Solar Edge major unresolved problem

[Mike 134]

Just out of curiosity since your inverter puts out 40 amps and is 200 feet from the service panel is your wire size at least a #4 copper between them?

[Treepmeyer]

Sorry, but I don't have a voltage drop. I have a gradual voltage increase, no spikes. The voltage increase correlates closely with panel power production. When the panels are not producing power the voltage is 250v +/-2v. As PV power production increases, so does voltage until the inverter protection kicks in around 260v. When the inverter shuts down voltage drops back to a steady 250v. No spikes!

[solarix]

This is why we try mount inverters close to the service and minimize the wire length and voltage drop.
One work around is it is possible to get special permission from the inverter company to open up the input voltage range parameter to keep it from tripping off.
I've gone round and round with utilities like this a couple of times, and they always deny that its their fault. Could well be voltage spikes that are hard to catch.
Another SolarEdge nightmare if you want my opinion....

[Treepmeyer]

The installer master electrician thought that the problem was with the power company ground/neutral connections to my house. I believe that we have now ruled that out. As I stated, Solar Edge accepts the power company data logger results showing that grid power is not surging or peaking outside of normal parameters. I, too, think that is correct (at least as of 12/21 when the data were collected). Are there conditions in which the inverter does not sync to the grid?

[Treepmeyer]

The data logger the power company used was put on the house meter for a week in Dec., 2021. It measured voltage around 125v +/- 1 volt. Peak was 127v. I measured pre-wake up voltage at my house panel with my multimeter. All other voltage measurements are taken from the Solar Edge monitoring web site for my installation. I recently confirmed a couple of high voltage measurements reported by Solar Edge with my multimeter at the house panel. The house panel measurements were within 2v of the voltage reported by Solar Edge.

[Mike 134]

Hello - I'm new to this forum and am reaching out because I have a major unresolved problem with my on-grid home PV installation. I have a 36 panel 11.9kW DC/10kW AC array rack-mounted about 200 ft from my house. The schematic shows two strings of JASolar JAP72S01 panels with a Solar Edge single phase HD Wave inverter mounted beneath the panels. It went live in December, 2018. Installation was by Midwest Wind and Solar, which is no longer in business.

In a nutshell, the problem is that voltage creeps up with PV power production leading to inverter shut-down. Solar Edge says the inverter is working properly, the power company says that they are providing (relatively) clean voltage and the (new) installer says that the installation is wired correctly.

Symptoms are as follows: voltage before system wake-up is 250v, with minor variation. With system wake-up voltage at the inverter climbs with power production. When voltage reaches around 260v the inverter shuts down and voltage drops back to 250v.

I didn’t notice anything amiss until September, 2021 when I got an unexpected power bill. When I looked at the Solar Edge monitoring data, power production starts to noticeably drop first in March, 2021 and I thought that the problem started around then. I opened up a support case with Solar Edge and it escalated to Tier 3 but in the end they said the inverter is working alright. They suspect installation, but can't say in what way. As Solar Edge pointed out the voltage creep/"grid voltage" problem has been there all along, its just been getting worse. I reviewed the historical monitoring data and in 2020 the voltage frequently exceeded 260v but without the inverter shutting down. The shut-downs I did notice were when power production hit the 10kW limit. Now it shuts down at 260v or less, and for longer. For example, on 10/1/22 the inverter was shut down between 10:44 and 16:28.

A review of monthly production is interesting and may provide some clues. Production Nov.-Feb. seems to be normal with random variation between all four years of operation. March-Oct., however shows a systematic reduction in power production for 2021 and 2022 compared to the prior two years.Monthly production for these two most recent years is down 10 to 50%. There is one interesting anomaly, July 2022. Looking day-by-day at AC power and voltage graphs I see fewer shutdowns, more stretches when the system appears to be behaving normally. I don't know what to make of these observations, except that there may be a connection with load. I have a geothermal system for heat and air conditioning. It draws a lot of power during cool months and when I run the air conditioning. The location is in southwestern Michigan and with proximity to Lake Michigan we seldom use air conditioning. I cannot correlate my house electrical power consumption with the inverter shutdowns but I do know that last July was uncommonly hot and humid and as a consequence we ran the air conditioning much more than usual. I am neither trained nor experienced in these matters, but I am suspicious of the inverter power management settings, specifically reactive power management.

