Givenergy woes

ispookie666

@Mikeyboy01443 Not sure if not having a proper earth can possibly cause the inverter board to fry.  I'll need the installer to come back and show the wiring.  

ispookie666

Finally installer came around and fixed the EPS. 
I think my earthing at home is TN-C-S with a stake (sitting next to oil tank). He's added a 10mm earthing wire from the EPS circuits to the main distribution box earthing.  
As I understand, if the grid goes down the stake will act as a earth/neutral. 

Theoretically it is possible the board was fried when I turned off the double pole isolator as the EPS did not have a reference ground.  Think the installer should have picked this up. 

My understanding of earthing is a bit sketchy and looks like it's a very difficult topic aswell. 

Alnat1

Glad you got it sorted.

ispookie666

Well, its back to problems.  
My backup power or EPS does not seem to work, there is no output from the inverter on the backup power side when the mains is turned off 
Back to installer and Givenergy 

Mikeyboy01443

how did you find this out, were you testing your EPS again? or

uk1

ispookie666 said:

Well, its back to problems.  
My backup power or EPS does not seem to work, there is no output from the inverter on the backup power side when the mains is turned off 
Back to installer and Givenergy 

Hi,  you have all of my sympathies.  This is not the way life should be.

Does all of your issues stem from having an islanded system with eps with a possibly faulty installation?  The impression is that GE seem to understand that not all installers are built equally particularly with non completely bread and butter systems and that your system’s problems is in their experience due to installer error hence their  less than stellar performance? 

What is your view with the benefit of painful hindsight?

ispookie666

Turned off the power at the dedicated distribution board, when nothing happened (no power on EpS circuits and sockets). I went investigating. Pretty much checked every point and came to the conclusion, there is no EPS power output from the inverter. 

Of course I understand and can buy into the fact that installers are of varying skill mixes.  
The initial board failure was blamed on lack of Earthing, which I believe is blame everything but the product!! 

The Givenergy engineer had disconnected the EPS when the inverter was repaired, this was rectified by the installer when additional earthing was added. 

Don't get me wrong, when the system works it's great but if I had known these issues (there is a growing community of unhappy customers) I would not touch then with a bargepole! 

ispookie666

Update!

After 10 weeks and waiting, I guess I’ll surpass my previous experience with Inverter board failure.
The issue has not been fixed. The installer has given up, I cannot blame them - spending half a day just on the phone to go through the basic question, given that the AC coupled board was replaced not so long ago.

I have contacted GE at least five times and have been on the "High Priority" list for the last 6 ish weeks, I received one phone call to schedule (looks like if a customer cannot be available for the day they provide/suggest - you are out of luck), this was like 3 ish weeks ago.

With such a bitter and poor experience, why should I recommend this company to any potential future customer?

vienly

I'm glad I cancelled my order with Givenergy  via installer and went with a different brand instead, they were an absolute joke when they couldn't even provide the cable for the gen 2 inverters and gen 2 battery.

ispookie666

@vienly Well done! Which make and model did you go with?  

All products can have failures and sometimes there can be multiple failures, but a measure of a good company according to me is, how they deal with faults or problems.  Having a class beating or world leading warranty of 10 years is pointless if the company fails spectacularly in engaging with the end user when faults or problems occur!