GivEnergy equipment and experiences?

[Adokforme]

The slave battery has just kicked into action, when I had charged the master up, no idea why
To be fair to GivEnergy they have been pretty good at support and I’ve had 15 months of pretty minimal issues.
Hoping to get a set up like 94JDH in the next couple of weeks.
2 inverters with two 9.5 kWh batteries on each inverter.
GivEnergy say it works but can have a few issues with one battery charging another but they have a new product in the pipeline to combat this called EMS.

Hi Yuff, glad to see you are getting sorted.
It would seem we have taken similar paths, in that I have two 3.3 kW AC inverters and four battery's, 3x 8.2's and a single 9.5 kW. I was pleased with how they performed over the two years but had a problem a month or so ago when an inverter went down. They came out to replace it in a week or so but still not functioning as they should. As you found they have been responsive via phone calls etc without solving the issue and just heard we've a visit booked for Wed of next week. I'm keeping fingers crossed it will all be sorted after that.
I was advised of the EMS unit during first install but understand they are now producing prototypes of these for testing. I've put my name down for one.
Thankfully I've had an Indra V2H unit installed and now running daytime domestic consumption from the Leaf so at least being covered with that.
Also hoping that Octopus now have us on their Outgoing tariff as well as IOG but can't seem to find where daily or monthly export figures might be found!

[Yuff]

The slave battery has just kicked into action, when I had charged the master up, no idea why
To be fair to GivEnergy they have been pretty good at support and I’ve had 15 months of pretty minimal issues.
Hoping to get a set up like 94JDH in the next couple of weeks.
2 inverters with two 9.5 kWh batteries on each inverter.
GivEnergy say it works but can have a few issues with one battery charging another but they have a new product in the pipeline to combat this called EMS.

Hi Yuff, glad to see you are getting sorted.
It would seem we have taken similar paths, in that I have two 3.3 kW AC inverters and four battery's, 3x 8.2's and a single 9.5 kW. I was pleased with how they performed over the two years but had a problem a month or so ago when an inverter went down. They came out to replace it in a week or so but still not functioning as they should. As you found they have been responsive via phone calls etc without solving the issue and just heard we've a visit booked for Wed of next week. I'm keeping fingers crossed it will all be sorted after that.
I was advised of the EMS unit during first install but understand they are now producing prototypes of these for testing. I've put my name down for one.
Thankfully I've had an Indra V2H unit installed and now running daytime domestic consumption from the Leaf so at least being covered with that.
Also hoping that Octopus now have us on their Outgoing tariff as well as IOG but can't seem to find where daily or monthly export figures might be found!

Hi Adokforme

Impressive they replaced the faulty inverter within a week, shame it isn’t all working as it should just yet, but I’m sure they’ll get there in the end.
Support has been very good and several emails this week informing me they’ve checked everything and it’s all working as it should.
Will be chasing my installer to get the 2nd inverter and batteries fitted asap. Hopefully by the end of next week.
V2H ….very jealous that’s the game changer for most of us I think.
Export figures should be on the daily figures in the app, in between electric and gas…..

[Adokforme]

Hi Adokforme

Impressive they replaced the faulty inverter within a week, shame it isn’t all working as it should just yet, but I’m sure they’ll get there in the end.
Support has been very good and several emails this week informing me they’ve checked everything and it’s all working as it should.
Will be chasing my installer to get the 2nd inverter and batteries fitted asap. Hopefully by the end of next week.
V2H ….very jealous that’s the game changer for most of us I think.
Export figures should be on the daily figures in the app, in between electric and gas…..

Thanks Yuff, Had a search on the app but nothing showing as yet. It spurred me to phone Octopus, the guy was very helpful and checked that they had got all the info required to follow thro, it should be implemented in the next few days. He suggested I call back in a week if it hadn't materialised by then.

Yes, well pleased with the Indra unit and system although TP, PLC links supplied are a pain, the engineer has requested permission to hard wire to router.
It's strange as TP's for the PV system have worked seamlessly for 18 months or so on the same circuit!
I had applied to go on three other trials previously without success so pleased to get there eventually as that was one of the reasons we chose a Leaf in 2018. I suspect we may be a tad over the top in terms of storage capacity but I do like to be on the safe side if poss and not sure if you can ever have too much!
Good luck with the install date on the second inverter as 36 kWh's of storage will be some asset and I can only imagine it to cover most eventualities.

