doubt seen.

M_J the replacement cost of the battery

I don't think we have yet established that there is a faulty battery.

Based on the evidence so far, my thinking is 80% faulty AC3 inverter, 50% faulty master battery (BMS), 20% something else. And yes that's 150% because more than one thing can have failed.

While you have gone on holiday, turning the whole lot off is the sensible thing to do.

Installed correctly, there will be a red AC isolator, an AC3, a green battery isolator, a master battery, and a second battery wired in that sequence. When you get home make sure the red AC isolator is off, the green battery isolator is off (DOWN), and there are no lights on. Turn the master battery on by holding the black button. What lights come on?

Thanks, I will video it when I power them backup. It will be interesting to see what is the ultimate cause.

duplada I don't think any installer should be held responsible for GE's failings but that's how the law works for individual cases.

Your installer should have appropriate business insurance to cover themselves for situations like this. The premium for that will be vanishingly small compared to the public liability/employers liability components of the policy.

The choice is ultimately eat a five figure loss for a battery while everyone else keeps their profits or take action against the only people possible. I suspect most people would take the latter option.

Again, hopefully its not necessary as the court system in E&W is in a fairly advanced state of collapse, so (very) long delays are inevitable....

Vestas Again, hopefully its not necessary

Yep, it's absolutely the last resort. Hopefully next week with a bit of active prodding I can get some resolution / progress.

Morning back at home and a slight difference this morning on turning on the batteries. It has been the case that that the 2.6 slave would error after turning it on and then after a while clear the fault. This morning it did not error at all. The Master Battery continues to error and if you listen carefully you can hear the warning beeps.

Hopefully this link works to give you access to the video and screen shot of error messages.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zubrimgpqGPeh8Qz5

Now to get on the phone to support and see why I was not contacted within a 72 hour period as promised.

24/9/25 was the start of the fault and call raised with GE Support so nearly three weeks now.

Quick update I have phoned support line, got through very quickly, the young lady took down the details apologised and promised to escalate it. As noted she is just a note taker and has no access to anything so anyone reading this please be polite to them as they are not the ones to get angry at.

I would say your BMS has failed in the 5.2 one - they are supposed to tick not rattle like that on boot as they pulse power into the inverter first.

M_J I don't want to worry you but the clearance around the batteries doesn't look as if its to spec. Bugger all to do with your fault but I've seen GE reject warranty claims for exactly this reason....

hoggy

I will swap to the 2.6 as master once I get some sort of response from GE.

Thanks for taking a look at it.

Cheers

Vestas

Well I would have a decent argument that in 2021 the training manual said nothing about clearance around batteries. I have a copy of the manual which I have just checked again.

So when the system was installed by a GE trained engineer it met the requirements at that stage. GE only allows the system to be installed if it is an engineer trained by them.

Let's see where this goes if I get any response from them. It does sound a bit like you have a bit of experience with GE? Are you a former employee?

[unknown] no problem. Yours is doing a good impression of a dot matrix printer though. I'm sure you'll eventually get sorted but be prepared for lots of prodding and waiting for you to make it to the top of the list. If your 2.6 stays in service and the inverter is happy then it's purely the battery at fault. If the 2.6 doesn't actually charge or discharge once made master then it's the board in the inverter as well. (One can seemingly take out the other it seems)

Thanks I have them turned off again as the master keeps waking up to try again and again to check if it's ok to start.

It's annoying as I think I could get the 2.6 working as Master but until GE bothers to respond I am not touching them in any way other than instructed by them.

The battery breaker is ON. Open the cover and turn the Green Battery Breaker OFF. Now try the master battery (only). Does that make a difference?

M_J Are you a former employee?

No, I was just stupid enough to recommend GE kit to various people, three of whom are now involved in warranty "issues". One has gone legal after 7 months of being screwed around, the other two are going to do the same. One of them is doing a section 75 which ought to concentrate minds when the CC company arrives demanding their money + costs + interest from the installer/GE.

Rubikcube

Hi, hadn't thought of checking it that way, funny the master battery goes green as normal if not connected to the mains.

I guess I should try rebooting the inverter as I have not done that?

