If your battery isn't charging, your tariff schedule isn't working, or your system isn't performing as expected, we can check your settings remotely.
Book a settings review — from £75← Back to New Solar Owner hubA really big thank you to Ron and his team, he has vast amounts of knowledge and got my system back up and running, also good to get on with. I was absolutely lost as to know what to do, no help from installer and somehow came across Ron and am I glad I did. I would definitely definitely recommend him to anyone who has faults with there solar system, any make I would say. Thanks again Ron a pleasure meeting you.
Prompt and useful support regarding my Sunsynk system lack of performance. Ronald simplified the technical issues to make them understandable. Many thanks, looking forward to follow up.
STS were incredibly responsive and helpful In diagnosing an issue with my GivEnergy inverter. Although distance meant it was impractical for me to use them to fully solve the issue, I’m grateful for the help and detail they provided. Don is a real professional gent and a hero in my eyes.
Excellent response to diagnose a problem on our SolarEdge installation. Kept us informed at every step. Diagnosis quickly completed and solution implemented.
Massively massively recommended. We had a big battery array (49kW across three phases) put in four years ago. c £35k cost. It’s been a total nightmare for many reasons, not least 1. our installer being totally useless and unresponsive and 2. Givenergy, our battery supplier, going bust. Long story short it had never worked anywhere near properly despite countless hours on phones and emails; the best we’d achieved was one third of the batteries working. Rather than write it off, I asked a PM friend to try to source someone who could come on site and review and revive the system. He found Solar Tech Support and Ron. Ron assured us he was the man to get it going again. After so many years of pain, I was not convinced but, true to his word, five hours later it was up and running. Lovely chap, super knowledgeable with a support team to lean on who are also clearly super technical. I honestly didn’t think there was much chance of getting this array going ever again so was absolutely delighted when Ron and team pulled it off. Bravo!
Ron responded very promptly regarding my GivEnergy battery issue, his knowledgeable diagnosis was spot on and resolved the issue on first attempt. Would recommend to any and all.
Self-consumption is the percentage of your solar generation that your home uses directly, rather than sending it to the grid. It is the most important number for your financial return — more important than system size, panel efficiency, or which brand you have.
Every kWh you use directly saves roughly 24p (the current retail electricity rate). Every kWh you export earns between 0p and 15p. The gap between 24p and 4–15p is your self-consumption premium — and it's why increasing self-consumption is almost always the best first step.
Typical self-consumption: 30–50%. Most solar generation happens during the day when many households are at work. Surplus is exported. The main lever is shifting appliance usage to solar hours.
Typical self-consumption: 70–85%. The battery stores surplus daytime solar and releases it in the evening. Self-consumption above 85% usually means the battery is not big enough to capture all surplus, or evening consumption is very high.
Your electricity tariff is the second biggest lever on your savings. The right tariff depends on whether you have a battery, how much you export, and how flexible your energy usage is.
Tariffs like Octopus Flux, Octopus Go, and Intelligent Octopus Go offer different rates at different times of day. Typically: cheap overnight (7–12p/kWh), standard daytime (20–24p/kWh), and sometimes a premium peak export rate (up to 25p/kWh). The strategy: charge the battery cheaply overnight, use solar during the day, and either use or export stored energy during expensive peak hours.
If you don't have a battery, or prefer simplicity, a competitive flat-rate import tariff combined with a good Smart Export Guarantee rate works well. You save the full import rate on every kWh you self-consume and earn the export rate on every kWh you send to the grid. No scheduling required — the system just does its thing.
Regardless of your import tariff, you should always have an export tariff in place. Without one, every kWh you export earns nothing. The SEG is free to sign up for and you can choose any participating supplier — it does not need to match your import supplier. Rates range from 3p to 15p per kWh. Even 4p/kWh adds up to £80–£120/year for a typical 4kW system.
If you have a battery and a time-of-use tariff, the battery schedule is where the savings happen. The concept is simple: charge when electricity is cheap, use or export when it's expensive. The execution involves getting the right settings configured in your inverter portal.
The exact times depend on your tariff. Octopus Go uses 00:30–04:30 for the cheap window. Flux uses 02:00–05:00. Agile has variable half-hourly rates, requiring a more dynamic approach — some systems integrate with APIs to automate this. Check your tariff details for the exact rate periods.
In your inverter's monitoring portal or app. Look for: "Timed charge", "Force charge", "Battery schedule", "Work mode", or "Energy management". The exact menu varies by brand. On GivEnergy, it's in the Battery section. On Sunsynk and Growatt, it's in the System Mode section. On SolaX, it's under Battery Settings.
When the clocks change in March and October, check your charge schedule. Some inverters use UTC internally and adjust automatically. Others don't — and your 02:00–05:00 charge window suddenly becomes 01:00–04:00 or 03:00–06:00, missing the cheap rate entirely. Our Flux guide covers the BST fix for each brand.
Load shifting means running your highest-consumption appliances during peak solar hours instead of during the evening. It costs nothing, requires no new equipment, and can increase your self-consumption by 10–20 percentage points.
Use delay timers on your washing machine and dishwasher to start during peak solar hours. If you work from home, this is easy. If you're out during the day, most modern appliances have programmable start times. EV charging is the single biggest opportunity — charging your car during solar hours instead of overnight can absorb 7kW of solar generation for several hours.
Your monitoring portal shows you exactly where your energy is going. Learning to read this data is the key to ongoing optimisation — it tells you whether your settings are working and where the remaining savings opportunities are.
We see these repeatedly in diagnostic sessions. Each one is easy to fix once identified — and some can save £100–£300 per year.
Surprisingly common. If your installer didn't set up an export tariff, every kWh you export earns nothing. Fix: sign up for the Smart Export Guarantee — it takes 10 minutes and you can choose any participating supplier.
Many systems ship with timed charge disabled. If you're on a time-of-use tariff but the battery only charges from solar, you're missing the cheap overnight charging opportunity. Fix: enable timed charge in your inverter portal and set the window to match your tariff's cheap hours.
Your DNO may have imposed an export limit (commonly 3.68kW under G98). If this setting is configured incorrectly — limiting generation instead of just export — your system produces less energy than it should. Fix: check the export limit setting in your inverter and ensure it is configured as an export limit, not a generation limit.
A reversed CT clamp causes the inverter to misread import as export and vice versa. Symptoms include: battery not charging, system exporting when it should be self-consuming, or monitoring showing negative generation. Fix: an engineer or electrician can reverse the CT clamp orientation in under 5 minutes.
When the clocks change, some inverters adjust their schedules automatically and some don't. If yours doesn't, your battery charges at the wrong time — potentially at full rate instead of the cheap rate. Fix: check and adjust your timed charge window twice a year, in March and October.
How SEG works, current rates, eligibility, and how to sign up with the best-paying supplier.
Full setup guide for Flux's three-period tariff, including brand-specific inverter configuration.
Battery chemistry, BMS, charge cycles, degradation — the technical foundation for battery scheduling.
Why CT clamp direction matters for battery charging, self-consumption, and monitoring accuracy.
How export limits work, what your DNO requires, and what happens when the setting is misconfigured.
Flat-rate vs time-of-use, Octopus Flux, Go, Agile — how to pick the tariff that matches your system.
What to check monthly, quarterly, and annually to keep your system performing at its best.
A remote settings review checks your tariff configuration, battery schedule, charge and discharge rates, CT clamp readings, and export limiter settings. We tell you exactly what to change and how much the fix is worth in annual savings.
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