Anyone else considering moving on from Givenergy?

We've had GE gear for 3 years now and after the initial firmware turmoil, it's reasonably steady now. However, the increasing number of reports about poor service, installers dropping them and a financial loss, it's worrying that they aren't actually going to be around for much longer. Hopefully I'm wrong but the signs at the moment aren't great. Silence from the company doesn't help either.

It would cost about £10k to replace my kit with equivalent Sig gear or similar and it's not something I really want to do. That said, I don't want to be left with an unsupported system if GE can't get their act back together. I have the excellent RubikCube app to use for local control if needed as a stop gap but it wouldn't be a good place to be at all.

Is anyone else getting a bit twitchy or am I just dooming too much?

Why jump until you have to?

DONT PANIC. The worst that could realistically happen is that Giv goes bust, the portal closes, and your inverters go pop (or bang). In which case you can just use the grid like in the olden days(!), and like most people still do. It's a solar/battery system not a life support machine, so you will be fine without it for a while.

Only then do you need to make the decision to repair or replace.

I too have had my GE gear for 3 years, and not had any problems. The infamous "click of death" fault I think can be repaired at reasonable cost. Failed battery cells cannot be repaired, and replacing cells is near impossible because they are welded in at the factory.

This type of equipment cannot simply be unplugged and taken to be repaired, like a toaster or air-fryer. I don't think customers should attempt to disconnect or reconnect solar inverters.

Let's assume that GE are no more and your inverter has suffered the click of death fault. Your nearest repairer is a 2 hour drive away. The repairer has to drive to you, spend an hour testing, disconnecting, and making safe, and then take your inverter back to the workshop. Three hours in the workshop to repair the inverter. Then 2 hours drive back to you, an hour to fit it all back and test, and finally back to base. That is 13 hours for labour, plus parts. Assume £20 per hour plus £20 for parts and the bill is £280.

Whilst Giv will replace for free under warranty, it would be crazy to pay £280. But if Giv were no more, would you pay to repair (probably with only a 12 month warranty) or would you replace?

It certainly wouldn't hurt to research a potential replacement system and installer but given you could have years of service from your current system - you may as well stick with it until the lack of support becomes an actual problem.
It is both the financially and ecologically prudent thing to do, and in the mean time new technology is always getting cheaper and better so you might end up with a more capable or cheaper system by waiting.
I wouldn't tell someone without solar and batteries to wait for the promised future developments, a saving now is worth two in the bush, but unless your current system isn't meeting your needs there seems no imperative to force a change.

Reassuring comments, appreciated. Our installer is good and knows our thoughts - he's roughly speccd Sig gear for us along with a proposal to shift the GE gear to one of our kids houses, so upheaval aside, there wouldn't be too much waste. However, as suggested, the sane play is probably to run it until an actual need arises to switch. I guess worst case would be a few months offline while waiting for the new gear.

All that said, hopefully GE can resolve their issues and restore confidence. In the interim, fingers crossed. Cheers all.

Other than the dongle itself (which is my next victim) I think we have enough knowledge in the community to basically do anything the portal does (including engineering/commissioning stuff) so I wouldn't worry too much.
If the dongle can be worked out then it can no doubt be wrestled to point to some other server.

Lots of great thoughts and comments.

The other thing I would chip in is that Sigenergy is just like GivEnergy, its a closed proprietary ecosystem and if they get into trouble then its the same situation.
Sigenergy are the darling buds of many installers and youtubers at the moment, but 3 years ago, Givenergy were. And that's not just idle speculation, Octopus had selected them as their battery system of choice and Intelligent Octopus Flux only supported GivEnergy systems. And all that growth contributed massively to the support strain that the company then experienced.

geoffreycoan Sigenergy are the darling buds of many installers and youtubers at the moment, but 3 years ago, Givenergy were

And recently, although not quite as bad, there have been customer service gripes about Sig too. Seems lots of these companies need to go through a learning cycle on how build, and scale rapidly, a customer service operation.

Rubikcube I agree. My Givenergy system is also about 3 years old. My thoughts are assuming the system will get to the point of payback or indeed end of life, even from the outset, I imagined I would be looking at whatever is a good system to get at the time, whatever manufacturer that would be. This could be 7 years or more in the future I have little idea how the technology will have changed in that time. I think, though, it is safe to say it won't be the same as the system installed now.

If the system fails before its time, I will have to just deal with that at the time, be that repair or replacement. I am not sure in my circumstance that the idea of repair costs you mention would be that small. The last time I had an issue with a firmware update ( I do not update anything anymore and won't do so unless Givenergy instruct me to in the event of an error) I spoke to the installer, who said they would charge £250 for a site visit and any repairs would be on top of that.

Mouton good points. Maybe Giv are actually ahead of the curve in an odd way and the experience will help them to grow back better. Let's hope so.

sponev Mine's been in for 2.5 years & it has crossed my mind to replace it. Fingers crossed, my system (Gen2 3.6kWh Hybrid + 2 x 9.5kW batteries) has been working well enough of late. Had some issues early doors with firmware updates & WiFi connection. Managed to get the firmware sorted & I have now hard wired the Inverter, Zappi & an Eddi direct to my router after major problems after switching broadband supplier.
If the day comes & GE disappear & the App / Portal stop working I'll consider replacement then. Until then I'll leave it alone & hope it keeps ticking along & gradually pays for itself within the next 4 years.

hoggy have enough knowledge in the community

Bear in mind we would have to create a new community as this forum could be nuked. People would then need to find the new community.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the battery market is still bleeding edge and not mature.

If you have an EV it's possible now with kit to use that to run your house and not even bother with a separate battery.

Not for everyone but if you are at home more often than not it could change the economics of a separate house battery system.

Lots of changes to come in the next 5 years...

If Givenergy does go bust it is entirely possible that they will get picked up by another company as they have decent kit that someone might want to get their hands on so it is possible that the portal, forum and everything else will get taken on and kept running in some capacity. One of the robot vaccum companies recently went into administration and I believe that another company picked it up and was going to continue their internet service.

M_J I had the same thought - perhaps we should be archiving / backing it up in some way? I guess if this board was nuked, we could setup a new forum, and if the people joined that, a lot of the knowledge in their heads could be recaptured, but it wouldn't be as helpful as an archive.

Changing kit before it breaks can’t be good for ROI

M_J f you have an EV it's possible now with kit to use that to run your house and not even bother with a separate battery.

The Battery Man has already done this and from what I remember there is a lot of open source stuff about (which is growing) to allow someone to connect a car battery up to an inverter. My belief is that this will become more mainstream as time goes by, and more and more EV batteries become available.

I think there will be a large market for this going forward. You are recycling stuff so much greener, and an 40kWh EV battery at 70% usable is still plenty for a house and much larger capacity that we typically get now.

Interesting topic!
As others have said, there seems little point in changing things unnecessarily. As the saying goes, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it'!
I too have had my installation for over 3 years, Nov 22. A gen1 5kW inverter, 9.5kW gen2 battery, and 5.46 kW solar array. I was told by my installer it was oversized for our needs as he recommended a smaller system, but having downsized houses, with money in the bank earning effectively no interest at the time, it just seemed sensible to make it bigger and get a better return than I could get in the bank. I also, at the same time, installed a 6.2kW Mitsubishi A2A heat pump (Air con unit for the uninitiated), which has performed fantastically, and has kept the whole open plan bungalow warm in the winters, and cool in the summers.
Turned out to be one of my better decisions, as net over the 3 years I haven't had to pay out costs for any energy bills, for gas, electric or standing charges, and that includes an EV for the last 15 months.
For me, the return on investment was the key driver to install the system, and fortunately, (as I touch wood), I've not needed any call outs and the system has been pretty reliable. I'm rather hoping it will stay that way for another 2 years at least till break even, for the whole system including A2A.
Chances are though, if things were to go 'tits up' with GE, there'd be enough kit in the market either new or second hand to find replacements, and enough installers around to fit it. If the system did need to be hooked out and replaced, then the new technology available, a little like PCs and mobiles, would be better and more powerful for around the same money.
I don't think we need to worry too much!

Mine is now 5 and a bit years old so out of warranty other than the battery. So I have less to worry about personally.
This forum has been useful although with it being behind a login makes archiving it difficult. (You can't for instance just point the internet Archive at it (although may be a good idea to point it at the firmware pages just in case))

By no means do I think that we are at this point but even at the thought of the worst outcome I doubt nobody would take it all on (see also PowerVault who are much smaller and have actually gone bust but someone stepped in to pick up the ashes.)
I'm sure Rubikube has something very similar but worst case is that things like this see the light of day to keep/get things going rather than stuck in a box on a shelf:

Something for people to bear in mind is that if you took the extended warranty (from 5 years to 10 years) your installer sold you that warranty as an item. They are legally liable from years 6-10 if GE fail to honour the warranty.

