Powerwall versus Givenergy batteries

[oneear]

Hi,

From what I’ve established the GivEnergy system controls the GivEnergy inverter, which controls the GivEnergy battery(s). So best to go with the same 2 products there.

There is an app and website (cloud).

You can control the GivEnergy battery/ inverter locally (and over the internet) on the app or using the website (cloud). The cloud is for more complex things like syncing to Octopus agile.

The website version gives a few more options that aren’t on the app (yet - to be added, IDK?).

Hope that helps. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

Thank you for the reply @Pete UK . So it looks like both Powerwall and GivEnergy can be configured / monitored independent of the company.

 

[scdoubleu]

This is a fantastic interface. Maybe you should put it on the AppStore

Thanks for the compliment. Unfortunately there's a bit more to it than just an App. It's custom hardware/firmware for the display, plus a small back-end server for MQTT/InfluxDB. Perhaps one day I'll put it up on Github.

 

[yessuz]

Thanks for the compliment. Unfortunately there's a bit more to it than just an App. It's custom hardware/firmware for the display, plus a small back-end server for MQTT/InfluxDB. Perhaps one day I'll put it up on Github.

i actually have my own servers (old desktop - (windows) and raspberry pi (linux)) so could use them for something similar

 

[petit_bateau]

Hi Guys
Just a quick question. I am thinking of Powerwall but the GivEnergy is available for installation immediately. My question is about the interface for controlling / monitoring the batteries through the apps / web interface. Does this go through the respective company website ie Tesla/GivEnergy. If so what happens if the company fails? I remember some IoT devices becoming useless as the company that manufactured them went into liquidation. Would be grateful if owners can clarify whether you connect to devices directly or through the manufacturer website.

You can connect direct to SolarEdge

https://knowledge-center.solaredge.com/sites/kc/files/solaredge-communication_options_application_note_v2_250_and_above.pdf

However your underlying concern re long term support in case of a company failure is very valid. My opinion is that once a company has achieved a sufficient scale, with a sufficient installed base, then even if it goes bust the pieces will be acquired. Support for the more common legacy kit would therefore tend to be available in that situation. That is one of the reasons that I personally selected SolarEdge over GiveEnergy.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

You can connect direct to SolarEdge

They don't document the protocol though, only by painstaking reverse engineering has it been discovered. It's also encrypted..

GitHub - jbuehl/solaredge: SolarEdge inverter logging data capture - I've never got this to work.. partly due to having no idea how to retrieve the encryption key. Since their portal only gives basic data it would be good to get working one day rather than having to rely on a clamp on the outgoing supply.

 

[petit_bateau]

At the GF's we have just finished installing 3 x 10kWh SolarEdge. There is availability on those, at least there is at CCL. Cost was GBP £17,250 + 0% VAT because we did a few extra bits of solar in the install as well. So just under £6k for each 10kWh lump.

Everything went fine in the install and it has all played nicely with the existing SolarEdge kit. The online monitoring (both the phone app and the web interface) has also neatly flipped over to include the battery system.

Only snags observed so far are:

1. a. The system is currently operating in Minimise Consumption mode, but there is zero user interface accessibility to set any governing parameters. I'm not saying that I'd necessarily make a better go of it than whatever are the system defaults in the MC mode, but I'd like to at least see the settings. I'm now trying to back out the settings by observing the behaviour of the black box. This is true both in phone app and web interface.

1.b. It seems to be operating fine in a fairly basic manner (scavenge anyyhting that would otherwise go to export, then use battery first rather than import. Since we are in solar deficit at the moment it spends a lot of time at a nominal 0% SoC given that there is naff all sun, and lots of rain. Whether 0% SoC is really 0% or really at a buffer of 20% SoC or something else I don't know as there is no parameter-level access.

2. Neither the phone app nor the web interface give us access to a control panel where we can switch mode to Time Of Use. We know that such a user interface must exist because our installer has some screen grabs of it that was sent by the SE rep, but in terms of getting it ourselves, no. Probably is in beta somewhere .......

