Choosing home storage batteries - GivEnergy vs. SolarEdge

I used tigo optimisers on each of my 17 panels and it has been great to understand what is happening.

Great video, simply for garnering a wealth of informative answers in the comments! Thanks.

Thanks - very early in the implementation process but support to date has been excellent. Fortunately asked questions concerning limits on the download process. Your podcast would also have helped!! Ended up selecting the maximum battery storage for the inverter. May well have over specified!! At the moment 55% capacity available at 1500. The combination is also working with the myenergi for our Hybrid.

Very interested in your excellent home storage presentation - Thanks. Just installed yesterday a Solarfast system with 8 Hanchu ESS LV batteries at 3.2 Kwh. (Total 25.6 Kwh) coupled with a Luxpower TEK Inverter. This is now linked to our existing 16 solar panels installed approx 11 years ago. We are hopefully downloading overnight at off peak rates at 3.5Kwh per hour (7 hours) with a maximum of 24.5 Kwh to cover daytime use including an electric Aga. We are using Octopus Energy. So far in 24 hours the system is doing what we expected without the benefit of much Solar input.

I have your option 3 being installed hopefully next month. I believe the hybrid inverters are also more efficient than AC systems as there isn't as many DC to AC conversions involved. The other consideration for me was that the Givenergy system can be completely controlled locally without internet through the modbus interface that in my case will be going to Home Assistant. I believe this is important not only for system longevity but for control during a blackout when the internet might also go down. Time will tell if I've chosen wisely.

I have just had a 6.2kwp system installed will solaredge inverter and battery. I haven’t got the backup system but I do believe that it is possible with solaredge. On the subject of optimisers, if it was me in your position I would get the system which allows them. When you do get shading it would essentially kill the power from that whole string. Your installer would be best placed to give you advice though.

Been through the same thought process and currently installing the GivEnergy 5kW hybrid inverter with 3 off 5 kWh GivEnergy batteries. This is for 14 panels on an unshaded South facing roof. Factors were cost, total capacity, peak current (I have some very power-hungry machines), and also the 2kW supply in a mains outage.

Fabulous info ❤

Thanks for the video Tim, I am glad I found your channel. I too have an E/W facing roof, and for that reason not going for solar, but only a battery solution. I too want to cover both electricity and heating at some point, which is why I am looking at a modular battery solution for now. Using the smart meter data for the past year, I can see we use on average 13kWh per day for electricity throughout the the year. I am also on Octopus Go, currently charge the EV during the 4 hours, and want to also charge batteries. The solution I have been looking at consists of 5 x US3000 Pylontech 3.5kWh batteries (48v) and a Victron Inverter 48/5000 (5000va) 48 volts with a Victron Gx device for the smart connectivity, however I am being told by various shops that this type of setup is for off-the-grid and will be hard to get installed, as they are trying to push GivEnergy products. From what I have read and watched on GivEnergy solutions, a lot more mixed reviews regarding the software side of things, which is my concern. An alternative solution with less hassle is Powerwall 2 with the gateway. Slightly more expensive, although I hear there is a big delay in getting PW installed. I've subscribed as I am very keen to see what you do next.