Years 3-5 are a grey area as they're not covered by MCS (years 1-2) but if you were one of the people (like me) who paid £200 to extend the warranty then your installer is on the hook for it.

I've checked the above with a solicitor.

We installed ours three years ago through the solar together scheme. Maybe paid a little more than going rate but got a quality installer and a 10 year insurance underwritten warranty, in case some, all, or any of the supply chain defaulted on their obligations. Absolutely no point changing if it is working. I would hope GE are working towards a more normal supplier/customer relationship; why would they not? Worst case, as long as the equipment works, does it matter? I have bought consumer electronics that came with "lifetime" support and that turned out to be five years - but it still works although a little less secure.

What’s saddening is that the design of the kid is very good. The support used to be excellent for a while and then it deteriorated to the current mess, where you can’t get hold of anyone and nobody seems to get back to you if you go through the phone systems or WhatsApp. Replies now only seem to happen if one of the diligent GivEnergy employees that visit here or Facebook jump in to help. I’m worried about what would happen if these people decided to move on, retire etc.

A lot of the insurance backed warranties are extremely painful to use. They try every trick in the book to avoid paying out. I have an insurance backed warranty that I had to use because the installer went bankrupt and I had a broken issolator. I had to get the Financial Services Ombudsman to intervene and demand them to refund me. It took another three months afterwards for them to pay up.

Jhors agreed about the insurance backed warranties. When our original installer went bust, all of them ducked and ran, pathetic actually. It then took over 6 months to get Barclays to cough up for rectification work and to underwrite the original warranty. So I don't hold out much hope for any of that without a major battle.

Our installer (another one who has dropped GE) says the kit is "solid" if not a bit outdated now, so hopefully there is some longevity there. But they had to drop them as a supplier as support was cr@p and there is better kit available now. It's easy enough to accept that tech has moved on, but the issue with dismal support is a different matter. Hopefully the new management team are getting to grips with it. An update from them would be nice, particularly given the uncertainty.

The moral of these stories (however they end) is to pay your deposit (£100+) on a credit card.

Then its the CC's problem.

Vestas Indeed and I did. Little did I expect that Barclays would fight tooth and nail to avoid honouring the warranty. They only caved when we started legal proceedings. In the end they paid up for the work to be completed and honoured the 10 year workmanship warranty - it was the latter that they fought really hard to deny as it leaves them liable for a good while. So if anything fails within ten years which can be shown to be workmanship related, we "should" be covered. That said, I'm pretty sure they'd stonewall again.

hoggy

I think we have enough knowledge in the community to basically do anything the portal does (including engineering/commissioning stuff)

Interested in the 'engineering/commissioning' bit of your post; as a n00b, could someone point me in the direction of learning about 3rd party commissioning GivEnergy kit? I have a couple of second-hand AC-coupled inverters that could do with re-commissioning...

ectoplasmosis while the company exists don't expect to see that posted here.

😉

ectoplasmosis there is no 3rd party commissioning (well not from me anyway unless the company goes pop - I got in hot water with Giv just taking an inverter apart and explaining what made it tick - not got the patience for that BS again)
However there should be no reason why GivTCP / HA / Rubicube app can't run a previously commissioned one right now. You just won't get the official app.

hoggy Ah, gotcha!

My second-hand inverters have been previously commissioned, so may be usable via the control methods mentioned, thank you.

I’ve been looking at other manufacturers to supplement what I already have. So long as I can control it locally via the APIs then all options are on the table.

Happy to wait for v2h before jumping though. Having a Heatpump now has sharpened my thoughts on extra battery shortage though.

A while after getting our system I considered taking the GivEnergy installer course so I could 'self install' upgrades (Professional Electrical engineer for the last 45 years). Unfortunately, they changed their rules to require Part P $ertification and annual renewal. so it didn't happen.

The kit is good, I control my 3.6kW Hybrid with Rubikcube's app and am playing with monitoring it via HA. I may be in a position to do an upgrade to more generation and more storage this year (more panels, string inverters, AIO, Gateway) , but it's difficult to find an installer who'll deal with them.

The product's good. The company's got serious personality problems. I just wish they could hire a few psychiatrists/therapists for the owners/managers...

Hook
Because we have an ASHP we decided to upgrade our 2x5.2 with a newer Gen 3 5.2 battery. Cost was £1900 with the extra cables. We also hardwired the inverter with ethernet connection to our router. Now on Octopus Cosy for winter and Flux for sunnier months.

3 years in and Im not planning to move away unless something forces me to do so

However I am more inclined to tinker with it - I have been mooting the idea of using V2L to trickle charge the battery and most advised not to do so, but over time the way the system works has been come more understood and so there seems to be a more acceptable method to do it with risk mitigations built in (two in fact on AIO)

So if my next car has V2L (its a run around which sits mostly in the garage) I likely will get a GIV installer to look into the options and see if there happy with them to implement.

hoggy Since PowerVault went into administration in November (2025), do you know if the Powervault Portal is still operational?

I cannot confirm nor deny the existence of the advanced tools that I have 😉

Rubikcube I think it is? I just did a quick search for a portal and a login appeared. Whether it logs you in to anything meaningful I’ve no idea as I don’t have one of their inverters.

Gary (Does Solar) is about to change his kit from Giv to Sig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw-i_tkoVvg&t=27s&pp=ygUPZ2FyeSBkb2VzIHNvbGFy

I'm considering the move too since have the V2X EVDC is a game changer ... which should become more common generally hopefully. But I doubt Giv will do one which is compatible with existing kit.

But generally I agree no point jumping if the kit is working OK.

Hook we have 2 x ASHP (A2A) and 19kwh of batteries covers the running on all but the coldest of days. We looked to get an additional battery but the concerns over GE and the limitation of the 5kw inverter charging stopped us.

We have a new Renault 5 arriving for the wife in March which has V2L but not yet V2G as far as they could tell us. Very irritating as that car does provide V2G/V2H in other countries - the UK is "not ready for it yet" apparently. We have an inkling that the correct gear is actually on the car albeit it would need reconfiguring for V2H. I guess we'll find out over the coming year or so. That would be a real bonus and may prompt me to look at the Sig gear again. My Tesla is also due for change in about a year's time so that will be another opportunity to explore V2H/V2G. Seems daft to have a shed load of batteries on the drive and not be able to use them.

sponev Sig EVDC apparently works with 85-90% of cars (the fact that it's DC is the key). Now that may cause an issue with warranties but personally I wouldn't worry about that as my car is 4 years old and I'm not worried about it ... but others may be especially with a new car

hoggy I suspect the powervault portal is still up too. Easy to get to a login, but not easy to confirm. Probably paid for in advance, so it will keep working until the payment period ends at least, then the administrators may well extend if they are looking for a buyer.

Powervault.co.uk domain is registered and paid for up until 6-nov-2031.

Nil Desperandum I'm not an electrical engineer but I'm figuring that if the Renault already has facility to plug in a kettle and boil it, then it can't be beyond the wit of man to get that power into my home somehow. How to do that cost-effectively and for it to play nicely alongside the Giv gear I'm not sure, but surely doable? If I was Giv, I'd be looking at something like this asap as others e.g. Sig already have some options. But then I guess they'd maybe prefer to sell more of their own batteries? Maybe a stand-alone third-party unit could work?

The key difference is grid sync. If you just plug V2L in to the mains then the sync is wrong - so you (at worse being 180' out of phase) would end up with a massive voltage mismatch that will toast your V2L inverter.
I've seen before that people with Victon kit can use the 'generator' input to their multiplus with V2L relatively successfully but earthing / N bonding needs thinking about. I'd have to go check the manual but I think the Victron can do some quite clever things with taking the Gen input (which will be out of sync) and through converting it to DC first, can then compliment grid as opposed to an either/or approach which would ordinarily limit you to whatever the V2L max output is.

The AIO 2 gateway does have Gen input as well, but I think that would require the gateway to sever the grid and island the house to work. I'm unsure if the AIO2 would compliment or the gateway runs the house entirely from the Gen input in this case.

Sigenergy take a different approach and basically connect the high voltage EV battery to essentially a spare MPPT input. Similar to just connecting PV panels. This does require some trickery to fool the EV into thinking it is at a rapid charger which then closes the contactor to the CCS pins (the two fat ones at the bottom of the charge port).

The community is trying to get their head around a similar trick - see https://github.com/uhi22/pyPLC

I think the hold up with V2G is admin nonsense and open standards. The trick that makes Sig EVDC work is the DC bit ... they are relatively simple and relatively standard protocols ... at least that is my understanding! And it makes sense ... AC charging goes through each vendors software surrounding the car inverter.

hoggy Interesting to hear the Sig approach. There are some quite impressive videos on Battery Man’s youtube channel, connecting an EV battery up to a standard domestic inverter and then some trickery on an ESP32 box to talk to the battery via canbus.
If these were generally available then it would be a big change, but I’m not attempting a DIY install like he did…

Worth saying you could use V2L to run part of your home on the EV battery if you plugged it into a dedicated ring main circuit or socket, e.g. for a tumble dryer. But a load of hassle getting things rewired that way and for marginal benefit when you can just run the appliance overnight instead.

