How can I get Givenergy to help me?

I have a 9kwh battery and inverter system from them. Been installed for 2 1/2 years. For the last 8 weeks it only puts 4kwh in the battery when charging and tells me it's full, then hits 4% after exporting 4kwh.

I tried the WhatsApp method - got nowhere.

I emailed them and got a support ticket and an email saying they would respond in around 5 days. That was in October. I've emailed again and phoned twice. Each time I've got through to people who apologise and say they are escalating my issue, but nothing happens.

I'll call them again tomorrow. Is there a magic word I need to say to get them to do something?

Anyone here have a way to get them to help?

Thanks

I think the answer is to pray.

Is your firmware up to date.
Have you run a calibration from the portal?

Have you tried shutting EVERYTHING down- DC string isolators, MCB in consumer unit feeding inverter, battery on/off button (high on RHS on 9.5. Press and hold for a couple of secs until it beeps),MCB isolator on LHS of 9.5 under flap. Leave everything for 30s or so until all power has drained. Turn all back on and hopefully all will reboot and may reset your values.

I'm having the same issue. I've now emailed support five times and still no response accept one saying it's logged. I'm now thinking of writing a letter to the registered address and asking for a battery refund so I can get a replacement that works!! Not expecting a response so maybe County Court action. Nightmare

Ah just seen the phone line - 01377 252 874
The quickest way to get support is to contact our support team directly. Give us an email via support@givenergy.co.uk, or drop us a call via 01377 252 874.

I have a similar issue. Around the begining of October the Octopus API that charges the battery 0:30am to 530 am and 2pm to 4pm each day stopped working properly. I have a 4% battery charge most of the time and it does random stuff like dumping all the charge and only charging for 30mins at a low rate. Driving me crazy.

JohnMcJohnFace In your case it might be worth disconnecting the Octopus control and seeing if it will at least allow you to charge overnight and operate normally that way for a couple of days.
It won't necessarily last you all day but it will tell you if there is an issue with the system or the control, and will presumably function better for you than the current state.

SteveCook

Thanks Steve.

How do I run a calibration? Which part of the portal do I go to?

I'm not with Octopus, or any other flex provider.

Thanks.

JohnMcJohnFace

Thanks John

It's the email and phone number I've been using to no effect

Davenlyd if you log into the portal, go to my inverters, then click on the cog wheel to go to settings and its about half way down the page the option to start a calibration

you can set the start time for the calibration and that’s it

remember that a calibration will completely empty and then refill your battery, so set the time such that you can do the refill on cheapest rate you can

I have the same issue. one of my batteries has dropped off after a calibration 2 months ago. Surely GivEnergy should be notified of an issue with my system. It was only by chance that i noticed that the export from the battery was low.
I have been trying to get technical help from GivEnergy for over 3 weeks. Not a single reply
REALLY POOR

James Dartiailh
I am not trying to be provocative, but why would GivEnergy want to monitor your system? We dont pay them any sort of subscription.
I agree customer support is poor, but they just sold some kit.
I feel the bigger problem is we are all being led to buy/install these complex(?) systems without any guidance/warnings that they need to be looked after by the purchaser/owner. They are being sold as "plug and play", but they are not.

SteveCook The issue is that issues beyond the capabilities of end users to resolve are arising due to poor equipment quality. Batteries discharging below minimum voltages during calibrations, which on some equipment appears to be triggered without having been requested by the user in the first place.
The issues around WiFi connections seem largely to have been self inflicted with the choice of a cheap and outdated chip that can't even handle the presence of a 5GHz network and needs patient coaxing to connect to even vaguely modern networks. The 802.11n standard was ratified in 2009, nine years before GivEnergy was founded.
Maybe there should be some sort of support contract or payment as it stands you spend thousands of pounds on equipment and it is in the lap of the Gods if it is still working before the finance agreement has ended. If you buy a car you can go to a third party garage if the dealers stop responding, a house you can get third party builders and tradespeople. Heat Pumps and boilers can be serviced and repaired by third party engineers.
Something like GivEnergy can only be supported by the company who manufactured the equipment, and they simply aren't up to the job.

pwdst
I agree, but this is not how things are portrayed. I bought my kit blindly believing it would "plug n play" and work. If i had known it would be like looking after a classic car ( I have one), I might have just put off the purchase

SteveCook Interestingly, I was watching Gary Does Solar and he is looking to replace his kit - one of the reasons he said was due to customer support (or lack of it) and the other one he mentioned which I thought was interesting was the rate of change of kit.

