Solar #11: GivEnergy Administration notice

Introduction

On 7th April 2026 GivEnergy gave notice of intention to appoint an administrator (see https://caseboard.io/cases/3bce5889-8fa9-4961-804f-a9a407993ef3 – Caseboard who “bring together public court documents, hearing and judgments in the English High Court into a searchable litigation intelligence tool.”)

How Might This Unfold?

This Quick Guide to Administration is very useful. I am no expert and the following is just my understanding:

• GivEnergy is now protected from creditors for 10 days and directors can appoint an administrator in this period.
• Administration itself can last up to 12 months without further court approval. The objective of the administrator is to maximise return for creditors
• It is hard for me to see where this value might lie, but my guess is that selling all or some of the business as a going concern would likely maximise that return.
• It would also seem reasonable that the best return for creditors is achieved if this is done quickly AND if saleable parts of the business are maintained in operation to avoid customer loss of confidence/exodus. It is hard for me to tell what has caused GivEnergy’s problems and there does appear, to me, to be value in this business – my thoughts are below.
• GivEnergy can go down the pre-pack route, where they already have purchaser(s) lined up, who will take over as soon as administration starts. The aim here is for speed to maximise value for creditors.

What does this mean for:

Domestic Customers:

I guess the hope is that the 31st March survey is indeed linked to the notice of administration and that the install base is big enough that a small monthly fee keeps software going and the new person ‘responsible for GivEnergy Software’ is good to their word and brings about an improvement in software and support quality that gives users “50p per day” improved ROI.

Even better if GivEnergy has a buyer for the entire business…

But, ultimately it looks like the administrator’s duties are to the creditors, so perhaps customers will not get what we hope for.

I have downloaded the Andrew Miller “Monitor for GivEnergy Inverter” that promises local control and will experiment. Not my preferred path, but perhaps better than nothing if the portal is turned off forever.

In previous posts I have mentioned some of the short comings of the current GivEnergy software (disabled battery on discharge, lack of integration to 3rd party EV chargers, no integrated weather forecast). I have now subscribed to Wonder Watt; this resolves these issues and after 4 months operation has worked very well. I did have a couple of initial teething problems, and support was speedy and efficient. The cost is around £50/year. However, my understanding is that this does not replace the GivEnergy portal, so I am facing an additional GivEnergy subscription charge.

Employees, Installers & Industrial Customers: there are others better qualified than me to answer this question.

Government and Major Industry Players:

I see two issues here:

1. What if 30MW (10,000) GivEnergy batteries went offline overnight*? I guess that the National Grid would not collapse, but it would not be helpful practically nor helpful for the UK net zero goals.
2. Market confidence: the market for domestic battery storage is growing rapidly. From 2028 new building regulations mean most new houses will need to be built with significant solar capacity giving a boost to the linked domestic solar market. It is possible to envisage a future where most houses have solar panels and batteries. GivEnergy was a significant player in the market; how can a domestic solar/battery system buyer have confidence that their supplier will support their equipment long term and that their investment in a retrofit system or a new house is safe for the long term?

What can be done:

Short term: work with GivEnergy directors and, in a few days, administrators, to ensure a smooth path for customers, installers, etc. Continuance of the cloud portal is a primary concern, but pretty soon support, repair and warranty will follow.

Medium term: my view is that the industry needs robust regulation. Roll the clock forward to a failure with an install base of 1,000,000 customers and 3GW combined battery power. This might be a business failure, but could be a computer hack for a cloud based control system, or…

…GivEnergy is perhaps a useful warning that something needs to be put in place to avoid much bigger problems in the future.

Buyers of Solar/Battery systems:

• How can you tell if a supplier is good for many years of support? This seems a very tough question to answer. For me the significant factors in going with GivEnergy were:
  • I had a reputable installer recommending GivEnergy
  • Octopus, at the time, was also installing GivEnergy products; I guessed that they would have picked a winner and have better insights than most.
  • Online reviews, while not perfect, did seem OK.
  • UK based and fast growing appeared to reduce the risk
  • The GivEnergy website made some nice claims.
• In hindsight I would add these to my selection criteria:
  • Look for a system that can operate without a cloud based portal, if the supplier does go out of business or their computer system is hacked, can operate an efficient battery schedule standalone or using 3rd party applications?
  • Look for a large install base – there is some safety in numbers: if 1 domestic battery fails then the owner has a problem, but if 1,000,000 domestic batteries fail then the UK government, national grid, etc share the problem!

Thoughts on GivEnergy Value

Assuming that GivEnergy does go into administration then why would someone buy all or part of the business? My thoughts:

• Entire Business: can this be made profitable and put back on the path of growth? A business selling capital equipment, with limited follow on revenue will always have challenges as the market ebbs and flows. Can someone with deep pockets diagnose and fix the business and product issues that have brought GivEnergy to this point? On a positive note there do seem to be powerful tailwinds for the business, eg:
  • This user of the GivEnergy product has found the ROI to be good in comparison to other investment options and this despite some issues with the scheduling.
  •  a growing UK market, global demand to reduce CO2 emissions and unstable hydrocarbon supply
  • UK building regulations soon requiring solar panels for new houses brings opportunity to offer upgrade to batteries,
  • UK national grid limitationss will provide opportunity (attractive tariffs) for those who can smooth peak demand with a battery.
  • My experience of the product and company is that it is 90% there: good hardware design and good software are only lacking decent scheduling (‘optimised ROI that your granny could use’), documentation and excellent customer support. The core product seems very good to me.
• Cloud software service: this business, without the encumbrance of the GivEnergy ‘free forever promise’ can charge monthly fees to users. Indeed, GivEnergy contacted users on 31st March 2026 with an e-mail stating that this was their intention “beginning in May” with the laudable intention of ensuring that “the platform continues to sustainably deliver real value for those who rely on it“. I assume, the two events are linked. How sustainable is such a business? If there are no new hardware installations, then, over time, the customer base will disappear as systems are replaced. A high monthly fee would put people off and have users looking elsewhere (eg self-hosted Home Assistant or a replacement battery/inverter), speeding up this loss of customers. A low monthly fee may not provide the finances to run even a very small team required to operate the business.
• Hardware design: An install base of 10,000+* (?) has some value if/when those customers want to extend their system (eg more battery capacity, an EV charger, replacing end of life equipment, etc). From my experience the hardware design and manufacturing standard is very high; perhaps this business, without the encumbrance of the GivEnergy multi-year warranty might be profitable either by building the GivEnergy designs and/or by developing compatible systems.

Addendum

I watched this video the other day.

The enthusiasm for GivEnergy of this ex-employee is clear; this is in line with my interactions with GivEnergy as a customer. What intrigues me is that with people like this working for you and market demand taking off how can a business fail?

On a practical note, I have been experimenting with Andrew Miller’s Android Monitor app. It seems to work well; my final test is to see it in action over a few days and for that I need to dig out and resuscitate an old Android phone. I will write up the results in a new post when I get time.

*Google AI gave me the 10,000 install base figure and I assumed each is exporting at 3kW at peak times and that this relies on the GivEnergy cloud portal. I have then assumed that GivEnergy is wound up and the cloud portal is shut down.