Also there is the question of what V2G/V2L does for your EV battery warranty when you’re potentially putting loads more cycles on it. This will come in time I’m sure

geoffreycoan I heard (I think from Octopus forum) that when they did their V2X test the battery state actually improved. And this sort of makes sense because the regular use at a steady level is generally much better for a battery than high/low load mixes of driving a 2 ton vehicle... but I don't think that's a scientific verified result!

hoggy thank you for the summary, it's saved me a lot of research. I think at the moment we will try to make sure that the cars we get are as advanced as they can be with respect to (possibly) provisioning V2G/V2H - then hopefully new developments will allow us to use them. We really only need access to another 5 or 6 kwh to top off the 19kwh of batteries we already have - this is to keep the heat pumps running without having to use standard rate leccy on the very coldest days. It's no biggie, just frustrating that the batteries are on the drive but inaccessible, well at least for now.

sponev for the Renault, if it works in other markets it may simply be that it needs to go through the ENA test for G98/G99.
Whether they want to put it through that is another matter...

The only issue at the moment is getting compatible hardware.

Just like we had the VHS Betmax war with CCS and Chademo - V2H is doing the same with AC and DC V2H/G options so from what Im reading things like a R5 uses AC, whist sig uses DC so they wont work together.

Even if you do get one with DC you then might also fall foul of the connection standards, as say the Honda E is on the face of it compatible but it has a incompatible older ISO standard so wont work either

So its kinda flawed as a product as most would likely use a cheaper small ev as the go to option and they use AC V2H as its cheaper so your looking at a Seg C car having the compatibility right now

I am sure Ed Miliband is all over this and going to come up with a standard that works for everyone as part of his grand masterplan..........

DreadorUK thanks for the insights. Our Tesla is 3 years old and I'll be looking to change just before the 4 year warranty expires. Maybe by that stage, things will be clearer/easier but I won't get too excited just yet!

sponev

What's the rubikCube app? Mobile/android/ios/windows?

Anomnomnomaly

https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/1839-android-inverter-monitor
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.rubikcube.invertermonitor

Rubikcube

Cheers, wondered why I couldn't find it looking for rubik cube app... just a load of pay to win or data harvesting free games coming up. 🙂

Now installed and set up.

There is a lot of external developers with some good internal knowledge.
Im sure all is fine and just a re-structure.

All the chatter and fake news doesnt help though.
Kit works, a set of new firmware went out today, which i did and didnt see any issues.

Surely if there was issues, why would they still be developing new features

..

TheGuru Indeed there are good guys but why should users need to go to Facebook to hope that one of them will be around to help? The formal support via GE is hit and miss at best at the moment unfortunately. So when we see way too many instances of folk being left hanging for weeks with failed kit, installers abandoning GE, plus news of the company making a financial loss, it's no wonder questions are asked and reassurance sought.

We all invested (lots) in a UK company and I'm sure we all hope they succeed, but the silence from them is deafening at times. For those of us who run businesses, that really isn't the best way to do it.

Ouch. Did my video of someone doing V2H get nerfed. I didn’t think it was something Giv offered.

Hook what was this please? We're very interested in it but can't really find a viable commercial option at the moment. Most of the stuff we've seen in the UK is either home-spun or some form of trial. Cheers.

TheGuru Developing 'new' features whilst the old ones are broken and being made considerably worse... that sounds like a fantastic use of resources.

Rubikcube Liked your thoughts but not your hourly rates. £65per hour in mid Wales min. City rates £100+,Would repair be an option?

arthurma The consumer sees the rate differently to the tradesperson. Customer sees less than an hours work and some cheap part and complains at a £280 bill.

Whilst most owners can tell if their solar-battery system is working or not. Once it is broken, very few would be able to judge if it is repairable or not.

Probably installers are best placed to offer the customer the choice of replacement with another brand, or replacement with reconditioned equipment.

I had similar concerns when deciding on a system, they all have pros and cons, this was my suppliers view -

Short answer. Product is great. Customer Support is not so great at the current moment in time.

As a platinum installer we are fortunate enough to have our own escalation contacts within GivEnergy so if there are issues and there isn't the correct levels of traction we can negate the blockers fairly quickly by escalation routes.

The major frustration comes from the fact that at the current time they have closed their telephone lines to end users in an attempt to integrate an AI Bot to resolve which at the moment feels as though they have released said solution too early without full Alpha/ Beta testing.

We do have over 1000 GivEnergy installs within our portal and the mass majority (>99.00%) are working correctly.

Another recommendation is that GivEnergy are now allowing customers to choose to install pre-release firmware, effectively signing themselves up to be Beta testers for firmware upgrades. I wouldn't recommend doing such and instead take a view of installing the firmware upgrades circa a month post release to ensure there are no issues as again I feel as though these are pushed through without the correct release processes and while still in Alpha/ Beta phases.

You've highlighted the main pain point with them regarding customer support which we can negate, but the product in itself is very good. I personally have a Giv AC Charge controller and battery at home and to date the only issue I've encountered is reconnecting to the internet when my broadband service changed. Simple enough process to resolve and not a GivEnergy fault. Easiest resolution to this is to rename the new SSID and Password of the new broadband router to match the previous and all devices should come back online.

Hope the above puts your mind at ease.

Now rumours are floating around that GivEnergy will be exiting the consumer market altogether…

Are there any installers left who are still specifying and fitting GivEnergy kit?

ectoplasmosis where are you hearing/seeing those rumours please? It did cross my mind that it was something they might do. The home sector is congested and with some compelling new kit appearing.

There's a new and fairly substantial thread on this subject on Reddit. Conflicting opinions but one comment from someone who claims to be fairly prominent in the industry suggests that they will exist but perhaps not in the format we currently know. Lots of conjecture including how it can't be sustainable if far fewer installers are using them. Also reports of kit not being available at wholesalers although I didn't check that. Not ideal for sure.

While it's possible to control the inverter locally with the RubikCube and BBC apps, is there an easy way of doing it remotely if the GE app goes belly up? I guess a VPN via the home router or something like that? I'm "reasonable" with IT stuff and could likely follow instructions, but not savvy enough to try it from scratch. Just thinking ahead if things go pear shaped.

sponev I've been hearing that they're out of cash and the Chinese won't bail them out this time by extending credit because they consider the management incompetent.

"Gone by the end of summer" is the phrase I've heard.

All rumours and scuttlebutt for now.

Edit - there are other rumours about them winning a contract with BG, I doubt that's for consumers though - not after the experiences Octopus and EON had 😉

Vestas I guess they could concentrate on the commercial side and wind back the domestic to minimal support and development. But that's the slippery slope to nowhere for us users. I'm busy measuring up for alternative gear just in case but really hope it doesn't come to that. Although a bigger inverter and more battery storage would be nice.

I hope Mr Milliband is going to do something about situations like this to give consumers (like me) confidence that they will not be left high and dry when they try and do "the right thing" and buy into his vision of saving energy.

SteveCook I'm not sure Mr Milliband would know the right thing if it tickled his backside!

Here’s one recent reddit thread https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarUK/comments/1rf5fz1/are_givenergy_going_bust/

Whilst I wouldn’t believe a lot of what gets written on Reddit, the consensus appears to be that they’re not in obvious signs of going bust. The low voltage and AIO1 stock is likely being run down as they transition to HV and AIO2, which to be honest makes sense. Not great if our kit is not effectively not easily upgradeable, but there’s a lot of installed kit out there so whatever happens there is a market for spare parts and additional batteries, etc.

As has been said before, if the absolute worst that happens and the company fails, the kit doesn’t just stop working and local control options are available. I don’t see any need to start thinking about alternative kit.

sponev While it's possible to control the inverter locally with the RubikCube and BBC apps, is there an easy way of doing it remotely if the GE app goes belly up? I guess a VPN via the home router or something like that?

If your router directly supports a VPN then that could be one option, or you’re probably looking at the Home Assistant route and letting HA control your inverter and having remote access/VPN onto your HA If you need it.
But to be honest the number of times you need to remotely change your inverter charge/discharge settings would probably be limited.

geoffreycoan
I already run my kit remotely using the Monitor App from Rubikcube. I have it connected directly to the dongle, and it's been running like the now a couple of months so doesn't need the Internet. The GE app has become so unreliable for data info, and the portal doesn't seem to hold any advantage over the Monitor app.
For me it works well and does everything using the schedules I need it to do.