So battery self test is ok if not connected to the mains via the inverter.

Vestas

Thanks for the explanation of your situation.

I am going to try and find another battery solution which I can manage via home assistant and doesn't tie into a manufacturers eco system.

I will likely post another thread to see what people would suggest. I can get a sparky to set up a circuit which I should then hopefully just connect the batteries and inverter to. Anyway that's for another thread...

M_J funny the master battery goes green as normal

That is what I expected, and we were hoping for. With luck, fingers crossed, the batteries are undamaged and don't need replacing. Leave the batteries and the isolator off.

The next thing to examine is the battery connection to the inverter. Turn OFF the Red AC isolator, then wait 5 minutes for any energy to discharge. There should be no lights on any of the kit.

Loosen the 2 grommets on the battery connection cover half a turn. Then undo the 4 screws that hold the cover on. Try not to lose them as you are doing this upside-down, but if you lose one it isn't a disaster. The cover is fine held with only 2 or 3 screws. Pull down the cover and take a picture of the cables. It should look like this:

We are looking for any sign of discolouration on the insulation that would indicate overheating.

Wiggle the cables to see if they are loose at all. Check the washers, there should be a flat washer on the lug, then a spring washer between the flat washer and the bolt. It is hard to see, you may be able to check using your fingernail. The washer should look like this

Hopefully in the morning I can check this out, thanks for the update and photos very helpful. Ta

More on the marrow

Ok just checked and the connections are rock solid and no discolouration. Zero wiggle on them very tight...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/cMdbLB7yPXr9zZPb7

Can't work out how to insert an image so link above will do for the moment.

Slightly different angle..

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4EHxGdCryWEEBNyG7

I think looks like same set up as yours.

EDITED TO ADD

I Re-Tested the Battery after powering back up the Inverter and its the same, self test error beeps and then goes into Red with a Battery Current Short Circuit message and a message clocking that BMS Voltage High 0.0V

So have powered the batteries off

M_J Well done. That confirms that your installer is off the hook.

I don't think we can go any further, put the cover back and leave everything off. The best solution will be for GE to replace the Inverter. I am fairly sure the inverter is broken. Not sure if the master battery is broken too, hopefully it will be okay.

Hassle GE to get it fixed, and let us know the outcome.

When the inverter is replaced, the question arises about the serial number. If the new inverter is changed to the old serial number, no changes are needed at the portal, but the meter values will "jump". My app uses the meter values so figures over the change will be wrong. If the new inverter keeps it's proper serial number, it will need to be added to your account on the portal. My app will automatically pick up the new inverter and you will see separate figures for the two inverters and you will need to add them together. Hope that makes sense!

hoggy This is looking like a classic "click of death" failure. It seems that the inverter is presenting a very low impedance path across the battery terminals.

There should only be two things connected to the battery terminals; the charger circuit and the buck-boost circuit. I expect the output of the charger circuit is diodes, probably a bridge rectifier, and in my experience these only fail open circuit. The input stage of the buck-boost is likely to be an inductor driven by a mosfet. Mosfets can fail short circuit, often due to avalanche breakdown, so I am guessing this may be where the problem lies.

Do you, by any chance, know the part numbers of the mosfet(s) used in the buck-boost?

Rubikcube Hassle GE to get it fixed, and let us know the outcome.

I will continue to chase. I might next week have time to try the WhatsApp approach as next week will be week 4 of the issue.

I have been checking prices of inverters / batteries and will do a cost benefit check to see if it's worth buying them myself Vs the cost of a new install with a different supplier.

My guess it will be better to spend new cash on a different supplier rather than sink more money into the GivEnergy business model.

Obviously the best solution is if GivEnergy sort out the issue on warranty as should really be the case.

Once again thanks for the advice and input on this from everyone. It will be interesting to see if the parts can be identified as this will be happening to other folk.

I was leaving the inverter on in the thought it was safe to do so and it reports on my solar. Is it better to switch off, What's the risk of leaving it on?