Very interesting. I too have been through this and have similar objectives. I mainly considered GivEnergy and Huawei. I've gone with a Huawei system 15kWh battery with 6kWh hybrid inverter from 8kWh PV powering a heat pump and also on Octopus Go with a Zappi and Eddie. The battery technology is the same Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) but the Huawei is a high voltage battery at around 385V instead of GivEnergy 50V. The advantage with the Huawei inverter is that it can power the house with AC at 6kW max from solar whilst the battery simultaneously charges at 5kW (if there was enough solar!) and the battery can provide 5kW output. Whereas GivEnergy's hybrid shares it's 5kW maximum rating also it can only charge or discharge the battery at 2.5kW max. So if the house load was 4kW you'd only get 1kW into the battery. If your house load was 1kW you'd only get 2.5kW into the battery - so your solar goes to waste. I also found it was slow to ramp up, so every time you switch something on the first 16 seconds or so of extra demand is fed from the grid before the solar or battery ramps up to 100% of demand. All these spikes of grid energy add up during the day. That was when I enquired early in the year and they may have improved the spec as they recognised it was a disadvantage. The Huawei is much faster to respond so doesn't clock up all those initial load switches. The Huawei can provide grid tied mode which goes into standby when the grid fails, automatic backup (with an additional backup box) mode which is meant to keep critical circuits going, and a full off grid working mode. Theoretically the full off grid mode could power your house up to 5kW but as with any system primarily working grid tied it has to shut down or isolate when the grid fails otherwise it will attempt powering the grid which could be a safety issue down the line at a wire break that's expected to be dead. You are right to not be concerned about optimisers. As I was reminded only the other day, there are reverse biased connected diodes in solar panels to ensure that if a column of PV cells goes high impedance due to, say a leaf falling on a cell, the cell is protected from becoming reverse biased by the combined voltage of all the other panels in the string which could add to a high voltage. The diode becomes forward biased instead which limits the reversal and the current bypasses the affected column so the affected cell is only reverse biased by the other fewer cells in the column. So PV panels automatically optimise to an extent anyway. You may lose a couple of columns from a leaf but not the whole panel. If the shadow crosses all columns the panel output will be lost but the other diodes in that panel bypas the current so the whole string only losses the output of one panel and the impedance it's kept low allowing the inverter to maintain optimised power transfer. Where individual optimisers help is where there is partial shading of one or more panels, perhaps through a tree canopy or dirt film, not enough to switch off the cells completely but raising the impedance of the working panels. The cells don't become reverse biased and the diodes don't bypass the current but the raised impedance can cause the inverter to limit the power draw from the whole string as it starts to see the voltage collapse under load. Optimisers maintain some useful output from the affected panels but don't don't raise the impedance of that section and the whole series connected string, which would loose more power. Power is usually optimised in the inverter by taking increasing current from the string until the voltage voltage starts to fall so it finds the sweet spot for voltage x current = power maximum (MPPT maximum power point tracking). Optimisers can cost as much as the panels though. Anyway, It's just seen you have another video about a second battery and spreadsheet calculations - something else I've been through sizing mine.

Very informative presentation

Whilst the efficiencies you quoted for an air source heat pump are well known the actual energy use is affected by the heat losses in the house and the method you are using to transfer the heat eg. radiators, underfloor etc. We have a 4 bedroom house with underfloor heating upstairs and downstairs (EPC Rating A) and have used a heat pump for the last 12 years. In winter the worst case use is between 40Kw and 55Kw hours per day. Having said that we have replaced the old Worcester Bosch unit with an 11Kw Daikin this year so hopefully, that will be more efficient.

Check out the MyEnergi battery announcement this week, The Libbi. Its capable of multiple battery storage stacking and back up during a power cut on a single circuit (so plugs or lights etc). I think the batteries max is 20kwh.

About optimizers: I had the same thought for our house, hardly any obstacles so why not make a 'bare' string and save on the optimizers (~70 euros per panel!). However, we decided to install them anyway based on advice from our installer, because these optimizers will always help when clouds come in play... after 3+ months now we can see that the amount of days with unobstructed full sunshine is very small, most of the time there is some (scattered) cloud cover.

SolarEdge Energy Bank does allow backup, you just need the right inverter and a backup module. Other advantage that makes a big difference is that any generation that would normally be clipped by the inverter is used to charge the battery so if your 6kW array is maxing out and you have a 5kW inverter the extra kW goes into the battery instead of being clipped and effectively wasted

I’m currently having option 3 on an east west two arrays. I have shading do we are using Tigo’s for optimisation, works out extra £50 a panel remember do on installation and no VAT. For you EPS read up on the Givenergy solutions, I’m trying to go full house manual switch, waiting for a quote but looks fairly straight forward. As for EV charger Givenergy currently have one out on beta I think which would talk to their hybrid inverter. There is also talk of a diverter in the pipeline that would do hot water .

