How do I stop the battery discharging to the Grid?

Good afternoon, folks.

I'm less than 24 hours in to PV + 2 x batteries + Zappi charger ownership... so I'm an absolute newbie at this stuff...!

In my head, I'd like to be able to charge the batteries to only 50% full within the 4 hour "Go" tariff period (00:30 - 04:30), then let the morning solar feed the house and top-up the batteries for free.

Then, in the afternoon, when my solar is less productive, I want the batteries to feed the house only (and not export to the grid)

Is that basically do-able...? If so, how...?

Plus, once I've got that process up-and-running robustly, I'd like to then be able to keep my EV plugged in to be trickle-charged from any excess solar in the mornings and / or charge using any excess battery power left over at night.

Am I pipe-dreaming or can these systems be set-up to do this sort of thing?

Any and all advice and guidance most gratefully received.

Many thanks and I very much looking forward to hearing back from you all. 😁

Stick it in Eco mode and then set a Timed Charge for 00:30 to 04:30 with a SOC of 50%.

Thats all you need to do.

The Eco mode will minimise grid import during the day by using PV and battery to feed the house and charge the battery with anything left over.

Taylor28b First off, expect your batteries to start an unexplained discharge, so better plug your EV in to soak it up. The discharge is because the batteries will start a calibration within a few hours of your installer posting to Givenergy that installation is complete. Once the batteries have fully discharged, they will fully charge themselves from PV, or grid, they don't mind at all really, but you might get a fright if you see this. Bear with...

Once that's all done, just leave your inverter(s) in ECO mode which will supply the house load from PV and charge the battery if there is surplus. If house demand exceeds PV, the inverters will supplement any PV with battery to meet demand, including overnight, unless battery depletes to the reserve of 4%. If the batteries are charged and there is surplus PV, you will start to export.

To soak up surplus PV during the day, set your Zappi to ECO+ with 100% Minimum Green Level. That setting will only divert energy from being exported to the Zappi and will vary between 1.4kW and 7.3kW but won't discharge the house batteries.

If you want to charge off-peak (EV, house batteries or both), you have to set the off-peak charge window on both Zappi and inverters to be the same. You can set your desired charge to level for the car with the Zappi, or car, depending on your setup but you also need to set a Charge to % on your inverters. Whatever value you set this to is the State of Charge it will end the off-peak charge period at. If the battery State of Charge (SoC) is higher when it enters the period, it will discharge to the house (and EV if plugged in); if it's lower it will charge up to that level and hover there until the period ends. As long as the Zappi and the Givenergy inverters have the same Timed Charge period, they won't interfere with each other.

Watch out for Octopus automations as they can override your charge to %. Mostly you won't need to do a timed export or timed discharge, so don't use them unless you know you have a need to use them.

Thanks Zakalwe and Tim - I really do appreciate you coming back to me on this. Thank you.

OK, using the GivEnergy.cloud portal dashboard, I've set my inverter to Eco.
I've set the Timed Charge parameters to 00:30 to 04:30 with the charge to max out at 50%.
I've set the Timed DIscharge parameters to the 'opposite times 04:31 to 00:29 - which I presume will allow the batteries to feed power to the home where required during those times? Or is that simply not necessary, Tim...?
Finally, using the MyEnergi app, I've set the Zappi to Eco+ and the 'blue leaf' slider scale to 100% - I've also set the Boost Schedule time parameters to match the Inverter at a 00:30 start to last for a duration of 4 hours, every day of the week.

Does that sound like I've done all you've suggested...?

Just let me know either way, if you'd please be kind enough.

Thank you both once again - I'm very grateful you have taken the time to respond.

All the best,
Jonathan 😄

You don't need to set a timed discharge. Just use ECO and timed charge.

😄

Taylor28b

Tim Mostly you won't need to do a timed export or timed discharge, so don't use them

Thanks (again...!) chaps...

I've now disabled the Timed Discharge, as per your suggestions.

Out of curiosity, then, for what situation would that function be needed...?

Grateful for your support, fellas 😀

Hmmm...

