Solar Edge online monitoring - 1/2 array "blacked out"

[midgetgoat]

Hey guys, over the past couple of weeks, I've had some pretty bad performance from my array. It was installed on the 9th of last month, and everything was great for the first few weeks, then I started noticing that in the layout view of the monitoring.solaredge.com website, 1/2 of my panels are displaying black.

Click here to checkout a screenshot of the webpage
Click here to checkout a screenshot of my house

My installer, (BuildingEnergy[us.com]), did offer to come out and diagnose, however, they haven't exactly been prompt in getting back to me (no response to multiple calls/emails in a week+).

I guess my question is - What info do you guys need to know if you were to help me somehow diagnose what's going on? I was psyched about the sun a few short weeks ago, now it just reminds me I'm apparently only 1/2 producing... Help?

[SunEagle]

Hey guys, over the past couple of weeks, I've had some pretty bad performance from my array. It was installed on the 9th of last month, and everything was great for the first few weeks, then I started noticing that in the layout view of the monitoring.solaredge.com website, 1/2 of my panels are displaying black.

Click here to checkout a screenshot of the webpage
Click here to checkout a screenshot of my house

My installer, (BuildingEnergy[us.com]), did offer to come out and diagnose, however, they haven't exactly been prompt in getting back to me (no response to multiple calls/emails in a week+).

I guess my question is - What info do you guys need to know if you were to help me somehow diagnose what's going on? I was psyched about the sun a few short weeks ago, now it just reminds me I'm apparently only 1/2 producing... Help?

The problem could be a number of things. Depending on how the panels are wired it could be that one "string" is no longer connected. Or depending on your inverter it could be one input is bad and not recognizing the panels. Or the over current protection fuse on that string may have blown out.

You might have to wait on your installer or if you have a qualified electrician as a friend he could do some investigating. If you are not familiar with electrical circuits then I would caution you not to try to investigate because you could get shocked or worse.

[midgetgoat]

I will most def heed your advice about not playing with electric. I was finally *just* able to get my installer on the phone. He's doing work in the area this week so is hoping to swing by tomorrow or Wednesday.
Here's to hoping.

[SunEagle]

I will most def heed your advice about not playing with electric. I was finally *just* able to get my installer on the phone. He's doing work in the area this week so is hoping to swing by tomorrow or Wednesday.
Here's to hoping.

Ok. Sounds like a plan. Better wait for the expert then going about it yourself if you don't have the knowledge or proper tools to investigate.

I just relized you have micro inverters so the problem is more than likely a blown fuse or a wire has lost connection from that group of panels. Hopefully it is an easy fix for your installer. Let us know what he finds out.

[midgetgoat]

Had the installers out here today. Turns out 3 of 24 "Optimizers" (black boxes on back of panels) were bad. They replaced one and bypassed the other 2 for now. They'll be back on Thursday to fix the 3 panels.

[Sunking]

Classic case of too many eggs in a basket. That is what you get when you run micro inverters and optimizers. Fun starts when th ewarranty is gone or the installer goes OOS

[SunEagle]

Had the installers out here today. Turns out 3 of 24 "Optimizers" (black boxes on back of panels) were bad. They replaced one and bypassed the other 2 for now. They'll be back on Thursday to fix the 3 panels.

Did they have a reason for the failures or was it electronic early death syndrom?

[silversaver]

Classic case of too many eggs in a basket. That is what you get when you run micro inverters and optimizers. Fun starts when th ewarranty is gone or the installer goes OOS

When micro inverters fail, it will not take the whole string off. Solar Edge? They just kick themselves in the xxxx.

Mod note - let us try to be family friendly

[midgetgoat]

Did they have a reason for the failures or was it electronic early death syndrom?

I'm unsure, no reason was given. It was speculated that they had small cracks or something similar that allowed initial install to go w/o a hitch, but turned severe after a couple of weeks.

As far as the for/against micro inverter technology argument, I don't know enough about it to offer up a preference. I am a little disappointed with the failures, however, once I reached my installer by phone, I was back up and running at 100% in 2 days.

Overall, the experience taught me to pay closer attention to my array and hopefully catch these types of issues much, much sooner.

[SunEagle]

I'm unsure, no reason was given. It was speculated that they had small cracks or something similar that allowed initial install to go w/o a hitch, but turned severe after a couple of weeks.

As far as the for/against micro inverter technology argument, I don't know enough about it to offer up a preference. I am a little disappointed with the failures, however, once I reached my installer by phone, I was back up and running at 100% in 2 days.

Overall, the experience taught me to pay closer attention to my array and hopefully catch these types of issues much, much sooner.

Glad it all turned out ok for you. Determining a root cause for failures is not easy depending on how many things can go wrong. I have spent a lot of time working on Predictive Maintenance tools and Root cause analysis to keep me up at night.

Let's hope you get much more life out of your system.

[vtkahns]

Solaredge in VT - Same Installer

I have not been paying attention to these forums much lately but just wanted to add my 2 cents.

I have a solaredge system, installed the same installer as the OP. I have had no loss of any optimizers and have been powered up for 2.5 years so far. I had ONE day where the central inverter did not kick on due to a known issue they were seeing causing a latchup of some sort. It never happened again and about a year ago my installer contacted me and said they were rolling the field with a new daughter board and they came and replaced it one morning.

I have found the system to be rock solid and use a TED5000 to do most of my monitoring using the pvoutput . org web site (really cool analytics ) but surely if there is a partial outage of the array, their portal is the only way to know that. Normally, they claim if an optimizer goes, it only takes out the one panel but I would think if it really fries.. it could fry what's letting the other up stream panels come thru.. but, I'm no electrical engineer and have no idea how these things really work at a circuitry level.

Ever onward..