Cheers

Rubikcube is this a Gen 1 Hybrid, I've not been paying attention?
Anyway, for G1 all the battery stuff is on the left hand side (the top left board with black caps) runs as HV and has a Mosfet array on the underside pushed against the heatsink.
As it moves down through the inductor to the bottom left board with smaller brown caps (where you get your 51V) there is another Mosfet array underneath against the heatsink.
Given the voltage change (& therefore current changes) I'd imagine that the HV and LV Mosfets are completely different ratings and I don't actually know which of the two boards the click of death actually wipes out.

It should also be noted that the caps on the LV board are rated to 63V so depending on how that fault actually occurs it might wipe those out if it's some sort of spike. (I only say this as generally I've noticed these click of deaths tend to happen after a power cut or power cycle of the entire inverter)

I've not lifted either of these out before on any of my ones as thankfully I've never had the click of death. Didn't fancy having to reseat everything back on the heatsink unless I had a reason to get to them.

I guess I'm in a slightly different position to most as I treat all this as a bit of fun - I'm not interested in warranty support as I have spare Inverters and BMS's to just shove in if it goes wrong!

hoggy is this a Gen 1 Hybrid,

Nope Gen 1 AC

hoggy click of death

The inverter doesn't make any clicking noise, it's just a set of warning beeps on the battery, but I guess this could be a silent click of death on the inverter.

Joy......

M_J it was just a tongue in cheek description that caught on years ago - the click relates to the rattly sound the battery makes rather than the inverter.
The AC inverter is much the same inside (minus PV bits) but has some revision (hence why they are all fine with fast firmware as opposed to the Gen 1 hybrids that have a date cutoff for fast firmware support)

M_J I was leaving the inverter on in the thought it was safe to do so and it reports on my solar. Is it better to switch off, What's the risk of leaving it on?

Fine to leave the inverter on. No risk. It consumes a small amount of power, but probably not worth worrying about. Leave the battery breaker and batteries off.

M_J Obviously the best solution is if GivEnergy sort out the issue on warranty as should really be the case.

Definitely your best option. Be aware the the little black switch on the side of the batteries is just a software off. The batteries will continue to discharge slowly. Fortunately they had a pretty good charge level when it failed so should be good for a few months. If the problem isn't fixed within 100 days, you may run into the issue of a battery going flat and needing a "boost" to get it going again.

As can be seen from the picture Hoggy posted, the inside of an inverter is full of "chips and wiggly bits". This is power electronics and not a place for most people to be going.

A number of people have reported this failure, and my guess is that is it due to the failure of a component underneath the LV battery board, which is the bottom left circuit board. My guess is the failed component is an IRFP4110 Mosfet. Right or wrong the failed part probably only costs a few quid.

RS (a quality UK supplier) will sell you 2 for £9.08 https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/mosfets/6886995
AliExpress (Alibaba) / Ebay / Amazon are cheaper but product may be fake.

Annoyingly it would take about 3 hours to replace this part and retest the inverter. This means it will probably never be commercially viable to repair this fault outside of the GE warranty.

Rubikcube Annoyingly it would take about 3 hours to replace this part and retest the inverter. This means it will probably never be commercially viable to repair this fault

With our throw away society it's pretty criminal that we can't get it repaired and save it from going to landfill.

Interested in if this failure is just a normal percentage of electronic item failure or a design fault which even if the component is replaced will fail again after a while.

Not necessarily a question we can answer without access to the complete picture of failures. If this is a standard part for other inverters would be another interesting question to answer, but again one I don't expect an answer for.

I have an Ioniq 5 and they are plagued by ICCU failures and still not solved by Hyundai. I guess it's just the nature of electronic components and complex designs.

Anyway a great update and interesting to understand the complexity.

I am aware I am likely to have issues if the batteries discharge so add that to the issues for GivEnergy to resolve. (If they do)...

M_J If it wasn't for the locked-in nature of GE products there would be far more chance of someone offering repair services. There's no market for second-hand/reconditioned GE items and that's entirely by design, not by accident.

So when something GE fails it is not possible to repair, I will not be buying GE again.

I have a Ford Focus RS - probably not the most advanced features, the most power, the highest tech etc, but if anything goes wrong I can pretty much get parts easily and fix it myself

M_J Interested in if this failure is just a normal percentage of electronic item failure or a design fault which even if the component is replaced will fail again after a while.