I have option 2 SolarEdge Energy Bank with 3.68KW SE inverter and about 6KW of PV. Only had one issue so far, battery lost communication with the inverter for a few hours one day. We use about 9KWh a day and the Energy Bank should cover our usage 95% of the time. In the future I may add the back up module. I am currently waiting on Octopus to switch us over to the Go Faster tariff. I will add that so far the SolarEdge support has been excellent, they usually respond within 24 hours. The SE monitoring portal and app are also so very good, for me at least. At the moment you cannot set the battery to charge from the grid overnight via the Home Owner SE portal, you have to ask your installer to set it up. There is an update due later this year to allow home owners to do it via the portal and app.

Interesting to listen to your thought process Tim. I have just ordered a GivEnergy 3.6kW Hybrid Inverter, 9.6kW GivEnergy battery, Zappi, Eddi & 10 x 415watt solar panels. Like you I have no shading issues & all my panels are on one side of our roof facing 122 degrees SE. I could put a few more panels on the front of my roof to catch the late afternoon sun but I decided to keep the front of the house free of any solar accoutrements. Unlike you I have no plans to go down the Heat Pump route for home heating because our microbore heating pipework is far too small (10mm) & the cost & upheaval to rip it all out & replace it is prohibitive. I do have a small 4kW Air to Air Heat Pump in our conservatory which does a fine job of making it an all year round living space. So, on that basis I'm hoping that a combination of night rate electric & daytime solar should keep the battery & hot water topped up for most of what we use during the day & some free vehicle charging when needed - when we get an EV that is. As a retired couple we are at home most days which means we probably use more energy during the day than others who may be at work. That said there's only two of us now & we have started scheduling washing machine & Dishwasher etc to run over night instead of during the day. That may change when the solar system arrives. If I find we are using more energy than our battery & solar can deliver I guess an extra battery for more storage would be an option. However, as you pointed out, the max charge rate of our planned 3.6kW Hybrid Inverter would not be enough to charge anything much more than the planned 9.6kW battery during the 4hr night rate window. Do I need to go up to a 5.6kW Hybrid Inverter? I am also deliberating on where to put the Inverter & battery, in the garage or in the loft. My garage is small & is already rammed with stuff so a major clear out would be required to make some space. However, I've heard that a loft location for batteries & inverters is not the best for component reliability due to the high / low summer / winter temperature cycles. We also need a new consumer unit & our DNO needs to unloop our incoming mains electric supply from my neighbour before we can use the Zappi. I also need a new hot water cylinder because my 38 year old cylinder & immersion heater are well past their sell by date! I'm also in the process of installing a Tado smart system for our boiler, HW & radiators. This going green lark is starting to get a bit complicated & rather expensive.

If you go hybrid, the total output should be able to meet background house usage plus what the heat pump would require, plus cooking leaks etc. if you are not careful, you will still be pulling a lot for the grid, even if the sun is out. Look at your forecast demand profile through the day.

Interesting video. I have a Givenergy 3.6 hybrid inverter as well as a Zappi and Havi controller. The Zappi is connected to a outside IP68 CU so the inverter cannot see it. A CT clap in the meter box tells the Myenergy software when we are exporting to the grid and takes that charge as needed. The GivEnergy system software says this is all export but the combination of these apps plus Octopus Energy app, gives me the complete data picture. Unlike you I have done this in stages which makes this a tad more challenging especially as I am now looking at removing the combi gas boiler and going all electric. The details matter and it is certainly far from easy with so many variables so our shared experiences hopefully save others from making mistakes. I have to say I have been very impressed with GivEnergy although I don't have experience of other systems as a reference. I was super impressed that a software update I suggested was implemented just 3 months later, so they clearly listen to feedback and their software both on your phone and PC is excellent.