3. The installer can't get sense out of SE regarding this. They are very happy that we try chivvying SE as well.

4. We can't get through to SE ourselves. Their various consumer support channels send us round in loops - including their WhatsApp chatbot - that ultimately end at a "case registration" web page that promptly crashes. Every time. Hey ho.

5. No point switching to a Time Of Use tariff until we can get that functionality working. So for now the GF is at whatever the standard import rate is (35p/kWh currently I believe) but at least she is no longer exporting at 2p/kWh. (EDIT : but it would be nice to switch to Time Of Use so as to get that 7p midnight rate).

I've been told that the GiveEnergy software is also somewhat ragged around the edges right now and their beta is due an upgrade ........ The Huawei software works.

UPDATE

After a bit of patient and polite prodding back to the area SolarEdge rep (after the installer gave me their email) our/my access permissions have now been modified. Result is that the phone app (mySolarEdge) now shows two available modes: TimeOfUse and MaximiseSelfConsumption. These are within BatteryMode.

For now I've left it at MaxSelfCon as I want to monitor a few months of 'natural' operation, and in any case TimeOfUse is not a tariff option that is offered by GoodEnergy to their domestic clients. I'll probably look at this further in August.

I've spoken to GoodEnergy about the tariff implications and they tell me that they don't licence the relevant (required) software module for Kraken from Octopus, so have no plans to offer a ToU tariff to domestic clients. So if in August that situation hasn't changed then regrettably the GF's system will probably switch from GoodEnergy to Octopus.

But this is proof that the SolarEdge app is available to all UK customers with a TimeOfUse mode provided that they do a bit of patient/polite prodding.

 

[Morak]

I ordered my GivEnergy system in December (2x8.4?kWh batteries) through F4S. They (or the gen2 equivalent) were supposed to be installed in Aug but this has now been pushed to Nov.

So finally I have a sort of working GivEnergy system. They fitted a Gen1 inverter with 2x 9.5 batteries in March (Dec '21 order). The Gen1 was faulty and one of the batteries was under voltage. They have been out to fit a Gen2 as a replacement to the faulty inverter, hoping that would charge the dud battery but no joy, even a force charge from an external charger wouldn't do it. So they finally commissioned it today with 1 battery and waiting for Giv to RMA the faulty one.

At least I now have PV and a 9.5, so it's something!

The installers (subcontractors) work was second to none in my opinion.

Interested in how the other GivEnergy installs fared over time?

 

[Tiredeyes]

Sent you pm

Hi, I’m getting a quote from Octopus energy for 10 panels and a AIO 13.5. It’s the same price as why you had for two 9.5kWh batteries and 2 inverters. Is it possible to share your supplier please, thank you

 

[Tiredeyes]

It’s worrying that GivEnergy SOC and firmware issues are still prevalent 15 months later.
Makes me swing to a powerwall.
If we had an electric Car (Wife’s Evoque) in 2 years, what would be best.
PW3, or AIO ?

 

[MrT3]

If we had an electric Car (Wife’s Evoque) in 2 years, what would be best.
PW3, or AIO ?

No one has any real life experience of the PW3 so impossible to say.

 

[thewishy]

It’s worrying that GivEnergy SOC and firmware issues are still prevalent 15 months later.
Makes me swing to a powerwall.

The July firmware on the Gen2 is pretty reasonable for me. The SOC "bugs" are really more to do with LFP BMS - LFP doesn't really change voltage much along it's charge curve, it's more like an accounting exercise than "measure the voltage and you're at x% SOC" are you would have with NMC chemistry.
That's why you're told to charge LFP Model 3 to 100% once a week - Tesla want you to get to a known reference point so the accounts can measure from there.

Once a week, maybe you think you have 2.5kWh when you actually have 1kWh. It's not the end of the world when you're grid-tied.

PW3 is also likely to be LFP based, so it's unclear if the PW3 will have similar issues. My guess is that it'll need to hit a known point regularly, or it'll have similar SOC drops.

That said, the PW prices have really come down and the AIO is no-longer stand-out value.