The part in question, a Mosfet, is likely to be in the power conversion circuitry. The device will have a voltage and current rating, a temperature derating curve and a power limit. It will also have an instantaneous power rating. When the circuit contains inductance, likely in the form of a choke or transformer, and switches, it is quite possible for the instantaneous voltage multiplied by the instantaneous current (which gives your the instantaneous power) to be exceeded and the device goes pop. The circuit designer should have allowed for this but may not have realised just how high the voltage might go as the load is switched by the Mosfet. If we have more than the base level of failures in GE inverters then I bet the calculations have been incorrect and they should have used a beefier Mosfet. They can be paralleled if done carefully but then there is the risk of a cascade failure taking the lot out.

Inside the device the silicon probably diffused (lost its semiconductor characteristics) shorted the Drain and Source terminals putting the choke across the battery which then over-currented. The battery protection should have kicked in so that the inverter failure was limited just to the inverter.

I mean, they are repairable, as that's what Givenergy do when they come out, just switch the board out (whether the old one is brought back to life or binned ive no idea). I think they sell spare parts? When I picked up a BMS on eBay I was told at the time I basically could have bought a new one off them for the same price?
The clicky death thing - not sure ive seen it happen to gen 2+ so whatever causes it seems to have been engineered out?
Gen 2 onwards are more of a pain as I don't think they are anywhere near as modular inside as Gen 1. So a fail in those may need a much more expensive full board. Gen 1 era you can pick up 2nd hand ones no bother, the incentive to repair is not really there yet.
I'm getting my head around them bit by bit - I've just got a scrap battery to add to the pile to try and resurrect.

Started today to try and raise GivEnergy support via WhatsApp...

What a joke...

All agents busy trying again later...

I will try this week every day and document the attempts...

Did see some second hand inverters up for sale which might easily replace the existing inverter. I am tempted but I fear I will still need GivEnergy support to enable it if I took that approach...

M_J Still a wall of one star reviews on Trustpilot with the occasional sockpuppet giving them five stars.

Not going to get any better - if they'd genuinely wanted to fix support they've had nearly 18 months to do it. They simply don't give a shit about end users.

Anyone buying GE kit is a bloody idiot - and you can count me amongst them!

Edit - and the "telephone support" is now confirmed to be an employment agency supplying temporary "receptionists" on a daily rate. ie a total joke. Edit 2 - everyone please bear that in mind if you're talking to them. Don't be nasty to them, they're just a "human shield" between you and GE 😉

Vestas - and the "telephone support" is now confirmed to be an employment agency supplying temporary "receptionists" on a daily rate. ie a total joke.

Never a true word spoken but NOT in jest unfortunately. Its difficult to see how they can possibly turn this around. The WhatsApp incarnation for support, was more about the number of support bodies available, against the number of telephones that needed manning. It was implemented to get them through the peak summer school staff holidays, where even fewer staff would be available to man the phones. Currently they just hide behind WhatsApp without, in some case ever actually issuing a support ticket. So, no ticket means no problem to fix right? You only have to read the comments from previous employees on Glass Door or Indeed to understand the difficulties of a career at GE.

I won't go on anymore my support issues are well documented on here and the Beta forum. I have open support tickets going back to May/June, my gear is working but not to the standard advertised by GE before I purchased. GE stopped replying to my support tickets at the end of July, and I am just ignored. However, I am not giving up.

Therefore @M_J try this. I managed to get hold of the email address of the Service Delivery Manager at GE Stephen.Irish@givenergy.co.uk I know it is still a valid email address, as he replied to me this morning (20/10/2025) when out of frustration I emailed him, and inferred that Givenergy Support was the worst on the planet.

I know this move is not going to be popular with GE but I have got past caring. Let us know how you get on and post any replies here.

duplada Let us know how you get on and post any replies here.

Yep will do. Thanks for the email I will use it on the 4 week anniversary as a special treat later this week...

Still plugging away on WhatsApp, nice that I can export the chat to show my attempts...