The most recent reddit post is more than a little bit concerning. I had noticed some time ago that the whole organisation is a one man show as far as companies house is concerned, which is poor. Glassdoor reviews have been horrific for some time.

I run my Mk1 hybrid via Rubikcube's app on a tablet and am still playing with HA for the give hit as well as my heat pump and energy monitors. The portal only gets visited about once a month these days...

If they went tits-up then there would be no reason not to make suitable contributions to the small number of wonderful folk who've already delved into the api's and go fully open/community/independent supported local control.

Had hoped to avoid getting into HA, etc. Very happy with the hands-off GE + Intelligent Octopus Flux (IOF). Dreading having to get into more IT - have a spouse who wouldn't have a clue, should I keel over!

TimHutchings is this via a VPN into your home network if you don't mind me asking please?

We have a Fritzbox with onboard VPN functionality albeit I haven't had cause to test it yet. Is it then just a case of navigating to the usual IP address?

jonhd Very happy with the hands-off GE + Intelligent Octopus Flux (IOF).

IOF is a great hands off tariff especially for the summer. Just be aware that IOF would be a casualty of any disappearance of the GivEnergy Portal as all commands to the inverter go via the portal. Same for any of the other cloud services (wonderwatt, my energy optimiser, etc).

I think its unlikely that it would come to that, but just be aware of it.

If you are concerned about the longevity of GivEnergy you might want to grab any firmware and manuals you might need in the future from their website.

I’m awaiting a bright spark who works out how to add 2nd hand hardware without having to go through the commissioning process.

Hook Technically that's trivial. Legally and ethically it's a minefield.

I really don't have a clue what is going on at GivEnergy. Here are some odd things that you can make your own interpretation of:

According to companies house, Simon Taylor who joined last summer has left
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11571089/officers
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/BiT4FRjKsqGs6mHmv05fwI6Cd28/appointments
and joined Jason Howlett at Energy Storage

According to his LinkedIn page Dan Lambert is a director at GivEnergy since last summer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-lambert-94864011a/
but is not mentioned at Companies House.

The address given for Energy Storage is also the address for a firm of accountants
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16338714
https://www.taxassist.co.uk/ilkley

Rubikcube Simon Taylor is also director for Energy Storage Solutions Ltd which is registered at the same address as GivEnergy https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16785780 so clearly still involved in some way?

The GivEnergy Ltd 2024 financial report https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11571089/filing-history signed by Jason Osler has the strongest wording I’ve seen in a set of accounts:

There comes a point where this becomes a self fulfilling situation no matter what they do (and I'm starting to think we might be there as this keeps coming up and won't go away)

Not convinced about the pivot to commercial - that also made a loss didn't it?

I hope Rubikcube is planning what he's going to do with all his money when 60k+ people buy his app 🤣

hoggy I hope Rubikcube is planning what he's going to do with all his money when 60k+ people buy his app 🤣

write an IOS version?

geoffreycoan Seconded.

geoffreycoan reading that suggests that senior folk were, and potentially still are, significantly out of their depth. That's not how you word an annual accounts report irrespective of whether the company is in the mire or not. I don't envy trying to turn that lot round. What a mess.

geoffreycoan Sounds like passing the blame to me. Octopus binned GE in 2024 for absymal support/software and we ALL know that was the problem with revenue & subsequent staffing issues.

That companies house return convinces me they're done as its about as self-serving a directors' statement as I've ever seen (and I've seen a LOT).

I hope Revenue & Customs prevent them phoenixing this shitshow!

Vestas I think a lot of us would love to see it survive and thrive again (we've invested a bunch of cash) but not to limp along as it seems to be currently. Usually the Chinese don't mess around when it comes to their investments - they'll sort it or exit sharpish. I think we'll know what's happening soon enough.

hoggy Does the app control calibrations? That's about the only thing I can think of that might be missing.

I'm not using the "BBC Basic Inverter" app unless absolutely necessary as it doesn't work well on recent android builds.

I guess if they do go tits up then there's no problem with exposing all the registers/controls via GivTCP....

Vestas I guess if they do go tits up then there's no problem with exposing all the registers/controls via GivTCP....

Certainly battery calibration can be exposed, no problem.

Self installing GivEnergy batteries, I would have no problem with. Installing non-GE batteries to GE inverters I am not sure about.

Changing export limits or the cutoff grid voltages would not be welcomed by DNOs

What about people who bought 3.6kW inverters, should they be allowed to change them to 5kW?

Rubikcube I'm pretty sure that's already being done (3.6-5kWh) as I heard about it a couple of years ago. DNOs are rightly concerned about f/w configurable inverters but (for now) that ship has sailed - for other "manufacturers" as well as GE.

I wasn't really thinking about your app in terms of exposing all the registers, more GivTCP where (presumably) there's a NDA in place with the developer, and that'll cease upon liquidation.

I don't think yours needs much more than the ability to run/stop/cancel calibrations and set the time locally & I wouldn't advocate you do more than that. Edit - oh and install battery would be great.

Vestas Edit - oh and install battery would be great.

Yep, as there will be a lot of cheap batteries on the market as and when people move away from there GE kit...

Not tempting fate but I have taken all the firmware files and firmware changelogs for safe keeping if things all go wrong.
Not really sure what I'm going to do with them all (maybe the unofficial wiki I setup years ago will get a stay of execution) or where we would all regroup at.

hoggy Ditto.

Unfortunatly a lot of the old info that was in Givenergy.co.uk has been lost in the givenergy.com site, and I noticed last week that that old .co.uk site that was previously accessible with direct links has now gone.

I spent a few hours this afternoon working out how to run the RubikCube app remotely via VPN into our local network. So some additional security there. I'll miss the stats and graphical stuff if it all goes to pot but at least I can still run the kit. Hopefully that doesn't become necessary. I also feel for the likes of Paul and a couple of the other GE guys who help on Facebook, plus that poor chap "EV Man" off YouTube (love or loathe him) who left a steady job to join GE a while back. Grim.

Might it be worth phoenixing ourselves to an independent forum to get ahead of the need for post collapse knowledge sharing to keep all our kit going? I mean sure there is Reddit, not everyone’s on FB anymore for FB communities to be the answer, and there’s probably a large proportion of Giv users who aren’t anywhere near as engaged as users here are that will need support.

Shikoku14 Very true.
I don't do any social media (just a few forums like this & a family WhatsApp group) & my HA / Comms tech knowledge is minimal so having to adopt a 3rd party program to maintain access to my system if the Portal &/or App disappeared would probably be a struggle & probably above my pay grade.
How would the likes of Axle Energy maintain remote control of GE systems on their "Event" or "Full Optimization" options if GE as a company disappeared? I was thinking about signing up for the Axle £1/kWh export as a way of offsetting the drop in Octopus export rates.

CGoode How would the likes of Axle Energy maintain remote control of GE systems on their "Event" or "Full Optimization" options if GE as a company disappeared? I was thinking about signing up for the Axle £1/kWh export as a way of offsetting the drop in Octopus export rates.

short answer is that Axle wouldn’t be able to control the inverter as their remote control goes via the givenergy portal

but this is very much the worst case scenario that the company fails, the portal gets switched off, and no other company buys/resurrects the assets. Even if GivEnergy went into administration tomorrow the portal would carry on running for a while, at least up to the point that the next Amazon Hosting bill became due…

The Axle VPP is currently in beta test up to March and we’ll find out what happens after that. My guess is that it will have been a success so will carry on afterwards but the headline £1/kWh won’t continue, it’ll probably be something much lower, say 50p/kWh. And probably it will be much less frequent in the summer months. As far as I know there was one event in November, one in December, three in January and three in February.
It’s a bit of extra income for sure. Very unlikely to cover the Octopus export rate drop which in my case is about £200 a year.

If you want to use my referral link to signup, its https://vpp.axle.energy/landing/grid?ref=R-VNNIZUYO

Other people on here have shared their referral links. No compulsion to use one, but you and the referrer both gain £25 if you do.

Sooo is GivEnergy going bust?

That is the million dollar question and the chances are no-one outside the Directors will know until the administrators are called in.
You can create alerts with Companies House and potentially with Caseboard (this of us with Ripple became intimately familiar with both) but updates may appear on there after someone finds out another way.

sponev
The Monitor app is just directly connected to the gen 1 inverter dongle wifi on IP setting10.10.100.254 (from memory) in the settings on the app.
Fortunately, the old Nokia phone running the app is just a few feet away on the other side of the wall from where the inverter sits in the garage, so the signal is a good strong one. I did switch off the house router for half an hour after setting it up just to check everything would continue working with the wifi off, and the Monitor app just continued working without a hitch.
I'm away for a few days at the moment, so am using the GE app just to keep an eye on things, but it seems to be emptying the battery before 11.30pm fine before it refills overnight.

