Givenergy advising that below 13% battery output of only 100W is normal!

Hi All, I'm just posting to see everyone elses thoughts on this. I've been trying for over 6weeks to get GivEnergy support regarding my batteries having an issue where they output only 100W below 18%. I finally have and they are now telling me 13% and below battery output of only 100W is fine because it goes into "idle"! Previous to my battery issues I was getting 3.6KWh output pretty much all the way down to 5%. Can other people advise their max output is below this value please?

My system will discharge at 2.6kW (max for my system) all the way down to 48 volts. The percentage is irrelevant. What voltage is the battery at? If it's empty, the laws of physics say you can't get power out of a flat battery.

Rubikcube I appreciate the response. Checking for one of the days where I got down below 18%. I'm seeing a voltage on all 3 of around 51.3-51.5V. As part of the troubleshooting previously I did, I found that if I switched off certain batteries the output increased. To me this is a battery issue, even though they're saying 100W is normal. Historically I know this to be untrue.

Can you do a calibration

I only have one battery on my system. I think your issue is to do with having multiple batteries, so beyond my experience. I think it is similar to this one.
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/6465-batteries-are-never-balanced

Something has definitely changed recently in the way multiple batteries are being used. Mine now don’t seem to discharge fully even after calibration. Right now the app shows 8% battery, but individually my 3 batteries are at 19%, 27% and 13%. No bad cells showing.

The fact GE are telling you that output it limited at lower charge is something very new. They’re suggesting that their batteries are only useful for 80% capacity?

@SteveCook I've done 5 calibrations and each time I hit the same problem (during calibration and after). I had a 9.5KWh batter added last year and all 3 were fine for a year (the other 2 fine before that). It's only the last few months this has been happening. But it was always the case I could get the 3 batteries down to the 5% mark and they output fine. All 3 batteries are within the voltage tolerance and discharge at the same time/within balance @Rubikcube . All I know is around 4-5 months ago the batteries stopped discharging which necessitated a full power off/on of the inverter/batteries. After this, the batteries started discharging fine.... It being summer, I never noticed the issue regarding dropping below 18% (the previous winter they were fine). Just very painful at the moment as I'm missing out on 1.5KWh of power left in the batteries.

Dabz Hey, seems that way. they mentioned the 13% value, but I'm getting that at 18%. I'm hoping a firmware release comes out soon as since the batteries/inverter went onto the latest, I've never been 100% happy (batteries charging/discharging 50W when battery is at 100% etc.

devonguyuk firmware release

No idea if it will help, but the latest battery firmware is 3022. Download here

https://givenergy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/3022.zip

Rubikcube that firmware doesn’t show on the inverter control panel, do you know if it’s beta?

Where are you measuring your SOC? If its the general one (I.e the one you get on the portal) then something sounds amiss. If your looking at the deep dive battery data in the app for each pack then the scaling is different: I.e the battery will actually run between 15% and 95% in reality (as it holds extra capacity above what you've 'paid for' - a 9.5 pack is in reality about 10.2kWh

Dabz No idea. Beta or not, any new firmware should be regarded as unproven. My battery is still on 3017 and I intend to keep it there for some time yet.

hoggy It's the main portal. However on the app, each battery used to get to 5%. I work out I'm missing around 1.5KWh from the battery. GivEnergy came back today saying everything is working as it should. However I find it strange that the system has always gotten down to 5% charge with no issues (with a discharge of around 17.9KWh, but since the issue a few months ago, the system doesn't behave as it used to (discharge of <16.5KWh). FYI, going into winter I always used to set the batteries to discharge to only 20% as to keep a battery backup in case of a Power outage. BTW, the version I am currently using on the batteries is 3022 and Inverter FW D0.316-A0.316. The latter gave me headaches initially having gone onto it.

devonguyuk this is frustrating - the same experience I'm having in that for the last month or so my batteries stop discharging around 20%, but the app shows 4%. Which sounds like GE have decided this is normal behaviour and we need to learn to miss out on usable battery capacity.

Dabz finding now also the battery has gone back to discharging 150W or so when fully charged when I charge it during low rate. The joys!

Hey all,

Sorry been a busy few months. Another department contacted me and sent an engineer out. They swapped out the problematic battery and everything went back to normal (discharging to 5% at 3.6KWh).