M_J You shouldn't have to go these lengths to get support which for many, is probably one of their biggest lifetime purchases ever, excluding property and cars. Good Luck we are all rooting for you, because one day we may be in your position with a none functioning pile of scrap.

So I had time this morning to play the WhatsApp game...

Just finally had a response!!!

And an email correctly linked to all my emails from the last 4 weeks. The person has said he will take ownership of the issue and be in touch once the current server issues are solved. Fair enough...

One small step forward.

M_J Hope it works out for you.

M_J The person has said he will take ownership of the issue and be in touch once the current server issues are solved. Fair enough...

I chatted via email yesterday with a support person, the AWS issue has provided them with yet another excuse, for poor response times and to NOT get on with their customer support requests (that's all he wanted to talk about). Get a Ticket number, never mind taking ownership and all that. If they don't get back to you email the address above. Good Luck.

duplada
Yep no progress so far, I emailed them this morning saying hi...

Will turn batteries off as I am fed up of it self testing and beeping...

Still no help from GivEnergy and just now it's got serious.

As I had no help from GivEnergy last week I shut down the batteries just powering them down.

Just now I looked at my App and noticed both batteries were visible. So went to check them and they were both powered up and there was an electrical fire smell.

I saw no flames so powered both batteries off but they turned back on automatically!!!

I then switched off the power connection to the inverter and powered them down again. They stayed off.

I then killed the power to the inverter and sent GivEnergy yet another email.

I am not sure what has happened?

How can the batteries just turn themselves on?

I also presume that if there is no power going into the batteries or the inverter that they are now safe. I am venting the area to clear the electrical fumes...

I feel a newspaper article coming on...

Just escalated to Stephen Irish which I had held off doing but this is serious now.

I have a deeply unhappy wife...

So what your saying is you might have some cells available for me soon? (Sorry that might be a bit to soon)

Only thing that springs to mind that would force them back on is the force charge below 4% thing the inverter does.
Those seem to overule everything and work on a timer for say 15mins. Had one of them got really low? (The button on the side of the battery is more a soft "on/off" type thing - the bms is still powered a bit even though it appears off - so I'm unsure if it wakes up and asks for a charge (although if it did I guess there wouldn't be so many people with flat batteries that need force recovering with an external charger...)

hoggy what your saying is you might have some cells available for me soon? (Sorry that might be a bit to soon)

Lol, no not too soon I guess you are bidding on the AC inverter at the moment. FYI I am not...

Ok thanks for the info on the possible override. No the batteries were not low still sat at around 60% and I think 50%.

Just need reassurance that with all the power off the inverter and batteries are inert and safe. That's what I have told the boss...

M_J I would also drop the DC breaker between the batteries and the inverter if you haven't already done so. Then it's down to what 2 batteries can do to each other as they are wired in parallel (hopefully nothing).

Windy Miller would also drop the DC breaker between the batteries and the inverter

Yep that was first as the batteries sprung back into life with them connected.

I then killed the power to the inverter, the acrid smell is awful and taking time to clear...

I have periodically been checking and batteries still powered off.

Funny that the master battery showed green after I broke the connection to the inverter. In the morning I might have a closer look to see if I can find any evidence outside the case....

M_J no I'm not bidding on anything at the moment so it's not me. I'm mulling over going down the pouch cell route to see how much I can physically cram in a 2.6.
Anyway:
That's my theory out then if 60%. Does the portal show any external meddling (from either your installer or Givenergy) - there is a register in the inverter along the lines of 'force awaken battery' so they might have tried that?

M_J Just need reassurance that with all the power off the inverter and batteries are inert and safe

If you have turned everything off, then that is all you can do. I have not heard anyone else report GivEnergy batteries turning themselves back on before. Faulty equipment can behave in unpredictable ways.

Sorry but lithium batteries are always potentially dangerous. The weirdest one I have heard, is the EV that spontaneously caught fire at Faraday Futures on 28th September 2025 in Los Angeles. It had been standing idle in a showroom and had not been charged for 2 years when it suddenly chose to spontaneously combust!
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/29/explosion-vehicle-fire-rock-faraday-futures-la-headquarters/

M_J there was an electrical fire smell.

