Solar and battery support

If you’re having connectivity issues with your solar array, the Wi-Fi connection could have dropped out. If you’ve recently changed something with your Wi-Fi, the easiest resolution is to change your new Wi-Fi ID and password to match your old one, and all of the appliances in your home should automatically connect!

Alternatively, follow the guidance below for each product to re-connect your solar system to Wi-Fi.

GivEnergy: Follow this handy video guide to re-configure and connect to the internet.

Enphase: You may see the error message “Gateway Not Reporting” in your app. If so, follow this written guidance to fix. Alternatively, follow this video guide from Enphase.

Tesla: Follow this guidance from Tesla to reconnect to the Gateway.

If you’ve followed this guidance and you’re still having trouble reconnecting, get in touch.

If the power goes out, the impact on your system will depend on which battery you have installed. We’ve outlined the cases for this below:

Panels only or panels and battery with no whole home backup: When there’s a power cut, your inverter won’t be able to find the local grid to feed power into. So as a safety feature, it will switch off. When the power comes back on, it’ll start up again.

Solar with battery and whole home backup (currently Tesla Powerwall only): If you have a system with whole home backup, this means that your solar system can work off grid. During a power cut, the battery should switch over within a few seconds to power your home in island mode.

In order to help anyone carrying out work at your property, our electrician will be sure to label everything correctly, so that from the consumer unit it will be clear that there’s an additional power supply on-site. They will need to be able to isolate the solar supply from the rest of the property.

After your system is installed, we will provide a schematic drawing showing the placement of all the products and wiring installed. This is included within your handover pack, and a copy should also be left at your property.

If you’re not one for monitoring your solar performance regularly, we’d still recommend occasionally checking your app to make sure everything is connected as it should be.

If you’d like to check how your solar system is performing, we recommend waiting until your system has been installed for at least 1 year, as solar generation can fluctuate significantly month by month.

There’s even more to each bright sunny day than meets the eye, and small atmospheric changes can influence energy generation - however if you do notice that your generation is consistently particularly low on sunny days, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you compare your solar generation to the previous year, and you believe your generation looks lower than it should (weather considered) or if something looks strange with your readings, please also get in touch.

The great news is that solar panels last a very long time, and you shouldn’t notice any degradation at all for at least the first 10 years. Your solar panels have a linear performance warranty of 30 years. This means that at 30 years, you’ll still have a guaranteed performance of 87.4% (subject to terms and conditions).

At present we’re able to add a battery if you don’t already have one, but unfortunately we’re not able to add more panels just yet.

Please get in touch if you notice anything strange with your generation. Our team will be on-hand to help.

On IO Flux, you’ll get a peak rate between 4pm - 7pm when Octopus will discharge your battery and export surplus energy back to the grid to maximise your savings, (unlike other tariffs, you might notice that your battery is only discharged during this time). We’d recommend moving any high-energy usage, like using the washing machine, outside of this time period to save money.

On Flux, you’ll get a super cheap rate overnight from 2am - 5pm every day, where it’s best to use your solar app to schedule your battery to charge. Then you’ll have a peak rate from 4pm - 7pm where it’s best to schedule your battery to discharge, and sell any extra energy back to the grid. Like the Intelligent version, we’d recommend moving any high-energy usage, like using the washing machine, outside of this time period to save money.

On Outgoing Octopus you simply get 12p/kWh for every unit of energy you export, this means you don’t have to worry about using your power or charging/discharging your battery at certain times, and you’ll make the most savings by using energy whilst the sun is shining.

For homes with a battery your solar will first supply your home and any excess will top up the battery. If the battery is full any remaining is exported. If the solar is generating less than your home requires, the battery will generally supply that to your home.

On Agile Outgoing tariff, we publish tomorrow’s rates between 4.00pm and 8.00pm each evening, so you can schedule charging and discharging your battery at the best times for the following day. Check out historical export rates for the Agile tariff here.