TimHutchings Thanks for that. I'm up and running remotely now using the onboard VPN on our Fritzbox router. Works a treat. Thanks to RubikCube as well of course. I'm thinking he could be in the money soon with app sales and potentially support too. Perhaps a low fee subscription model is an idea, I'd be happy with that for ongoing dev and support.

geoffreycoan . And probably it will be much less frequent in the summer months.

They can do import events in addition to export events, so maybe there will be some of those in the summer. Though hard to import from grid while put own panels are generating power.

DD I think Axle import is “coming soon”, but as you say, hard to grid import when solar panels are generating. For me and for most people I guess their solar capacity exceeds their inverter capacity so when the grid might be over-capacity we’re almost certainly going to be contributing to that situation by exporting rather than self-consuming or putting it in the battery.

I’m curious what the economics of that will be, whether it will be free electricity like the Octopus Power up’s or negative like Agile can be when its sunny and windy. But it would have to be a really decent rate to make you turn off your solar generation and start grid importing.

We shall see I guess.

geoffreycoan I don't suppose Axle, as a third party, are in a position to offer free electricity. But that's an interesting point - if Octopus are already giving you power for free, or paying you via -ve Agile rates, could it be said that you'd be getting paid twice for your participation? Did you have to opt into power ups? With Agile you don't even have the option of opting out of -ve rates.

DD you do have to opt into powerups and only available in certain regions and postcodes. Eastern England with UK Power Networks and Scotland, and maybe parts of the West Midlands, I can’t remember.

I used to get loads of power up events, even in winter, e.g.

But the last one I had was in October 2025. Possibly the growth of battery storage on the grid has made the power ups less viable?

On the original subject of this thread, moving on from GivEnergy, I just watched an Upside Down Fork video on the Eco-Worthy 5.12kWh batteries he’s just bought. 0.5C discharge rate (so 2.6kW per battery), £700. Very reasonable.

https://youtu.be/FD3iI7IvWt8?si=m6gSLYTqzJuNbUzp

I’m certainly considering upgrading my battery setup (as I’m increasingly my solar as well). I had 2xAC3 and 2 x8.2 kWh batteries installed 4 years ago. They’ve generally been pretty trouble free. I have considered an ems but decided to hold off at the last minute as I want to explore upgrade options first.

1. As weird as it might be to say, stay with Giv but upgrade to AIO2 + expansion pack - which is broadly what I was aiming for 4 years ago (with a better backup option). We have an ASHP and 2 ev so more discharge power and storage isa good thing (currently 6kw limit).

2. Swap batteries to myenergi libbis (probably x2) as we have Eddi and Zappi so would go to complete integration which is great from an octopus iog pov, but no complete house back up accessible API… there are rumours of a next gen libbi, so waiting and seeing in this point.

3.look at Tesla PW3 or SiG. again good backup and expandable (especially SIG), but a) Tesla api is very locked down (I know you can use net zero, but don’t want another app I have to pay for to sort a battery out)and sig very new to the market (plus their recent recall of inverters). Not too thrilled with the AI control logic in either either.

No major rush as existing system working fine, just ideally make a choice before March 27. When the zero vat offer ends….

I'm going to set out my theory purely to see if I'm inverter Nostradamus if they collapse:

Givenergy Consumer side folds > app and portal go with it > Powerdog conveniently steps in with their app (which is just the old Givenergy portal with a fake mustache) > you get the app for free BUT you have to agree to their VPP > you can still have the app without the VPP bits but it'll cost you monthly...

Givenergy gets to wash hands of all debts & Powerdog mops up the exisitng consumer base for anyone who doesn't have the time or skill to run anything local without having to go through that pesky problem of actually producing, installing or warranty of equipment.

hoggy
HMGov push us down a route and do nothing when it falls apart.
Diesel cars
PV and battery
EV cars next......

Although the removal or installation of new batteries needs to be (currently) commissioned for warranty purposes, is it currently possible to add extra (or swap) and get them to work with GivTCP local control? Presumably the data in the portal would be screwed, but locally?

I've still got an issue with 3022 tanking my battery capacity, and sadly it's becoming fairly obvious why there is no interest in understanding it. I'm reluctant to pump more money in, but if they start coming up cheap (even if just due to people wanting to cut their losses and move on) I'd be tempted. Especially as inverter nearly out of warranty.
I know there's suggestions earlier in this thread that the community would over come this if the worst happens, but I was wondering if it is possible today (with the loss of all warranty risk)

hoggy Sounds entirely plausible, indeed likely....

mpartington No commissioning needed for a DIY battery ‘install’. It’s plug-and-play, appears on the portal and app immediately.

The only reason for commissioning a new battery via the proper channels is due to warranty, but that’s moot for a second-hand battery anyway as warranties are not transferable as far as I’m aware, and are essentially worthless right now regardless.

ectoplasmosis No commissioning needed for a DIY battery ‘install’. It’s plug-and-play, appears on the portal and app immediately.

Agreed, it does. but if the battery has been associated with another inverter then you can experience problems (I have) if the battery doesn't go through the commissioning process. This happened to me when I moved a battery from one inverter to the other, it was still partially registered on the old inverter in the portal. It worked, but there were some issues that givenergy support had to resolve for me.
So if you install second hand equipment that hasn't been removed from the original owners account then you may get similar issues.

Sorry this is a bit vague but it was a while ago and I did have to get support to sort it out.

geoffreycoan Interesting; do you remember anything about what exactly your issues were?

ectoplasmosis I can’t remember for absolute certainty as it was more than 3 years ago this happened …

I’ll share the entire story for context.

I have two 5kW inverters and due to the silly prices my installer wanted to charge for batteries, my installation included only the one 5.2kWh battery which they installed (on inverter number 1).
I separately ordered a 9.5kWh battery from ITS technologies but then realised that I’d need a DNO approval for its installation and my installer needed to commission it so I got the installers to do the paperwork. They advised connecting the 9.5 on the same inverter as the 5.2, which they did. So now 9.5 as primary and 5.2 as secondary, both on inverter 1, no batteries on inverter 2.

What I found in the summer was that both inverters would repeatedly shutdown, sometimes for hours at a time and I was loosing lots of solar generation as a result.

Couldn’t work out whether this was normal behaviour or not, and if not, what the problem was. In hindsight I figured out that with one inverter having no battery connected to it meant that all of its solar was being converted to AC and that was pushing up the grid voltage and causing both inverters to shutdown. My hypothesis was that if I moved the 5.2 onto the second inverter then the solar generation would have ‘somewhere to go’ and it would reduce the ‘grid voltage clipping’ I got.
So one night after the sun had gone down I powered the inverters down and rewired the 5.2 from the 9.5 on inverter 1 to inverter 2.

As you say, the battery self registers on the inverter and portal and it worked OK. It made a massive difference to the grid voltage issue and now I would only get much smaller inverter shutdowns. I did get the DNO to investigate and they re-tapped my transformer tor reduce the grid voltage which improved things further. [And side-note I am part way through the same process with my DNO again as grid voltage has crept up again]

Anyhow, what were the issues with self-moving the 5.2 battery from one inverter to another?

My recollection was that the inverter and battery worked fine together, would solar and grid charge OK. In the app though when I drilled down into the inverter details to see the battery It showed the wrong data. I think it showed the 9.5 details under both inverters and didn’t show the 5.2 details anywhere.
[again, hard to remember, but I quite probably initially moved the 9.5+5.2 battery chain from inverter 1 to inverter 2 to try to see if the shutdown problem was caused by a fault on inverter 1. Splitting the batteries across the two inverters was one of a series of things I did to try to work out what the problem was and fix it]

Givenergy support eventually sorted the problem out for me, I think they recommissioned both inverters and said that the registration data on the portal was corrupt and the battery was registered on both inverters. It did take quite a while to sort out as the corruption wasn’t obvious.

geoffreycoan that's interesting, was it just the official app, or was incorrect data also showing in HA?

So seems like there should be no issues in adding a new battery, but second hand may throw up some challenges

mpartington it was the official givenergy app from what I remember. I don’t recall that HA was affected although this was early days for me with HA, might even have been before I got HA. Sorry I can’t be more precise.

Yes I think the risk is with second hand equipment

geoffreycoan Strange that your Octopus PowerUp invites have stopped; I have had 45 since 28th October 2025 worth a healthy £246 thanks to GE batteries, EV, IR panels and usual appliances. All time total now approaching £1300 so I certainly appreciate how lucky I am to be in one of the 'right' postcodes 🙂

daveyge I think its down to regional supply and demand. I was getting loads of power up events when it started, and now its very rare

Quick search, found this article on reddit, a couple of other people in the East of England, south Cambs (I’m East Beds, so quite close) saying the same thing https://www.reddit.com/r/OctopusEnergy/comments/1m4rjhe/powerups_have_gone_quiet/

Nevertheless I have filled in the form to sign up again in case I’ve got lost https://octopus.energy/power-ups/

geoffreycoan Interesting.. I'm in Fenland. Hope you and others here get more in the future

daveyge I'm in (very south) South Cambs, and today it is exactly one year since my last Power-up.