Did it seem that the smell came from the inverter or the batteries or couldn't you tell which?

Rubikcube

Not sure very strong, just checked log GivEnergy team kick started the batteries without telling me at 15:56.

Smoking gun... Or batteries...

Will chase in the morning...

Good job I spotted them back on line and I was at home....

My guess it's the inverter...

My guess is somebody remotely turned the batteries on and tried to charge them. Given my previous guess that the input stage to the buck boost is shorted, the charger circuit would have been feeding a short circuit. That is likely the cause of the electrical burning smell.

GE don't seem to believe in communication nor fuses.

hoggy Only thing that springs to mind that would force them back on is the force charge below 4% thing the inverter does.

Or doesn't. My G1 will quite happily sit there discharging (30W but its more like 90W) below 4% all the way down to "0%" (45V). It'll do a force discharge at the upper end but doesn't do anything at the low end.

Rubikcube Given they haven't even sold 20 cars in 8 years I suspect shonky design. Looks like a seriously dodgy company even by USA venture capital standards!

Sequence of logs and error messages yesterday afternoon.

15:56 GE Activate Battery - response false
15:57 GE Activate Battery - Written Successfully sent true response true
15:58 Server - Inverter Nominal Power Read Successfully 3000 previous 5000
16:00 Server - Activate Battery - response false

Error messages recorded on App

16:03 BMS voltage high 55.11v
16:03 Battery current short circuit
16:23 Battery voltage low 33.67v

16:34 I emailed support about the electrical smell and mist.

So it was lucky I had checked the app and noticed the batteries were back on line. It was lucky I was at home and not on holiday or away.

GE didn't contact me to say they would be activating the batteries.

GE have not responded so far to my urgent emails last night or the WhatsApp messages I sent yesterday.

I am about to head out but hopefully they will be in touch.

Send GE a message "to check their insurance is up to date, if they are remotely fiddling with your system and it all goes up in flames"

Vestas Looks like a seriously dodgy company even by USA venture capital standards!

Definitely dodgy. I wonder if the car might have been rigged in some way as part of an insurance fraud. Odd coincidence it caught fire 2 days before the building lease expired.

Rubikcube Odd coincidence it caught fire 2 days before the building lease expired

Funny I was talking to a used car dealer a few nights ago at the gym and he was talking about how certain folk were having car fires just as they would become liable for the vehicle or after they had damaged them and needed to hide evidence.

Lot's of dodgy folk prepared to have "accidents" to get big payouts.

Just got back from an appointment hoping that my emails last night would have prompted some engagement with GE....

Tumble weed....

M_J I'd suggest that given recent events and past/present (GE) performance (or the lack of it) that a formal complaint and notice before action registered letters are now appropriate.

YMMV of course but I think you now have grounds for legal action against GE rather than the installer.

Vestas YMMV of course but I think you now have grounds for legal action against GE rather than the installer.

Yep, I am busy today but contemplating my next steps.

I have a few options to pursue and I am absolutely gob smacked that after nearly setting my inverter / batteries on fire they have not responded to me.

The person who initiated the actions has not been in touch.

Just astounding...

More to come on this story, we now have bowls of white vinegar to try and remove the awful electrical smell that is annoying my wife who suffers from asthma. She is deeply unhappy and the smell of burning electrical components very nasty.

M_J e now have bowls of white vinegar to try and remove the awful electrical smell

You might want to consider an air purifier with a carbon filter which will scrub any organics out of the air, the problem with combustion product contamination is that is now deposited on all the porous surfaces (e.g. exposed wood plaster or fabrics) which will then slowly release back into the area. Hence the continued smell. If the surfaces near the invertor are cleanable then washing them down will help reduce the odour. Combustion product clean up is a real pain.

M_J The person who initiated the actions has not been in touch

Still not a thing from anyone at GivEnergy.

I fired off an email complaint last night so it would be on their PC's this morning. Sent to whoever I could get emails of.

I also sent a letter in the post this morning giving them a final chance to resolve this.

I am not hopeful but it's all I can do bar giving up, and that ain't happening...