My wife thinks I'm already becoming obsessed with the power numbers on the dashboard... actually, she might have a point...!!

Question, though - at this very moment, the dashboard is showing that my 2 batteries are at about 59% charge and my solar is generating around 4.5kW.

However, it also says that there is about 1.5kW being exported to the grid...!

The logic in my brain would've thought that, providing the batteries are not 100% charged, everything from the solar would either be going in to the house or in to the batteries...?

What am I not understanding about the way the system works, please?

Sorry to have to ask... 😅

Taylor28b depending on what set up you have but there is a maximum charge rate (2600W gen 1/3600W gen 2 I think) based on you inverter so once that's hit it'll export the rest

Ah, right - yes, mine are rated at 2600W, so indeed that now makes sense.

Thank you for that - I appreciate you getting back to me. 😃

Sorry, guys - I promise you that, once I've got all this straight in my head, I'll leave you alone...!!

This seems rather illogical to me but, my solar is currently pumping power in to the home and in to the batteries, which are now at around 62% charge.

But - and this is the bit I don't understand - at the same time, I'm also taking (admittedly, a small amount of...) power from the grid, presumably to feed the load requirements of the home.

So, why, when there's plenty of battery power available, is my system still taking power from the grid instead of simply taking the additional power needed from the batteries?

In fact, as I know look at the dashboard - I wish I could screen-shot it for you - the solar is feeding the home, NOT charging the batteries and, weirder still, the batteries are now actually discharging to the grid...???

Please help me understand... and again, I'm really sorry to have to keep asking, but it's all still very new to me.

Appreciating your ongoing support. 😃

There'll always be a bit of import & export showing. Dont forget that the portal is only showing a snapshot in time, rather than a continuous live feed (the portal refreshes only every 5 minutes). Plus, the system cannot react instantly, it will take a certain amount of time for the system to ramp up or down. You will see this a lot where there are lots of passing clouds.
Don't sweat about small amounts- it's the overall trend that you need to be looking at.

Taylor28b Out of curiosity, then, for what situation would that function be needed...?

Timed export would work well if you were on a variable price export tariff and you wanted to earn £big by exporting when the SEG price was very high eg at tea time. Timed discharge? I can't really think of a reason why you would want to deplete the battery (other than a beneficial export rate previously mentioned) because if you needed energy to supply a load in the home on a timed basis, you would just switch the load on and the inverters would respond anyway. Maybe it would be useful if you wanted to end the battery discharge just before the off-peak started, during a battery calibration.

Taylor28b My wife thinks I'm already becoming obsessed with the power numbers on the dashboard

Welcome to the club and you can let your wife know she's in good company with lots of partners puzzled by what the attraction with a portal might be.

Once again, thank you both for chipping in - I can't thank you enough for helping this 'newbie' out...!

I take your point, Zakalwe, about it only being a snapshot and, yes, overall trends are more influential, for sure. Thank you.

And, Tim, I'll pass on your 'reassurance' to my wife... she'll be glad to know she's not alone...!! 🤣

Incidentally, a little earlier this morning, I rang the company that fitted the system, only to be told that the "Welcome Pack" and instructions info is normally sent out "within 28 days of installation"...!! Crikey moses... It's a good job you 3 were kind enough to step up with support. 😀

Taylor28b within 28 days of installation

In the meantime check out these links. When you do get your pack, check that you have the response letter from the DNO (confirming that the installation complies with their requirements) and the MCS certificate which you will need to apply for an SEG tariff and which you will have to provide should you ever move house.

Hey, Tim - thanks for the link to the 'unofficial GivEnergy Wiki' pages...

I had a look at a few of the more pertinent documents on there - very interesting reads.

Since I've got a longer journey tomorrow in my EV, I had a practice overnight charge off the Zappi - it worked fine, thankfully, so I'm plugged in again for a top-up.

Oh, and my batteries had a successful overnight charge, too.

However, one new thing I noticed today was, at one point, my batteries showed as being 'idle' on the dashboard - yet my home was needing power which the solar was not able to generate...!

