Why Is My Battery System Also Using The Grid Occasionally?

With any home battery system you may notice very brief grid usage, but why? Shouldn't the battery be powering everything?
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[@Joe-lb8qn]

I think theres an even simpler explanation , which is that the way the graph is drawn is misleading (I dont mean that in a negative deliberate way its just the way the brain works). The time axis is divided into segments of a minimum size around 5 mins or so looking at mine? So when it draws the graph even if there is only 1 second of high usage it has to draw a triangle that covers the whole 5 minute segment and so makes the usage seem much larger than it actually is because that area is all filled in and very visible and we equate the usage to that whole very visible area which is a triangle with base 300 and height (say) 2000. Whereas in actuality only (say) one second of those 300 was used. so the "real" triangle is tiny and its an artifact of the way the graph is constructed. I dont know if it can be done but for usage of say less than ten seconds, a simple thin line to the peak would be better than a filled in triangle. Hope that makes sense. ETA an alternative approach would be what you mentione, eg calculate the average use over that 5 minute segment and draw that on the graph ega very low blip. However that would then give you an issue when comparing to what your energy supplier monitors from the meter since they can certainly see those spikes and so the GE graph would show zero grid usage over a month whereas the energy supplier woudl be adding them up and charging you for (say) 1kWh over a montha nd then youd get lots of people complaining that the smart meter is wrong or GE is lying and "hiding" these spikes.

[@ianviscogliosi5533]

I always imagine it as a dinner tray with water, which you constantly need to keep balanced.

[@CastleKnight7]

Good analogy. Over an entire day, I’ve noticed on my 9.5kWh GivEnergy battery system these “spikes” in energy use from the grid equate to about 1 ~ 5 pence depending on what appliances have been switched on, such as the kettle, oven or iron. I can live with that.

[@UK-Cycling]

Great video Andy. Thank you very much. Best regards, Martin

[@John-FourteenSix]

In my experience, it’s not really a battery issue. It’s an inverter issue. I was also disappointed with the ‘spikes’ and as an early adopter we have to accept things will improve dramatically, so I swapped out the Gen1 to a Gen 3 inverter which is greatly improved, however it’s not cheap to swap it out so… Note: I have the same battery, so I conclude, it’s not the battery! Plan B Solution. Ditch the (3kW) electric kettle and use a stove top kettle (try it!), this pulls around 1kW on the small, but suitable induction ‘ring’ It doesn’t honestly take that much longer and we love that whistle! AND It makes great cups of tea! ;-)

[@stever656]

Just keep it the same at least we know why the small amount pennies is on our daily bill

[@eddyd8745]

Thanks for the explanation Andy. Here's another question for you. On the phone app there are two discharge types, one to the grid and one to the home. The grid is self explanatory but what does discharge to home involve? Surely you can only discharge to the home if there is a load in place. What happens if there is no load? Does it just discharge as heat? I know I should try it out but as a Cumbrian (albeit living down South) I'm tighter than a Yorkshireman and I don't want to lose the 15p/kWh! Only joking, have always just wondered but not enough to try and find out.

[@twelvebears1971]

People May also have the situation of peak house demand exceeding the AC capability of either their inverter or possibly battery (if perhaps they only have one smaller battery).

[@DarkS1m]

It makes total sense as to why the grid would make up a shortfall in these rapidly-changing demand scenarios. However, I see an issue overnight when my battery is meeting idle home demand, and it's having to provide about 70W more than the house load to meet demand. It's remarkably consistent all night, until the solar PV kicks in again in the morning. Where is this power going? I had thought it was conversion inefficiency, however since I switched to Intelligent Octopus Flux, the battery is not used overnight, and instead the grid meets the home demand. Here I see the grid providing a consistent 40W additional power to meet home demand. The "Inverter Output Power" on the cloud portal shows -40W, i.e. my inverter appears to be using 40W just idling. Is this correct? The spec sheet for the inverter says it should use less than 5W when operating, so again... where is this power going? Why is there a discrepancy between power demanded and power consumed?

[@andydransfield8428]

An interesting answer to something I observe. However, it begs a worrying question. If the battery can't respond almost instantly to a home demand change, how does it respond instantly to a grid failure? Will my router and PC go down?

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

Do you have a gateway?

[@philswindin]

For operating any router or PC, a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is necessary instead of an EPS (emergency power supply), which a GE battery system offers.

[@ElectricVehicleMan]

@@philswindin Giv have a proper gateway for ‘UPS’ with the All In One.

[@davidbaslington7941]

I was interested to watch this video. We have a my energy libbi system and it does exactly the same.

[@robinbennett5994]

That makes sense, but raises the question of why modern electronics takes several seconds to respond? Even an £5 Arduino runs at several millions of cycles per second, and the power transistors in an inverter can switch several thousand times per second. I bet your car doesn't have that sort of lag when you press or release the accelerator pedal, and it's handling 100 times more power. I realise the answer could be pretty technical, but I think it would be interesting.

[@timward2001]

It's a control loop. Control theory maths is HARD. (You don't for example want it thrashing.)

