This is a useful short summary of the position and quite reassuring

Speak to the Geek has also posted a YT video which I found helpful.

@downfield Thank you for this reassuring information

My own take on the situation with some recommendations for homeowners with Givenergy batteries and hybrid inverters.

It appears that problems are beginning to surface.

I noticed that the portal stopped reporting stats for my All In One overnight at around 03:15. In the last hour I attempted to set a timed charge event using the app locally - set to Home and the attempt failed. Several attempts to enable a timed charge slot in the last half hour have all failed with a "Failed to Change Settings" dialog "There was no response from comms, please try again" - it seems that local "control" is a myth.

Fortunately I had the battery already set on basic Eco mode so it should still function more or less as a passive system. It is possible to see the current status - Solar Generation, Charging, Grid rates etc but that's it. 

Had the 'control' options continued to operate I would have been content to leave it for a while and see what transpires but maybe not now. 

Tomorrow I'll install HomeAssistant and see if I can wrestle more control through that. I guess that's my Axle events up the spout now too!

It's rather frustrating, but not surprising. 

As this story unfolds, what I found really interesting (and quite ironic) is an article that was shared with me today from October 2023. Back then, GivEnergy partnered with HIES to help homeowners whose installers had gone bust. They agreed to supply batteries and inverters at cost so the jobs could be completed at the original price. The company was praised at the time for stepping up and putting "consumer well-being" and "industry integrity" first.

It’s striking to see Givenergy now in this position just a couple of years later. 

Curiouser and curiouser. I am happy to say that I was able to set the charging slots I wanted locally using Andrew Millars Android APP - "Monitor for Givenergy Inverter".

I had tried earlier as described in my previous post (not mentioned there) but although the settings in the above app were changed no confirmation was given there and significantly the Givenergy App did not show the change in status.

But at 10pm, I am glad to report, the Battery did indeed commence a charge cycle as commanded - despite the Givenergy App still not reflecting the change.

This is obviously a relief as some basic control is clearly still possible through at least one 3rd party source. I wasn't looking forward to winter with the battery in passive mode, there is not quite enough solar generation then to keep the heat pump running! 

@dean-royston @downfield both of you have valid points and I, as a GivEnergy customer, do not want to see the company go under. If making a small monthly fee will safeguard my equipment going forward, then this is something I feel, I will have to take on the chin.

I also agree with the fact that this was sold as an always free service and it should be honoured however the business decision made at the time was without a crystal ball and the financial climate has changed. Sadly it is a business and a free service does not pay the gas bill.

From sources on this subject it seems to me that some organisations such as Octopus Energy etc, access and use GivEnergy's API and back end systems at a very high frequency for their various tariffs and control systems. From my own experience of cloud hosting, this can add considerable costs to the service which the likes of these companies are not financially contributing.

What would be a fair solution?

I have used other organisation's API's in the past which have a tiered charge based on the number of requests per month. For example, up to 200 requests per month is free (most home users), 200 to 1000 requests £x's, 1000 to 10,000 £y's. This way heavy users pay to sustain the platform and occasional users still have a free service.

Regards

@technogeek Yes I've heard that the 3rd parties (Octopus etc) have been thumping the API which added costs to the GE overheads. I am going down the GivTCP Home Assistant route and have the kit to do this, then the future is in my own hands in terms of monitoring and controlling my system. I've found "Speak to the Geek" on youtube to be really useful.

The bigger concern moving forward is if the GE kit fails (warranties etc). My inverter was supplied by the installer, but the battery was purchased from an online store so the 12 year warranty was with GE. Another potential issue is that GE have to commission any changes to the system.

Many unanswered questions floating around at the moment although this video was interesting:

Now the UK arm of GE is in the hands of the administrators we just have to wait and see what happens. It's really sad that people have already lost their jobs though as the GE product up until now has been great. 

As an update I can confirm that for me at least there is no local control of my AIO with the Givenergy app, indeed, the only functionality that appears operable is the power flow dashboard. It no longer even correctly displays the settings e.g. that the battery is in eco mode or has a charge session scheduled.

Whilst Andrew Millars app did allow me to schedule and activate charging periods it has limitations over the number possible (less than the battery natively supports) and does not appear to provide a way of initiating a forced export.

This morning I configured an instance of Home Assistant with the GivTCP add on and was able to access the settings and all the various parameters on my system, moreover I was able to successfully initiate a forced export this morning too. So it would appear that I have found a way to establish actual local control over the battery, which is quite a relief.

As long as the battery continues to function and does not develop any faults I should be set for the foreseeable future.