They potentially could have set my house on fire without asking my permission to wake the batteries up with whatever commands they sent the inverter. It's bloody lucky I spotted them back on line and intervened before anything got out of hand.

That the team member has not been in touch is shocking.

M_J That the team member has not been in touch is shocking.

....but not surprising at all 🙁

Suggest an email to GivEnergy, copied to HSE, local trading/Citizens Advice and your insurer advising of the events and how the GivEnergy action could have caused a significant fire in your home. Maybe tell GivEnergy that you would like new kit under your warranty terms and the dead stuff you will put on the drive for them to collect.

NB my 5 year old SolarEdge inverter stopped producing , so I logged onto their support page Friday 24th Oct and reported the issue, they must have looked remotely over the weekend. On Tuesday they mailed to say there was a fault and would send a replacement inverter. Yesterday I was emailed the RMA tracking details. GivEnergy need to take note!

M_J Time to summon @TheDragon (GivEnergy) if he has time?

Mouton Why? He has absolutely NOTHING to do with the customer support side of the business. He's supposed to be testing beta/production firmware etc, not covering for company policy.

Vestas
With any luck he might see some of these posts and pass them to someone who might do something. The Dragon has always been helpful and even sorted some people's problems when he was on his holiday!

Mouton

Not really his department and it would be like me complaining to EVM as he is (was?) a GivEnergy employee.

The dragon might mention to his colleagues how the company is being perceived, but I think folk in GivEnergy most probably know that anyway.

Thanks for the other advice from folk, currently I am not touching the kit to ensure it's left in the state it was. If I get to a deadlock stage I will then investigate and take photos of what I find.

I will consult Citizen Advice on what to claim if it gets to that stage. If it goes legal it's not straightforward and far better for GivEnergy to just honour it's warranty and send an engineer to resolve the issues.

Who knows they might come good? The letter should be at the HQ today and hopefully passed on to the right team to escalate the issue.

2 weeks for them to put in place a decent action plan...

Thanks. I did not know he had moved company.

Vestas Very good question in terms of generic company process dysfuntionality and recovery. Nothing may get fixed that way for the long term.

However he has been quite visible and known to be a powerful advocate for his company, and very helpful in terms of getting the helpdesk's attention to other problems that were not hi direct concern. This one looks a little more serious than most, and may even link back to a wider safety or development issue too, who knows.

If he wants to reply and deem this inappropriate I will apologize.

Ok just got back home from walking the dog and an email from GivEnergy saying the ticket has been escalated to field engineer team.

No date yet as no one available but at least the letter, or someone has seen the need to look at this...

More as it happens...

M_J Do keep us up to date. Its my understanding that people are being told there's a 6-8 week wait (minimum) for anyone to attend on site. It'll be interesting to see how you get on given you've no doubt highlighted the potential/actual danger.

Mouton Very good question in terms of generic company process dysfuntionality and recovery. Nothing may get fixed that way for the long term.

An analogy would be asking the software engineer who wrote the car engine management software to carry out a service on the car...... 😉

Vestas I get that. But at the end of the day he's also (seemingly) a loyal and powerful advocate for his employer and (clearly from past actions, even deling with customers who had helpdesk issues related to bereavement I think) has lots of internal connections that may help GE wake up to a potentially urgent issue when normal processes are clearly broken.

I wouldn't, and don't, mention his name on every thread wasting good-will, but this one seems potentially appropriate.

Vestas Do keep us up to date. Its my understanding that people are being told there's a 6-8 week wait (minimum) for anyone to attend on site. It'll be interesting to see how you get on given you've no doubt highlighted the potential/actual danger.

That info on delays attending would indeed be a useful bit of info

Will certainly keep folk updated. The primary purpose for me creating this thread is to help others if they have a similar problem.

Secondary it's useful when folk contribute who share useful tips or insights. Every day is a learning day and I have learnt heaps from this forum.

Not all of it stays in memory... But by typing it up I can always find it to double check.

Thanks...

M_J It took them six weeks to turn up to fix my AIO which was delivered brand new and faulty.

Ok so a quick update I had one of the two engineers covering the South and Wales arrive at 8am this morning.

Did some checks, smelt the inverter and removed it and installed a new one.