There were, of course, a few Free Electricity sessions last summer.

EVM just posted a video saying he has been made redundant by Givenergy and goes on to talk about the issues at the company.
https://youtu.be/60hGwP5gRy8?si=VpsLT6NgH8YrGY3Y

dcsh Yep, I've just watched his post on YT. Classic let go via a Teams meeting scenario by a company / boss that doesn't care. He says he's not bitter but I think he is. He's going 100% YT now to earn his living & pay a mortgage. Brave man.

geoffreycoan I think its down to regional supply and demand. I was getting loads of power up events when it started, and now its very rare

I think Octopus must be listening, a 2 hour power up event tomorrow from 11:30-1:30. Wowza

So where are folks downloading the firmware from as the only site I can find is down ?

Northwarks At the time I made the suggestion a bit over two weeks ago the site was still functioning. I hadn't expected it to go down quite so quickly.
The official line is it is a temporary supplier outage but it is stretching on and doesn't seem to be affecting other clients of the same supplier.

The Community Beta site now seems not to be doing much
https://community-beta.givenergy.cloud/

SteveCook community beta site is working fine, was on it just now. Its just much less active than this one

SteveCook
I go to it everyday as well...true (as Geoffrey says) there are fewer people there...BUT..TheDragon (a GE employee - tech) is there every couple of days or so and has been very helpful with tech issues and supplying files (e.g. firmware)

sponev https://youtu.be/VhMByuiEmpY?si=EKAT6pxei-fejGQP

Hook in terms of direction of travel, absolutely makes sense. I suspect the whole home storage battery market will change considerably when bidirectional EV to home charging becomes more readily available

Someone who is pushing the boundaries of this and has wired a used EV battery up to his home via a regular inverter and some clever software that emulates the EV canbus connection is The Battery Man. The stuff he's done is amazing, wish there was companies offering home storage based upon these ideas https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8z5hWYsxfuAr6o5JHZwRxA

Hook I love this! Thanks for the link.
I agree with Geoffrey. It's the way things are going. Progress feels really slow. I guess a government department needs to devise a standard. We might be waiting a little longer...
The Sigenergy solution isn't quite perfect if it's not compatible with IOG, but elements like DC charging below the 1.2kW AC cutoff limit will be appealing when export tarrifs are cut further.
The "perfect" system is starting to look like solar, "Medium" size home battery to cope with house load while the car isn't in the drive and V2H when the car's present.
Will GE/our GE systems last long enough so that the next purchase could be perfect? Here's hoping...

geoffreycoan Pretty sure all the major manufacturers will put clauses in their warranties stating V2H/V2G use invalidates/downgrades the car warranty to something like 24 months.

The only reason they give the warranties they do is because the battery is idle 90%+ of the time.

Also it'll destroy any resale value for the cars involved.

I'm sure it'll happen, I just don't think its going to be the panacea people think. There's no such thing as a free lunch 😉

BobB The Sigenergy solution isn't quite perfect if it's not compatible with IOG,

This is one reason I have gone off the idea of a Sig system to replace my GE.
I have now decided that replacing my inverter & batteries is the only way to solve the issues I have with my existing GE system & get the extra features & capacity I need.
Currently I'm looking at the new stackable Sodium Iron system from Eleven. 1ph inverters up to 12kW (3ph also) & stackable 4.5kW sodium battery modules up to 36kW. Safe & more environmentally friendly battery chemistry & a decent looking intelligent App & Octopus / IOG compatible. Whole house EPS also possible. Cost will be the biggest issue so I guess I need to start saving hard & maximising the returns on my GE system while it still works & we get something for export.

CGoode something to be aware of is I think Eleven are white labelling inverters from BiWatt?
It's suspiciously similar (the Biwatt H1 Pro). That's not to say it's bad or anything but if your reason was that it was a British company it may not be quite as unique home grown device as first appears.

CGoode I'm torn at the moment and so preparing as far as possible to hang on to the Giv kit for a while. However it's looking increasingly likely that setting up Home Assistant alongside the RubikCube app will be necessary, something I'd hoped to avoid as I have a lot of other stuff on.

I've shortlisted Sigenergy and Alpha ESS in case I need to jump - Tesla Powerwall was too "closed" as a system. However, there's nothing perfect unfortunately so I'm still trying to hold off for a while. That said, I'll also take a look at the Eleven kit now you've mentioned it - I think that Artisan Electrics, love or loathe them, actually have a YouTube video covering their kit.

sponev Gary Does Solar did an interview with the guys behind Eleven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KR1jaZ-uuQ

CGoode nice, will watch over lunch. Thanks

hoggy Thanks. Not totally surprised about that. There's a lot of it going on these days. Heck, even the latest Ford EV's are VW's underneath!!

sponev I've shortlisted Sigenergy and Alpha ESS in case I need to jump - Tesla Powerwall was too "closed" as a system

Tesla very closed system, you don’t even have direct local access to the inverter, its API’s via a Tesla cloud service.

Be aware that Sigenergy and Alpha are both closed systems as well, proprietary hardware, battery connections, etc. I know Sigenergy has a local modbus connection so that gives some degree of independence.

Personally I would favour something that I could plug batteries in from any manufacturer. Probably wouldn’t get the same ecosystem features as the more proprietary systems.
I would also definitely get something IOG compatible, just to give future flexibility.

JUst my 2p worth

geoffreycoan
Excellent points - agreed - let us keep batteries and match with another system if at all possible

sponev I'm torn at the moment and so preparing as far as possible to hang on to the Giv kit for a while. However it's looking increasingly likely that setting up Home Assistant alongside the RubikCube app will be necessary, something I'd hoped to avoid as I have a lot of other stuff on.

Yep. I was also looking at modifying & adding EPS to what I'd already have, adding HA / Rubikcube, Raspberry Pie yada yada yada all in an an attempt to fix the issues I have. Apart from the fact I am no IT whizz kid (at least 2 generations too old) & would probably struggle with all the tech, it felt like I was trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
Whatever solution I looked at it failed to solve the underlying problem that my 3.6kW Inverter is just not big enough for my current or future needs & GE don't make larger inverter that's backwards compatible with my existing batteries. So I'm now resigned to the fact that replacement is the only way for me to go.
I'll research the hell out what's out there & then make a decision at some point but right now, the Eleven Sodium system looks to be favourite & I found an Eleven approved install company that's less than a mile from my house! Sent them message for a ballpark quote earlier today so lets see how it goes.

Vestas Pretty sure all the major manufacturers will put clauses in their warranties stating V2H/V2G use invalidates/downgrades the car warranty to something like 24 months.

The only reason they give the warranties they do is because the battery is idle 90%+ of the time.

In the early days of EVs, people were convinced that batteries would only last a handful of years. That turned out to not be the case.
There have been fairly long trials with bidirectional charging with Leaf and Chademo. I think that in some cases it improved battery health - by running in the vicinity of 50% charge with (relatively) low power levels seemed to be good for the battery.

geoffreycoan I looked into Sig and Alpha and there are some local control options via API but nothing off-the-shelf as such. There seems to be pros and cons wherever you look unfortunately.

CGoode One of our drivers to change would be a bigger inverter and a bit more storage capacity. I'm reluctant to bin the current gear prematurely even if we can afford the upgrade - there's a lot of life in it yet. One option is to relocate the batteries to my kid's houses and let them run locally via the RubikCube app. Decisions.. decisions.

The sodium ion stuff looks very interesting but I'd want quite a lot of questions answered first, e.g. load response times, round-trip efficiency etc. oh and cost of course. I'm not sure the tech can match lithium just yet but I'll dig in a bit to find out more.

Rather than binning the existing kit, why not install a secondary setup alongside your existing givenergy one? That way you can continue to get value from it rather than sending it to landfill (or ebay).

If your solar panels are not massively bigger than your existing giv inverter (i.e. not getting solar clipping) then you can leave that all in place, and just get an AC coupled inverter and battery.
Or if you want to add more panels, could have two arrays or move the panels from the giv inverter to the new inverter and leave the giv running as an AC inverter

You'd need to deal with cross charging between the two, but there are ways around that

Having experience of Enecsys failure and now, probably, Givenergy demise. I would not rush out to another "new" supplier. I will keep my GE kit running for as long as possible (thanks to Rubik) and then investigate Victron.

sponev One option is to relocate the batteries to my kid's houses and let them run locally via the RubikCube app. Decisions.. decisions.