GivEnergy obviously lose no revenue from loss of customers where the equipment has already been sold, in fact they shed cost in the form of server resources and support time.
The issue though is their reputational damage and the loss of installers threatens to bring the entire house of cards tumbling down.
Especially when renewables focused accounts are publicly stating their reasons for moving on.

CW I must admit I got bored watching Gary but rather suspect he wouldn’t be changing anything if he was paying for it all at full wack

SimonClarke Yep easy decision if you get a big discount and can make content from it to off set the cost.

YouTube is a business for those making the content.

I got some quotes from his "recommended" solar installers and I am not overly impressed with them.

They will be giving him commissions...

SimonClarke I used to watch Gary does Solar avidly, he had a lot of good content, unfortunately all after I’d bought my solar system, but he did a lot of explanation of tariff options, solar placement, etc.

I guess over time though he has run out of new content to produce and he’s definitely become more advertorial, he’s been pro-Sigenergy for some time with more than one advertorial video from him. So when I saw the title of the video, I wasn’t surprised, but have no plans to watch the video. We know the customer service is strained and given the closed nature of givenergy this makes it doubly so, so watching Gary’s video won’t inform me or make me do anything different.

As I have said before I would not be surprised that within 10 years the whole home battery ecosystem will effectively be dead, replaced by V2G and smart chargers. Export rates are going down, import rates up, more restrictions (rightly so) on tariffs like Octopus iGo, all makes the justification for buying a new install (regardless of the supplier) even harder to make in my view.

geoffreycoan home battery ecosystem will effectively be dead, replaced by V2G and smart chargers

Man who use EV battery to power heat pump always comes home to cold house. Ancient Chinese Proverb. 🙂

I was going to say, home batteries have one significant advantage in that they don't tend to wander around the country.
That said someone who is normally at home most of the time and is lucky enough to have adjacent off-road parking and a Vehicle To Home capable charger and vehicle could quite possibly run their Heat Pump almost entirely off Go rates and only need a small amount of battery to cover short absences.
For longer trips load could be significantly dialled back anyway with just set back temperatures maintained.

SimonClarke I must admit I got bored watching Gary but rather suspect he wouldn’t be changing anything if he was paying for it all at full wack

Well, I watched the whole thing and although he admitted that he gets lots of offers he made a point of saying that he was going to pay for the SigEnergy kit without any any special deal, with his own money...

It seems my experience matches those above - at the end of this post I have a solution as to how to talk to Givenergy and get some answers - so read on.
This has been the most frustrating experience of recent times. Our installer pretty much fits into the same frame as Givenergy so far as Customer Service is concerned - all their time is spent on sales and installation/admin with zero follow up or response to queries - until court action threatened. But even that doesn't work with Givenergy.
In our case I've tried everything I can work out to do on the app and the portal to get the batteries to charge/discharge/export at times I control both via the app and lately via the portal. Result - nothing happens as set. I've tried the switch off, wait a few minutes, switch on - nowt!
Before we bought a hybrid car in October we were on Octopus Intel Flux and all worked well, had to do nothing other than an occasional review to check all was well - it was. So reasonable to assume the inverter did what it was told - well, at least by Octopus
With the car's arrival and because we use a £123 granny charger for the car's 20kwh battery (couldn't justify spending £1100 - £1500 for a fixed charger) I switched to Octopus Go expecting to be able to manage the batteries to maximum benefit. What a joke! Once I'd found out how to cancel Octopus's API control it should have been a doddle - but - The inverter has developed a mind of its own and over the past 2 weeks has charged at highest rate, discharged at lowest rate and given up exporting
Now how to get through to Givenergy - dial the number, on options don't take the end user router, take the installer route, there may be a bit of 'on hold" but you will get through to a real live person who, in my case, couldn't have been more helpful in cancelling the Octopus API. But a warning - I think they've got wise to this and you may not find it works - but still worth a try? I really do not know what I can now do other than revert to Octopus Intel Flux and pay through the nose for car charging - certainly not going to shell out for a fixed charger, move to Octo Intel Go to find no change. Wish me luck?

ruskineer

Might be worth looking at…

https://community.wonderwatt.com/t/iog

geoffreycoan

Thank you Geoffrey - you're a star.

All now working as it should be. Shame it took six weeks for Givenergy do nothing when the solution was this simple.