SolarEdge HD - replacement inverter having problems

[SunEagle]

I think the AC voltage is okay, Before sunrise the house dryer outlet and inverter were at 243 VAC, at peak sun condition both outlets were showing 249 VAC. This implies little resistance all the way from inverter to fairly close to the road and power company line. The inverter is rated to a maximum of 264 VAC - thus we should be covered. It might be that our mountain location and small town grid are causing the voltage rise.

Sometimes the customers being on the end of a long POCO feeder will see voltage and frequency variations that can make a grid tie inverter disconnect for brief periods.

[QuantumSlice]

SolarEdge engineering team responded to my Support request - they have stabilized the inverter and optimizers remotely through the LAN connection(no idea what they did). We had a clean generation period yesterday with smooth responses. Time to get the snowboard out and let the system run for a bit. Thank you all for your comments and support.

cheers,
Frank Parsons, Buena Vista, Colorado.

[QuantumSlice]

Third inverter installed. This time it is an all new design from Solar Edge. Rated at 30.5 DC amps vs the previous 20 amps. Much bigger unit, 3 inches longer and deeper also. I had to move the mounting around, was not a drop in unit. The extra depth nearly caused some wires to no longer reach.

But performance wise, seems to be better. I can now plug my electric car into the 240V outlet without tripping the inverter. I'll try later when the inverter is at maximum production.

New part number: SE7600H-US000NNU4. I am hopeful they have a better unit now.

[ButchDeal]

Third inverter installed. This time it is an all new design from Solar Edge. Rated at 30.5 DC amps vs the previous 20 amps. Much bigger unit, 3 inches longer and deeper also. I had to move the mounting around, was not a drop in unit. The extra depth nearly caused some wires to no longer reach.

But performance wise, seems to be better. I can now plug my electric car into the 240V outlet without tripping the inverter. I'll try later when the inverter is at maximum production.

New part number: SE7600H-US000NNU4. I am hopeful they have a better unit now.

What whas the old model number? They gave you the HDwave one rated for -40 degrees temperature.

[macaddict]

I can now plug my electric car into the 240V outlet without tripping the inverter.

This doesn't sound right. Why would the EV charger trip anything???

[QuantumSlice]

Great questions....
My original inverter was a SE7600H HD Wave Grid Tie Inverter. Purchased December of 2017. This first inverter stopped working after a month(Nov 2018). It happened right after I cleared snow from the panels, Clearing one panel at a time while in full sun and the inverter still active seems to have hurt it.

The second inverter was identical essentially to the first. It ran okay, but had moments where it would turn off during the day with the red light flashing. SolarEdge engineers looked into it, they said something to the effect that grid instability was the cause. Hmmm. I recieved a third inverter - which is running just fine now after 10 days.

Relative to the Chevy Bolt plug in. The car is pulling only 3 to 5 kw from the grid (it wants to pull 7.6kw). The car senses what it can pull based on some sort of algorithm. Normally it will pull only 3 kw from an large welding plug and breaker(amp?). With solar inverter active it will pull 5 to 6 kw. Both are run into the same garage 100 amp box. BUT. For the first two inverters, if I plugged the car in while generating 7 kw with inverter; the inverter would shut down immediately. It typically would come back online of its own accord. Perhaps both of these devices are sensing the grid and the car's system is confusing the inverter system. The grid strength in the garage must be low I suppose - line losses?. I plugged the car in two days ago while the new inverter was putting out 6 kw, went just fine.

I have 22 Panasonic 330W HIT panels, 96 cells. 400 Watt optimizers.

[bcroe]

With a smaller feed at the end of a remote building feed, and very large power connections,
you may have issues with shifts in line voltage. Check it out. Bruce Roe

[QuantumSlice]

Yep, voltage jump was indirectly discussed earlier. I checked it out. We are jumping the grid voltage by 4 to 5 volts at maximum production. For some reason our grid is managed at 245 by the power company. So my panels push the inverter output up to 249 in order to force current out. seems to be working okay. This jump was similar to someone else's experience.