Yep I had the same thought. My son's an IT whizz & now has a heat pump after ditching gas & a Calor tank in his front garden. His problem now is affording the cost of an inverter & battery to reduce his winter electricity cost so a kit donation from me could be the answer for him. He's also got a largish detached garage which could take at least 10 solar panels as a permanent or temporary array.
As you said, decisions, decisions.

geoffreycoan
Good idea but I don't have the space for any additional kit alongside my existing system. You can't swing a cat in my single attached garage & there's barely enough space to walk down the middle of it. I definitely don't want anything outside either.

DD Agreed and I think I've mentioned the odd way LFP batteries "age" more than once on here so you're teaching your granny how to suck eggs, so to speak 😉

Won't stop the warranty changes though as that'll be "how much risk will our insurers bear" decisions for a lot of (failing) car companies.

For now its not happening but I can see all sorts of interesting edge cases which are going to attract Revenue & Customs interest as well - like charging a vehicle at home @ 5% VAT and discharging it at a business or vice-versa.

Like I said, no free lunch...

Edit - also it'll mean complete control from your energy supplier, which is where we're heading anyway.

sponev what's the rubikcube app?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.rubikcube.invertermonitor

Find it on play store free version

MS85 what's the rubikcube app?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.rubikcube.invertermonitor
https://givenergymonitor.wixsite.com/tutorials

MS85 It's an Android application which connects locally to your inverter, it's really handy. There's also a paid version (inexpensive) which allows inverter control and so independence from the Giv cloud should it get turned off. I've also got mine set up for remote control via VPN. The RubikCube app is all you need for basic control if Giv go pop.

I'm also looking into setting up Home Assistant to get some additional functionality and reporting.

It also gives you access to error messages that GE hide from you which helps you understand what is happening to your system.

Had an e-mail from HIVE today and it appears that Hive can now control a number of solar companies equipment, including Givenergy and others. Could Hive work alone should Givenergy go south? If this is a stupid question, I apologise in advance. What you lads/lasses have been saying is all gobbledygook to me.

Unlikely, Hive is almost certainly an API integration rather than a local control one meaning if the GivEnergy portal shuts down Hive will no longer be able to issue commands.

Yep, I'm jumping ship. Got a flat battery, no response from GE after 6 weeks and any installer I've spoken to has said they aren't touching it. Anyone want a 3 year old AC3 inverter with dongle and/or a (flat mind) 9.5 battery?

nomisegdelp

Battery please.

nomisegdelp I’d be interested in the battery, or at least one pack out of the battery to fix my holey 9.5 battery 😉

Seriously would be interested. Depends where you are of course

hoggy I like the idea of “unlock engineering mode”
If GE are not around you can’t be asked to cease and desist”. It is good to know there’s back up information which could be in the wild in the future.

Gutted... my AIO battery failed on Christmas Eve after firmware update. After 2 months of calls and visit by my installer GE agreed in March to replace the AIO under warranty... assume no chance of this happening so considering writing off and change to Tesla later once confirmed no chance of the warranty exchange..

IJKIJK i think after GE, TESLA would be an obvious move... dont know of other brands, but if in near future anything happens to my system, TESLA is where i would be moving too.

deepanshus problem with Tesla is that is completely cloud api based. There is no local control. You’re at the whim of Tesla who seem to keep changing the behaviour of the batteries with firmware updates.

Signenergy can be controlled locally with modbus support.

deepanshus I've scoped Tesla, Sigenergy and Alpha ESS as replacement options. However I'm staying with Giv for now, running with Home Assistant where I've pretty much replicated everything the Giv app can do.

Of the three replacement options, Tesla would be bottom, even though I like Tesla and have driven one for years. Problem there is the control is very "closed" and simple things like forcing a discharge as and when you want, isn't possible. Check out the UK Tesla forums to see the frustration in some of the posts there.

Sigenergy has some fancy stuff going on but dodgy reliance on cloud - not going there again. Alpha ESS is solid, has good support and also some options for local control - although nothing off-the-shelf like the RubikCube app. There's also the Eleven gear but that is just too early in development for me to trust.

So not as straightforward as it might seem unfortunately. Not Tesla though for sure.

If this experience has taught us anything then it is the value of local control.
I also wouldn't touch anything made by a far-right Nazi who attacks his own child over gender identity, called a cave diver rescuer a paedophile, enabled mass misinformation and explicit deepfakes of minors, and repeatedly gone up against his own workers.

sponev that is exactly my issue. Part of the reason I went GiV was the local control option.

Tesla/sig both are very good, but also very cloud reliant and locked down to varying degrees as you say. Why Tesla went from what was the local accessible pw2 to this who knows, probably money related, always is.

I’m just going to keep things going best I can for the moment and keep an eye on the battery space to see what develops over the next year or so.

pwdst It is a wrench and he's a complete knob, but the cars are excellent as is the charging network. When there's a better alternative I'll switch as I too find the chap pretty horrendous. But as someone who's invested in EVs the model Y is still streets ahead of anything else for my particular needs.

sponev
Whilst my Gen 2 3.6kW Hybrid & 2 x 9.5kWh battery system is working OK atm I definitely will switch to another make at some point soon.
So far I've had quotes for a 10kW Sigenergy, expensive & apparently it needs to phone home via internet regularly otherwise it packs up, &, a 10kW Eleven system with 27kW or storage, more reasonable cost but needs more physical space for two stacks instead on one. I'm still looking & will check out Alpha ESS as well. Eleven is a relatively new company but seems fairly solid & ethical. They have a Gateway coming soon as well. I'm tempted but will probably wait a while longer before I take the plunge.
I've given up with Giv though & definitely won't be looking at Tesla - don't like their cars either.

I’ll run my system as long as I can but now I have a heatpump and EV since initial install will look to add more battery.

Best case scenario is the deviants in this group who know how to add other batteries to our system can now pipe up like @hoggy 😂

CGoode The lastest Alpha ESS gear would be my number one. Their gateway is being released in June which will round off a good quality, well-supported line of equipment. Their UK support also gets very good reviews, quite atypical versus the other main vendors. But there's no perfect set up unfortunately. As for Tesla cars, they may not be the most beautiful but everything just works, the driving experience is excellent and the supercharger network is streets ahead and a lot cheaper than anything else. I've driven, Merc, BMW and Porsche and they're quite primitive in comparison, at least from an EV perspective. Pity about Musk though!

sponev
I've just had a look at AlphaESS & I'm struggling to see if they offer anything bigger than a 5kW inverter on 1phase? I might be wrong but can't see anything bigger unless it's 3phase. I'm looking at 8/10kW 1ph Inverters to cover my current & future needs so that could be a deal breaker for me.

I have a Tesla and the biggest problem for me would be leaving the supercharger infrastructure.

The other reason I’m watching the Signergy space is their DC charging has a lot of potential for V2h.

CGoode Yes, they do an 8kw I believe. Stackable system. Smile G3 if I recall.

EV Man (Andy) has just posted this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJMuGf3vvjg

geoffreycoan this is worth a read... it solves the automation and control issue

https://scotthelme.co.uk/hacking-my-tesla-powerwalls-to-be-the-ultimate-home-energy-solution/?utm_source=scotthelme.co.uk

deepanshus that's PW2 I think, I'm not sure but PW3 is supposed to be a lot more restrictive. It's mad that you've got to implement workarounds to do basic stuff - most of us are only dipping into Home Assistant through necessity at the moment. That said it is quite addictive 🙂

pwdst lol

deepanshus funnily enough Tesla's last change has broken Teslemetry access.

Hook 🙄🙄🙄

Well that puts Tesla PW out of the list, my main ROI is from the export and I get 12p off it. Without automating the discharge, there is no returns for me.

deepanshus What Hook said is not strictly true. I use Tesla fleet (API) very successfully with home assistant and there are fairly easy ways to force the PW3 to export battery. Is it slightly less intuitive than GivTCP and GE, yes, but it's definitely by no means difficult. The only tricky part is setting up Tesla fleet in the first place, though there's plenty of documentation and they give you £10 a month in API credits which is usually more than enough.

Al E.Gator That's interesting. So they can't stop you accessing the hardware locally?

Hook Tesla fleet goes through Tesla's servers directly and is an official Tesla maintained system, effectively it is where the app gets its information from. However, there is the possibility there to have local control as some people have managed to do, but it does void the warranty (not an issue if they went bust). But no, Tesla couldn't in theory stop you accessing the hardware locally.

Al E.Gator Not a fan given what happened in the USA to battery owners. AIUI Tesla messed them around for years with batteries which they knew were likely faulty AND dangerous then remote disabled them all without informing the owners.