@jostar 

Posted by: @jostar

↑

It appears that problems are beginning to surface.

I noticed that the portal stopped reporting stats for my All In One overnight at around 03:15. In the last hour I attempted to set a timed charge event using the app locally - set to Home and the attempt failed. Several attempts to enable a timed charge slot in the last half hour have all failed with a "Failed to Change Settings" dialog "There was no response from comms, please try again" - it seems that local "control" is a myth.

Fortunately I had the battery already set on basic Eco mode so it should still function more or less as a passive system. It is possible to see the current status - Solar Generation, Charging, Grid rates etc but that's it. 

Had the 'control' options continued to operate I would have been content to leave it for a while and see what transpires but maybe not now. 

Tomorrow I'll install HomeAssistant and see if I can wrestle more control through that. I guess that's my Axle events up the spout now too!

It's rather frustrating, but not surprising. 

Sorry to hear you are having trouble, however I have not found any issues today (10/4/2026) regarding the GivEnergy app (set a timed charge for a local powerup) and accessing the GivEnergy portal to find tomorrows solar forecast, just for your information.

Regards

@dean-royston @downfield @technogeek

I would join in every ones concern for the staff at Givenergy, potentially we customers might, in the worst case have an expensive brick on our hands, but they have just lost their entire livelihood - at least I don't have to worry about meeting this months mortgage payment or how to feed a family.

We can indeed only wait and see what transpires, but I am not hopeful of a positive outcome if I am honest. EVM's video last night, I think indicated that pretty much all the staff have been let go, while significant early redundancies are a staple of administration - if indeed virtually all staff have been let go in 24 hours it makes me speculate that the Administrators do not see selling the business as a going concern as a practical or likely outcome sadly.

Much has been made of the separation of the software and portal side of the business from Givenergy UK. But where does the software business get its money? Almost certainly from the business now in administration - that flow has certainly dried up as it is not tied with revenue generation for the distressed company. I suspect that it is likely the case that the software business had very few of its own staff - probably most were actually employed by Givenergy UK and loaned so if the software arm shuts down its costs - the cloud systems then it can probably limp along for a while before it too becomes insolvent.

I think this is probably evident from the fact that the app no longer works or connects to the cloud - of course I only have a sample of 1 for that assertion.

There has also been a lot of discussion about the 'Free Forever' claims - the moral case is, I think clear, but let's face it companies are not in business for moral purposes. 

Sadly I would not put much faith in assertions of contract obligations over this particular point - for the following reasons:

1) If you were to sue the company, you would have to show actual damages caused by their failure to honour the 'term' - lets face it even if you won (I doubt that you could for reasons 2 & 3 below) are you going to get compensated? At best you would become an ordinary creditor in a potential liquidation and at best would get perhaps a few pennies in the pound back on any assessed damages.

2) The Administrators have very significant legal powers and can more or less repudiate any contract that the business has - effectively ripping them up and against which the chance of a successful challenge is slim. This includes warranty agreements - for those, most entities buying a business will not carry them forward.

3) On 'Free Forever' claims - the High and Apellate Courts have, I am certain, already ruled on this in other cases - basically the statement by a business is seen as 'marketing fluff' rather than contractual. Even in cases where the term is included contractually, an entity can effectively 'repudiate' or alter it by means of other variation clauses in the contract. And it can be altered if other material factors make it unreasonable for the business to continue honouring it, this includes charging for 'services' that had hitherto been free.

For many (most?) of us the installer is the legal vendor of course and whom with we have the purchase contract. But the above points still hold really. I don't know if you have a better chance of enforcing a claim against an installer - but I would expect that most savvy installers will have that covered in their own contracts or may be able to declare a force majeur. Each would have to be decided on its own merits. But like some - I could see a number of installers possibly going down with the fall out too which is probably undesirable.

I am thankful at least that in its early days Givenergy was willing to make its equipment APIs available for others to create the 3rd party access tools that we now have. In consumer terms I would like to see regulations that require companies producing cloud supported equipment required to ensure the equipment can be operated fully without cloud access so no cloud-only products (with the exception of software only services of course). but systems such as these which are often marketed and sold as 'off grid' capable then it is not unreasonable to expect them to be able to meet that description.

/rant mode off

@technogeek That is most interesting thanks for the info - I can still access the portal but the data is frozen at 03:15 yesterday and historical data is now no longer available - perhaps my account is experiencing some other issues.

In addition to not being able to control or schedule in the app I get the same result in the portal from my laptop.

Now that I have wrestled local control back through GivTCP and Ha I might try clearing the cache etc on the app and see if anything changes.