Good luck with finding someone to help.

Then the batteries - that were on 100% suddenly discharged themselves for no apparent reason. Now they are at 40V

From where are you getting this 40v?

Have you put a multimeter onto the battery wires?

Are you sure it's genuine?
For example if one of the battery leads was no longer connected to the inverter, does the battery still read 40v?

It's possible that the very low reading is due to the inverter pulling the voltage low. So it might rise again without the inverter connected.

Please take care not to cause a short circuit by having a battery wire disconnected. Put the bare end into a plastic bag and hold it there with a rubber band 🙂 

I have tried to look into a solution but can only see getting a special DC charger that works with this batter to try and trickle charge it.

You don't need to use a dedicated LiFePO4 battery charger to put charge back into the cells.

If you have access to a power supply which can work up to 50+ volts that would do.
We can talk you through this if you wish.

Amazon usually have a few 60v 5A power supplies on offer, below £60. Or try Ebay. You might find a second-hand one.

Yes it might take a few hours to reach 50+ volts if the power supply can't deliver much current. But you're only needing to bring the voltage within the normal operational range of 48v – 55v.

That's very different from attempting to fully recharge the cells!

Your installer stonewalling you and having their MCS certification removed is a separate problem. If you paid any element by credit card a Section 75 claim is worth exploring as I don't think any other complaint avenues will to anywhere useful.

It's still worthwhile checking with Citizens Advice Bureau. Yes I realise that 4-years is beyond the timescales stipulated in the Consumer Rights Act, but they might have local knowledge of someone who sorts such problems. Perhaps that's a Community Energy group.

Frankly if the original installer doesn't want this job, then you're better off not using them. You don't want to give them access to your battery, only for another fault to arise a few weeks later.

https://community.givenergy.cloud/

there are lots of helpful folks over there and some may have had and even solved a similar problem.

One thing I'd also ask (and I raise this in the context of the GivEnergy Premium situation being discussed in this thread) do you have an active account with GivEnergy's software portal? There is a possibility, though I can't confirm it definitively, that the firmware update behaviour may be linked to account or subscription status given the changes GivEnergy Software has been rolling out. Worth checking whether your portal access and system registration are still active.

Your installer stonewalling you and having their MCS certification removed is a separate problem. If you paid any element by credit card a Section 75 claim is worth exploring as I don't think any other complaint avenues will to anywhere useful.

We have GivEnergy Battery and Inverter installed 4 years ago. last week the Inverter did a software update and rebooted itself. Then the batteries - that were on 100% suddenly discharged themselves for no apparent reason. Now they are at 40V sleep state and the inverter won't communicate with them and I can't get them to force charge when turned on. They do go on but they both have status light turn orange to red and a green light flashing next to it.

The installer has stone walled us and they recently had their MSC certification removed. Everything has worked really well up until that stage. We had an electrician check and do a full shut down and restart but nothing helped.

I have tried to look into a solution but can only see getting a special DC charger that works with this batter to try and trickle charge it.

anyone have any advice please? spent so much on these and now over a few minutes they became worthless and redundant.

thanks for reading 

In it they confirm that their parent company has gone into administration.

Givenergy have bought another company 

This happened in Oct 2024 so not current news.  The article is undated which isn't very helpful!

From the thisistsaffordshire web page it is indeed impossible to determine how recent that article is, so it is easy to see how confusion can arise.

The point that GE could afford to buy other companies at a time when its own share of the market was shrinking probably stands I reckon.  Maybe a desperate attempt to diversify?

According to Companies House, Orange Power is still trading with Jason Osler (of GE?) at the helm.

There really does need to be some tighter control of what the directors of failed companies can get up to, me thinks.

Givenergy have bought another company 

This happened in Oct 2024 so not current news.  The article is undated which isn't very helpful!

Givenergy have bought another company 

https://wearestaffordshire.co.uk/news/givenergy-acquires-orange-power-in-a-move-set-to-shake-up-commercial-grid-services/ 

so no money to stay solvent and honour their warranties but enough to buy other businesses.

I have a feeling you misunderstand me, @jamespa. I don’t advocate regulation here at all. What I advocate is that consumers be made aware of what’s easily possible so they can start demanding the manufacturers do better. That’s one of the fundamental reasons I’ve written as much as I have about Home Assistant; not because I think it’s the mainstream answer but because it demonstrates what is not only achievable but also practical.

Fair enough.

Its interesting that opentherm (for boilers) has been around for decades but several large manufacturers, eg Vaillant, didn't adopt it because the universal interface (ie an on/off contact) is easier*, albeit not as functional.  I strongly suspect that the same will occur with heat pumps unless it is mandated.

* that said Mars' installer still, as I understand it, managed to mess up even this simple interface this up by connecting 240V logic to a 5V logic contact.  Ho-hum