The power company, Indiana/Michigan Power, has been quite cooperative. Their troubleshooter has been onsite several times. In December, 2021 he put a data logger on my meter to record voltage being supplied. It recorded normal levels of variation, never exceeding 127v. (I have copies of the log and supplied them to Solar Edge.) They checked grounding, reset their local regulator and re-crimped the house connections to the grid.

The new Solar Edge authorized installer sent their master electrician onsite. He verified that the wire is #6 and appropriate, and that the rest of the installation is alright. He thinks that the problem is with the ground/neutral of the grid connection to the house. Re-crimping the connections, however, did not solve the problem. Solar Edge, as mentioned above, thinks that the grid supply is OK and that there must be something wrong with the installation but the master electrician said that the installation is fine. Solar Edge has washed their hands of the problem and I am left with what amounts to a $30,000 lawn ornament.

I would be very grateful for any insight this community could provide.

Tom Reepmeyer

Disclaimer here I have never troubleshot a solar edge system.

I highlighted in red what caught my eye. If the problem was on the power company side, why would the inverter being on or off effect your incoming voltage? It syncs to the grid. Where exactly are you taking those voltage measurements?

[Treepmeyer]

Hello - I'm new to this forum and am reaching out because I have a major unresolved problem with my on-grid home PV installation. I have a 36 panel 11.9kW DC/10kW AC array rack-mounted about 200 ft from my house. The schematic shows two strings of JASolar JAP72S01 panels with a Solar Edge single phase HD Wave inverter mounted beneath the panels. It went live in December, 2018. Installation was by Midwest Wind and Solar, which is no longer in business.

In a nutshell, the problem is that voltage creeps up with PV power production leading to inverter shut-down. Solar Edge says the inverter is working properly, the power company says that they are providing (relatively) clean voltage and the (new) installer says that the installation is wired correctly.

Symptoms are as follows: voltage before system wake-up is 250v, with minor variation. With system wake-up voltage at the inverter climbs with power production. When voltage reaches around 260v the inverter shuts down and voltage drops back to 250v.

I didn’t notice anything amiss until September, 2021 when I got an unexpected power bill. When I looked at the Solar Edge monitoring data, power production starts to noticeably drop first in March, 2021 and I thought that the problem started around then. I opened up a support case with Solar Edge and it escalated to Tier 3 but in the end they said the inverter is working alright. They suspect installation, but can't say in what way. As Solar Edge pointed out the voltage creep/"grid voltage" problem has been there all along, its just been getting worse. I reviewed the historical monitoring data and in 2020 the voltage frequently exceeded 260v but without the inverter shutting down. The shut-downs I did notice were when power production hit the 10kW limit. Now it shuts down at 260v or less, and for longer. For example, on 10/1/22 the inverter was shut down between 10:44 and 16:28.

A review of monthly production is interesting and may provide some clues. Production Nov.-Feb. seems to be normal with random variation between all four years of operation. March-Oct., however shows a systematic reduction in power production for 2021 and 2022 compared to the prior two years.Monthly production for these two most recent years is down 10 to 50%. There is one interesting anomaly, July 2022. Looking day-by-day at AC power and voltage graphs I see fewer shutdowns, more stretches when the system appears to be behaving normally. I don't know what to make of these observations, except that there may be a connection with load. I have a geothermal system for heat and air conditioning. It draws a lot of power during cool months and when I run the air conditioning. The location is in southwestern Michigan and with proximity to Lake Michigan we seldom use air conditioning. I cannot correlate my house electrical power consumption with the inverter shutdowns but I do know that last July was uncommonly hot and humid and as a consequence we ran the air conditioning much more than usual. I am neither trained nor experienced in these matters, but I am suspicious of the inverter power management settings, specifically reactive power management.

The power company, Indiana/Michigan Power, has been quite cooperative. Their troubleshooter has been onsite several times. In December, 2021 he put a data logger on my meter to record voltage being supplied. It recorded normal levels of variation, never exceeding 127v. (I have copies of the log and supplied them to Solar Edge.) They checked grounding, reset their local regulator and re-crimped the house connections to the grid.

The new Solar Edge authorized installer sent their master electrician onsite. He verified that the wire is #6 and appropriate, and that the rest of the installation is alright. He thinks that the problem is with the ground/neutral of the grid connection to the house. Re-crimping the connections, however, did not solve the problem. Solar Edge, as mentioned above, thinks that the grid supply is OK and that there must be something wrong with the installation but the master electrician said that the installation is fine. Solar Edge has washed their hands of the problem and I am left with what amounts to a $30,000 lawn ornament.

I would be very grateful for any insight this community could provide.

Tom Reepmeyer