I don't know if this was the reason but, after checking the Inverter card battery settings, I noticed the ECO setting had mysteriously 'disabled' itself... I hadn't touched it, so I've absolutely no idea how that'd come about...!!

Anyhow, I re-'enabled' it and, a little while later, I noticed the batteries were doing their thing just fine. Weird, though...

Anyhow, I guess every day's a learning day...

Thanks as always for your support, Tim - I'm most grateful.

All the best and have a relaxing weekend.

Jonathan 😃

Did you make any changes via the mobile app? Or perhaps press pause via that app?

There may be some bugs in the mobile app as it is quite new. Thus generally the recommendation is to just use the web portal to change settings.

And perhaps if need be reset all the settings to default, then change them to what you need, plus check you haven’t got a tariff automation, on a smart tariff card, on the web portal homepage - as that would conflict with the other settings.

Good morning, TX200.

I'm sorry, I didn't know I had another 'reply' on this feed - apologies for coming back to you after such a delay.

Thank you for your suggestion re the Tariff Card - I've checked each of the options on that card and can't see anything out-of-the-ordinary.

But, I appreciate you taking the time to respond to my queries - thank you.

And - touch-wood - apart from one of two minor learning curves for me, the system seems to be just doing its thing day-to-day with no further complications...! (thankfully...)

Once again, I appreciate your input.

Take care,

Jonathan

Tim
Hi - newbie here - just had the gen2 battery installed (had PV and inverter fitted in Nov).

I have a podpoint charger - installer said it can be integrated into the GE portal but it appears not?

Anyway - I have GE inverter / battery in eco mode and have set timed charge between 00:30 and 04:30 (for the Octopus Go tariff) and my podpoint is scheduled for the same times.

Question - why is SoC for the GE battery recommended in a post higher up as 50 % and not say 100 % ?

I do not charge the car every night so surely higher % is better to make sure GE battery is completely full ?

I cannot change the podpoint charge level or rates ... its either on or off as far as I can tell...

skinnerneil why is SoC for the GE battery recommended in a post higher up as 50 % and not say 100 % ?

It's whatever suits your use. In December, we charge to 100% every night to be sure that we can run through to the next off-peak period. In January we dropped it to 80% as we were getting enough solar each day to get to 100% before dark. In early February we dropped to 65% for the same reason and now we have disabled timed charge because we can get enough solar each day to charge to 100% (or near enough) before dark; except today is pretty bleak and we started with less than 20% SoC so I'm crossing my fingers that we generate enough to get through to off-peak tonight.

@hoggy has posted a few times about EV charger integration with the GE system. He has techniques to reverse engineer API calls and has provided Givenergy with the data they would need to integrate several EV chargers with the portal. However, I believe that they're not willing to do this because the APIs aren't publicly published/supported and don't want to take on the responsibility of maintaining the integration, which is fair enough. Givenergy on the other hand has published their APIs and others (eg Octopus) is willing to use them for their integrations.

The key thing is to set your timed charge periods to be the same for car and inverter to avoid charging the car from Givenergy battery. If you don't need to charge the car, you can also disable timed charge for the inverter if you think there'll be enough solar the next day. Just remember to turn it back on if charging the car off-peak.

Tim
That makes sense - and I appreciate the quick response.
I guess the key thing is to try and export as little as possible .... a learning curve I will enjoy playing with !

So everything seems to be working OK now - a glitch in that time on system was wrong (GMT-1) which I manmaged to change... meant delayed battery charging by one hour which was costing me an additional £ 1 / day !

But I have another problem - battery rarely seems to charge to 100 % despite it taking 2.4 KWh for 4 hours ...
Seems to peak at 86-87 %.

But some days - this has jumped to 100 % in the final moments of the charge... which makes me think the software is not reporting the battery capacity correctly ...

Do I need to recalibrate or something? It never seemed to do a calibration when initially installed...

Screenshots attached showing todays charge graph and another one from last week showing one of the weird jumps...

skinnerneil sounds like you have to SoC issue
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/713-firmware-3007-has-not-fixed-sudden-soc-drop-to-0-problem/2384
https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/1342-new-givenergy-inverter-bms-firmware-beta-testing-chat/1276