I think I'll pass on that sort of company 😃

Vestas You are entitled to your opinion. There was only about 10k Powerwalls affected and only a few that actually had issues. Given they paid all the installers costs, and upgraded the majority of people to PW3's free of charge, I think that's very good service. The lawsuit is over people suing for downtime, not because of the fault. I think a <1% issue rate across all installs that has now pretty much been resolved is much better than another brand. LG had exactly the same problem and no one kicked up a fuss about that. But, as I say, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

If anyone's not aware, this was posted by one of the senior software guys on Facebook very early this morning - buried in comments so easy to miss. Confirms the redundancies and an insight into what happens next. It's legit as he's a top man on a few of the groups.

"Yes was a shit day. 12 months ago 180 people , today approx 7, next month 4 to run GivSoftware if it becomes self sufficent"

I suspect they will attract enough cash to run that quite comfortably but for how long? No product pipeline so a slow death I guess. There can't be much confidence in getting anything else going if they've let chaps like Paul L go. Sh1tshow - 101 in how to feck up a good business eh.

I'll try to run using HA for as long as possible with the contingency to switch to something new sharp style if/when needed.

I'm curious as to what will happen to the hardware arm, eg. Shenzen Givenergy.

[unknown] there probably going to be a lot to pick from. If you like watching vibe coders push fixes for the slightest thing every 30 seconds you can watch what is cooking with this link:
https://github.com/search?q=givenergy&type=repositories&s=updated&o=desc

sponev there probably going to be a lot to pick from. If you like watching vibe coders push fixes for the slightest thing every 30 seconds you can watch what is cooking with this link:
https://github.com/search?q=givenergy&type=repositories&s=updated&o=desc

hoggy I know, some crazy/clever stuff going on. One chap reckons he's integrated Claude with HA and speaks to it to write his YAML. Mental.

sponev I cannot think of many things worse than letting AI anywhere near my Home Assistant instance, but I do have to admit HA is a rabbit hole many of us don't come back out of. I have a sneaking suspicion you'll find other uses for it now you have it up and running, and that if you ever do move to a different brand of inverter you'll be having a sneaky peak at whether it integrates well with HA before you commit any money to it - irrespective of whether or not it's an otherwise open system.

Majordennisbloodnok for sure. I've already got it telling me when there are cheap IOG slots and controlling the house battery plus decent dashboards. I spend a lot of time with web stuff so it's accessible for me, but trying hard not to fall into the trap of making my fridge talk to my oven etc 🙂

Credit to the likes of SpeakToTheGeek for making the intro relatively painless.

sponev Our dishwasher keeps nagging about a f/w upgrade. I don't ever remember connecting it to wifi either 😃

Vestas
Our old dishwasher broke 2 weeks ago and the 1st time ever we used our Domestic & General insurance. Because it was so old, Bosch no longer make the spares for it, so they gave us a new one. That has popped up as a new integration in my HA

SteveCook This "nagging" is just on the dishwasher control panel. I must have installed their app at some point (maybe registering warranty) and that connected the dishwasher to wifi. Rather surprised it connects to 5GHz at max single stream rate though - seems somewhat excessive unless there's some sort of demon inside (a la Discworld) watching Netflix while it does the dishes....

sponev The coding models are very impressive indeed. I've been running Qwen3 80B locally for a while now and its been somewhat of a revelation to say the least.

I'm not sure whether any of you have heard of Mythos but its basically discovering software vulnerabilities at a staggering rate - including ones that have been in operating systems for as long as 27 YEARS (BSD, not Windows this time).

This surfaced earlier this week in a blogpost -

"During our testing, we found that Mythos Preview is capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed by a user to do so."

"The exploits it constructs are not just run-of-the-mill stack-smashing exploits (though as we'll show, it can do those too). In one case, Mythos Preview wrote a web browser exploit that chained together four vulnerabilities, writing a complex JIT heap spray that escaped both renderer and OS sandboxes. It autonomously obtained local privilege escalation exploits on Linux and other operating systems by exploiting subtle race conditions and KASLR-bypasses. And it autonomously wrote a remote code execution exploit on FreeBSD's NFS server that granted full root access to unauthenticated users by splitting a 20-gadget ROP chain over multiple packets."

https://red.anthropic.com/2026/mythos-preview/

Vestas connected appliances are fine so long as they all get along with each other.
Only last week our dishwasher had an affair with the fridge and now they're leaving me!!!!! 🤪

Vestas scary stuff! If I let that loose on my local network I think I'd be having kittens. I guess the key is to keep the bad actors out. I'm reasonably confident of that but the recent "supply chain" compromises whereby you need remote updates to keep your kit functional, do worry me. I'm gradually moving all of our work critical gear onto a separate network but I'm not there yet.

Majordennisbloodnok Depends what he was doing - Ive used AI extensively to create my Fallout dashboard - and Ive also had it build out complex automations its still HA doing the work

Rubikcube

We've got a 3.6kw inverter, I feel like I was underspecced by the installer and didn't know enough about them to ask for better.

I'm actually limited to 2.4kw charge and draw... which means it takes 5-6hrs to charge the 2 batteries.

Is it possible to have another inverter control the GE batteries? Because in a couple of years the warranty was up on the inverter anyway... now it's non existent... and these fuckers will no doubt phoenix the company and absolve themselves of all responsibility.

Robgy
There must be a knockout punchline in there somewhere

Anomnomnomaly We've got a 3.6kw inverter, I feel like I was underspecced by the installer and didn't know enough about them to ask for better.

I'm actually limited to 2.4kw charge and draw... which means it takes 5-6hrs to charge the 2 batteries.

Doesn't help, but I assume it's a gen-1 inverter, so I think even a 5kW inverter would have had the same limit on the battery interface.

SteveCook There must be a knockout punchline in there somewhere

Can't think of one, although the dishwasher did say she was seeing a cool dude 😎

DD

Originally installed with a 5.2kwh battery, added the 8.2kwh to it the following year.

No, not until it fails next time and can't be repaired.
I will keep an eye out for an extra 9.5kWh battery though.

DreadorUK I think I should’ve been clearer. What I dislike in my own system doesn’t translate into my passing judgement on others’ setups. I hate using AI but have no problem at all if someone else wants to. Different folks, different strokes. Eventually, I have over 30 years’ experience in IT, so I have a level of confidence I can do better than AI that is inevitably greater than the average person, and so my avoidance of AI in my environment is perhaps understandable.

Majordennisbloodnok Respectfully I'd suggest you're now wrong. We are most definitely at an inflection point with coder models/agents.

Edit - many of the other LLMs may be degenerating dross but the frontier coder models are most definitely not.

Vestas No disrespect taken. However, that’s quite a bold conclusion to make this early in understanding my situation.
In my home, as with my job, at least half of what I’m trying to achieve is to better understand the context; how things fit together and what, out of everything that’s possible, is actually going to be useful and how. If I delegate the solving of a specific problem to AI, I remain ignorant about everything else. I’d say I have enough history to assert again that my choice is the correct one for me, hence why I said what I did and also why I made the caveats I did about others being free to make their own choices.

Majordennisbloodnok I was merely suggesting that if you're not keeping up to date on the frontier models then I think you may be quite shocked at how good they've become this year. As always its the prompt/harness which drives the models that requires skill - GIGO as usual - but they're not producing dross by default anymore 🙂

Vestas No, there I can agree. That same thirty years has also taught me the danger of not regularly reassessing one’s assumptions and choices

Majordennisbloodnok If you have the capability of using a local model its quite surprising what it'll turn up on existing codebase when you ask for suggestions re optimisation - or in our case safety/security (Ada).

Local models do mean local as well so you can use suitable negative/positive loops so it follows your existing company rules better.

What blows my mind really is we're doing this on a Strix Halo box which uses about the same power as an old-school 100W lightbulb. Getting old(er) I guess 😃

Vestas Perhaps unexpectedly, I don’t have a problem with AI as such. What I see as really essential, however, is to cross check what it comes up with, and that means having the experience and knowledge to recognise when it’s been inspired and when it’s disappearing up its own digital backside.

I see working with AI as more akin to working with a colleague. If I’m lazy and offload my problems onto the AI/colleague, I learn nothing, add no value and don’t spot when I’m being fed rubbish. If I treat AI as a collaborator, I’m involved at every stage and achieving more than if I was working alone. Assuming, of course, that the AI (or colleague) is capable enough, and that’s where your point about local models and properly trained AI comes in.

For me at home, all the effort in getting AI to where I want it to be and where I can see it adding real value is too much for the benefit gained. At work, it’s a different matter with very different challenges, many of them warm-blooded.

Majordennisbloodnok You need to look again. Its not a colleague, its "proper" QA in this age of "what's QA" in software development.

Letting AI coder models analyse code you've written and have given standards to comply to is surprisingly good. Do it locally then you can feed it back into your own model etc.

Edit and TBH who ever did this in software QA? Not even in defence. Nobody understands the whole codebase and that's where AI coders (for me) come in. They'll do the donkey work of whatever you tell them to test for, right down to hardware flaws.