I'd argue that in most cases, a Giv Hybrid inverter and a couple DC battery is better value (Don't need to buy two inverters, basically) and has great efficiency for any solar you're storing. Last time I checked AIOs and PW are about 2k extra vs DC coupled for the same capacity.
AIO adds higher discharge speed (But I'd argue it's less of a problem than most youtubers. If you run your oven and hob at the same time, maybe you use 0.3kWh while cooking a mean. 10p, big deal)
AIO does off grid mode better, if you get a lot of powercuts

PW3 with direct DC might be a best of both worlds game changer, but we all know what "coming soon" means for Tesla...

Main thing with Giv vs Tesla. the Giv you can tell it what to do, the Tesla you can merely try and influence. If you tinker, the Tesla PW might drive you mad.

 

[Tiredeyes]

Thank you for your reply.
It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, this solar and battery & inverter investigation.
Money no object configuration.
What would you have ?

 

[ACarneiro]

Thank you for your reply.
It’s a bit of a rabbit hole, this solar and battery & inverter investigation.
Money no object configuration.
What would you have ?

Three phase home supply and a Tesla Powerpack.

 

[Tony Hoyle]

Money no object? House in bermuda and a solar farm.

 

[thewishy]

Money no object configuration.
What would you have ?

You're making an investment here. You could argue "I'll put up solar because it's good for the planet, so I don't care about cost-benefit", but a battery is all about "I want to make the best use of my solar and/or off peak electricity for my personal financial advantage." There isn't really any environmental benefit to having the battery, only economic.

So you've got to make the economics work, you can't just opt out.

I'd suggest there isn't a best money no object option either.
If you want a system which is set and forget, the PW2 is great
If you want a system which is tinkerable, and could be used on agile tariffs, a GivEnergy system is better

Or you could make an argument for no powerwall, get a hybrid inverter with a medium size battery, and then re-assess in 5-10 years when new technology will be available. Maybe we have sodium batteries, maybe prices continue to fall, maybe flow batteries become more of a thing.

 

[ACarneiro]

There isn't really any environmental benefit to having the battery, only economic.

Disagree strongly.
The environmental benefit is that you can store electricity generated in the day so you don't have to use fossil-sourced electricity at night or during peak hours.
Or you could top-up your battery at low-carbon times to then use at high-carbon times.
No, energy storage is one of the cornerstones of decarbonisation (unless, miraculously, we start building all those nukes that we really needed 10 years ago)

 

[Daaaavvveee]

Money no object? House in bermuda and a solar farm.

The thing that amazes me is there is not that much solar in Bermuda, and they don’t really do recycling

 

[WannabeOwner]

There isn't really any environmental benefit to having the battery, only economic.

In addition to @ACarneiro excellent points, Battery can buy when green energy would otherwise be curtailed, and then export back to the grid at peak - thereby preventing the need to fire up a peak-plant gas turbine.

There was a trial of that last year, with people being paid to export from their PowerWalls (6-9PM as I remember it). Even people who were not able to export (DNO said "No") were paid - on the ground that because they were not drawing energy from the grid they were helping out.

From now, and through the winter, my battery is not big enough to last all day. It makes no difference to me, financially, when I use the grid but I choose to use the grid at times that are kind to the grid (more specifically I hold a reserve for times when I expect it to be bad for the grid - e.g. 6-9PM)

So no economic benefit to me for doing that, but some help to the environment.

 

[thewishy]

Let me put it a different way
- Storing your PV vs Dumping on the grid doesn't provide a huge benefit to the grid as a whole
- Megapacks located near windfarms which are likely to curtail are probably a better use of the lithium
- Grid scale storage has the potential to make more impact

If the economic case for a PW makes sense, then it doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't use it to maximise environmental benefit

 

[ringi]

The environmental benefit is that you can store electricity generated in the day so you don't have to use fossil-sourced electricity at night or during peak hours.

Not true unless the grid is nearly 100% renewables at the time you are storing as you are stopping other people using that green power along with the battery loses.