[@robinbennett5994]

@@timward2001 I'm sure you're right, but a toy drone from 10 years ago can manage a feedback loop that seems to be thousands of times faster than most inverters. Is there something uniquely difficult about mains power, or is the market too small to fund the necessary R&D?

[@Typo234]

Good stuff. How about a video to explain why the EV charger takes from the grid rather than the battery, even though Prevent Battery From Discharging to EV is off? I have to keep juggling Max Charge Current when the (Yorkshire) sun goes out!

[@phytlargy8196]

Hi Andy. Do I need G99 approval for 6 Kw inverter All in One. I am very keen to get an all in one to supplement my 4Kw solar array I currently have in place. Your Platinum Installer tells me I only need G98 approval as the solar is only 4Kw. He says they have installed dozens of AIO and have never done G99 for any of them. Surely this is incorrect.

[@JohnR31415]

I end up with about 2-300 Wh a day. The data is fine, but the “five minute” should show an average use over that time as a solid area - with maybe a red line of “min/max” power draw.

[@markjones632]

You mentioned firmware updates but is there a link to what is fixed by the updates. Reason i ask is that i have an east west system and an update from 3012 to i think 3015 caused the system to be unbalanced and giv downgraded it back to 3012. Also i have 2 9.5 batteries and they became very unbalanced by the new battery firmware and that had to be downgraded. So unless i know what is fixed i can never change the firmware has every change means a full battery dump and i can't get off the smart export guarantee atm due to the snail like pace of ofgem

[@adrianupnorth]

Great video. Seriously looking at GE batteries - it's all your fault Andy 😁

[@NickAskew]

I'm not sure if this is relevant to GivEnergy, but if the grid fails and the system is off grid, does that mean batteries cannot respond as quickly as the grid could to high demand? Or are you just talking about when the battery and grid are 'fighting' to balance the needs caused by the demand. In other words the green car is determining its own speed.

[@rogerbird349]

I think that there is another reason as well. My Gen 1 inverter is limited in output, about 3.4Kw I think. If the ambient house load is 500 watts, then as soon as I turn the kettle on, (about 3Kw, I get a grid draw to meet the demand.

[@John-FourteenSix]

I swapped from the Gen 1 to a Gen 3 inverter which is greatly improved, however it’s not cheap to swap it out so… Plan B Ditch the (3kW) electric kettle and use a stove top kettle (try it!), this pulls around 1kW on the small, but suitable ‘ring’ It doesn’t honestly take that much longer and we love that whistle! AND It makes great cups of tea! ;-)

[@PeterCoates-lf8do]

Education; never cover up.

[@user-uk4se5jp1s]

Do you get the same dips if you are off grid or is this a function of being grid-tied?

[@NigelStone-lp4zf]

But why does my AIO pull from the grid to feed the battery ?

[@RaithUK]

This is not just give energy, my SolarEdge system does the same thing.. the only difference is SolarEdge use 400V battery so alternative inverters is difficult if not impossible. No dont smooth the graphs show the truth and you will keep trust!

[@John-FourteenSix]

I noticed this effect particularly with my Gen 1 Inverter. My Gen 3, is way better, with less and lower ‘spikes’. Also has a higher rating too. I have an EPS switch, so I have off grid capability with the Hybrid inverter, however it is limited to only 20A! So it will not run everything as normal… I would appreciate some advice on this. Thank you

[@Simon-rt3qu]

I don’t fully agree. My Tesla Powerwall system uses between 0 and 10Wh a day. It’s towards the 10Wh on a Sunny day with clouds. Looks like it’s when the battery has to go from charging to discharging power. Our last bill from Octopus for 30 days was 200Wh. Prior to our Tesla system, we had a GE system and that used 250 - 500Wh a day.. or around 14kWh a month. I watched a lot of your videos, are you are spot on however I feel this one is misleading. You are technically correct with your reasoning but to claim that all Battery systems are like this are false. I can provide Octopus bills as prove this.

[@user-ed8wy4en7z]

Agreed. I wish I had a the flexibility of GE system but this doesn't really happen with my Powerwall. My grid pull yesterday was 0.12p outside when I charged it overnight

[@Simon-rt3qu]

He generally does good videos but he is now representing a company now and to state rival systems are all the same when they are not, could get the company in trouble. Shame really.. Agreed, I miss the flexibility of the GE system but the PW has been far more reliable.

[@ts757arse]

Never hide data, just explain it. A single sentence below the graph can explain this and a link to this video will give people more context.

[@samlu7336]

perfect, would be great if it has English subtitles😀

[@David-bl1bt]

😂

[@John-FourteenSix]

Reduce the playback speed to 0.75… Try 0.5 and he sounds like a drunk guy in the pub… (Actually sounds very funny, especially during the car analogy - lol)

[@samlu7336]

@@John-FourteenSix 😀😀that make sense

[@kevinmatthews2620]

no whiteboard of truth then??, just a hat of bad analogies and your "daughters" model cars Andy :) :)

[@givenergy]

The Whiteboard of Truth is too expensive!