[AE-NMidlands]

My system is working quite nicely, but the inverter does seem to have a mind of its own, occasionally deciding to do things I definitely haven't told it to do... Like discharging to the grid yesterday morning once the pv started to come in (instead of recharging the battery. I couldn't see why it was doing it and had to reset the inverter to its factory default settings to stop it.

Screenshot 2024-03-04 at 08-41-29 FA2308G264 - General givenergy.cloud.png (49.04 KiB) Viewed 494 times

Now I see that it shows a spike of consumption/import at 0520 last night

Screenshot 2024-03-04 at 08-27-53 FA2308G264 - General givenergy.cloud.png (54.83 KiB) Viewed 494 times

1.3kW is quite a blip, and I can't imagine what it is - is it actually real?
Also still no DNO export approval, no response from Octopus to my questions on why, but I have got onto Flux - but only because I was changing my gas tariff and the chap was happy to do the electricity one there and then. Why have the "Onboarding team" ignored my requests to change it until now? I did point out to them tha tif Octopus want people to help the grid by moving their consumption then they need to put us on a TOU tariff as soon as we get a battery, otherwise we just lose money in round trip losses...

[Yuff]

Sometimes what the inverter says and the actual readings, at octopus, differ.
The octopus app will show what really happened in the half hour slot.
It does seem to take a while to get on to OO

[AE-NMidlands]

Sometimes what the inverter says and the actual readings, at octopus, differ.
The octopus app will show what really happened in the half hour slot.
It does seem to take a while to get on to OO

I was forgetting that I am seeing what GivEnergy think has happened, rather than what Octopus will be billing. It will be interesting to look at today's meter readings when they become avaialble.
I was concerned to read upthread that someone's export was hung up because whoever applied for it made a mistake... maybe mine is in limbo for the same reason, I'll have to chase it up (again.)

[Yuff]

Sometimes what the inverter says and the actual readings, at octopus, differ.
The octopus app will show what really happened in the half hour slot.
It does seem to take a while to get on to OO

I was forgetting that I am seeing what GivEnergy think has happened, rather than what Octopus will be billing. It will be interesting to look at today's meter readings when they become avaialble.
I was concerned to read upthread that someone's export was hung up because whoever applied for it made a mistake... maybe mine is in limbo for the same reason, I'll have to chase it up (again.)

It might have been me, I chased for weeks and then they had to sort it out manually.
I get spikes on the GivEnergy app all the time but they are there for a split second and it doesn’t make any difference on your bills.

[AE-NMidlands]

a month or two further in, and I'm (quite) enjoying juggling Flux import, solar charging of the battery and evening export, but the app./ website controls have (politely) been described as "clunky!"
The most annoying thing is that when you set it to export, the control says "This mode will hold your battery power and discharge it at full power during a period you define" - and it does, not allowing the house to access the power before or afterwards, so that you go straight to grid import. This is only resolved by going into the inverter control and switching off the timed export until you want to do it again a day or maybe two later if it hasn't been very sunny. Sometimes even then you don't seem to be able to stop that import without pushing the "Reset to factory default settings" button! The delay while your attempted reset (via their cloud/website and then back to your inverter) takes effect is very frustrating as you can't see whether you have actually achieved your intention - or whether you have stopped exporting at 6.30pm but are importing at peak rate instead!

They also don't separate the "export down to x% battery" from the "feed my house [afterwards] down to 4% battery!" So currently you have to set the export for "start at 4pm, export at n kW down to x% SOC" but then watch out for it getting there, turn off the export instruction and reset the (separate) battery minimum to allow it to feed the house again. Ditto setting the export power: you can't set the inverter to export at say 2.5 kW without it refusing to allow the house to use more afterwards unless you go back and change it back up to 3.6 kW again!

I am considering another program/website https://www.wonderwatt.com/service-dashboard/ which supposedly gets round this by taking over that constant manual setting and resetting. They major on using Agile Octopus to minimise import costs, but I think that their original product was intended to allow you to set it up in one go to say:

1) Export 3.6 kW from 1600 down to 30% SOC
2) stop at that (even if it is before 1900) then reset the battery minimum back to 4% and feed the house
and then (This is the one bit of Givenergy controls which does work)
3) at 2 am charge from the grid up to (e.g.35)% SOC.

I noticed that the Wonderwatt website says the product is for Growatt too, so maybe that kit has similar issues?
A