All done in 45mins. Didn't bother opening the inverter. Said the batteries were fine and working ok.

Mentioned that my batteries would fail warranty because not installed on brackets and sat on the floor. Suggested to get installers back. Didn't mention anything about clearance or physical location which is now questionable based on new guidelines.

No quibbling about inverter warranty and just installed a new one. Changed the inverter number and checked it could charge and discharge.

Then off to a job in London which is about a 2 hour drive from here. Cambridge for him tomorrow. It took him 2 hours to get here, so he had left home around 6am.

He said the majority 90% of his calls deal with installation errors. Not putting neutral wires in properly, failing to tighten correctly but GE gets the negative reviews not the installers.

He has also had occasional users not in when he has arrived. The worst being a trip from Swindon to Wales.

GE do capture mobile phone numbers so it's not too much of a stretch to get the engineer to phone ahead of time to help ensure the user is in. I get that some folk don't like talking to customers but it's a simple thing which enhances customer interaction. I got told I would see an engineer between 8am and 5pm so couldn't plan my day. A simple call last night saying I aim to be with you by 8am would have been great customer service and helped him ensure I was in.

Anyway looks like I am back working and will schedule a calibration tonight to ensure the inverter and batteries are aligned after two months of inactivity.

2 engineers for one half of the UK might be too few? Yet 90% of calls are installation errors?

M_J I don't believe for one second that "90%" of calls are installation errors, especially given the fact they'll (try to) charge the installers for those visits.

A look through Trustpilot* suggests the majority of faults have occurred long after the installation.

Glad you're sorted anyway 🙂

*where GE are now rated the worst company in each of the three categories they chose to be listed in

Vestas look through Trustpilot* suggests the majority of faults have occurred long after the installation.

Well some install issues won't immediately manifest.

I have no idea what the percentages are but that's what he said and he is dealing with it day in day out.

Anyway for those waiting GE finally sorted it, or appear to so far...

M_J glad you got sorted in the end.
In theory a few issues like battery MCBs and so on should gradually fall out of the circle of repairs from the introduction of plug to plug batteries and inverters, Wago connections for the AC side and so on.

I do feel for the engineers on the ground - there being two covering quite a wide area must mean an awful lot of man hours spent driving and not clearing down the fault list (presumably with regular trips to Stoke to drop off dead gear and pick up new kit)

hoggy do feel for the engineers on the ground - there being two covering quite a wide area must mean an awful lot of man hours spent driving and not clearing down the fault list (presumably with regular trips to Stoke to drop off dead gear and pick up new kit)

For example today he will have been on the road for 6 hours to cover two calls. If he drove home, he is being treated to a travel lodge so he can get to the Cambridge call tomorrow morning, but 4 hours for 2 visits is not great use of time.

I did ask how often he gets up north but no Christmas party this year and I guess they use couriers to get spares and broken kit back to Manchester.

Very thin resources and a lot for two to cover in the South when you consider where the potential number of installations are...

M_J GE aren't the only ones to do that - we had an engineer to repair/replace a shower and she came from Liverpool to Leicester!

I agree some problems will take time to manifest but not 90% 😉

Thank you for posting the update.

You said the engineer changed the serial number? Presumably to match your old one? Be aware that there is now potentially a duplicate serial number on the loose.

My app currently doesn't cope well with meter values jumping. Is the replacement inverter new or re-conditioned? How old is it? What is the date code part of the printed serial number? Are the meter values back to zero? On my app you can see the meter values by selecting the calendar icon and changing "Data Table" to "Meter Data". Do I need to change my app to detect and cope with this situation?

Rubikcube

Alas the original label showing the replacement inverter details have been removed and the engineer removed my original inverter label and stuck it on the replacement inverter.

So I can't see how old this replacement is? It could be a reworked inverter that someone else returned to GivEnergy?

I will check meter values later...

Last night I ran your App to control it and it seems to have worked ok.

I have decided that the message "Battery Current Short Circuit" is misleading as it suggests the fault is with the battery. The word "Current" is also redundant. In the next version of my app (due to be released in the new year) the message will be changed to "Battery Short Circuit; Inverter Fail".