Inverter fault

[Veger70]

Depending on how long the battery without any lights has been unpowered, it may still be salvageable with an LG Chem service visit or it may be a total loss. My original battery was a total loss because my installer let it sit too long in their warehouse and it self-discharged too much. It had to be completely replaced.

Vivant will have to deal with the logistics of the battery troubleshooting/repair.

Since you don't have SolarEdge monitoring, do you have any monitoring? SolarEdge monitoring would tell you if the battery was discharging too much and when it disconnected. You will never have complete control of the battery use but you should have a right to the monitoring to confirm that it is behaving as intended per your lease contract.

Not sure Vivint has an app which shows battery charge and discharge status but because there is a communication error I can’t explore it

[Veger70]

This may be a really stupid question, but your schematic shows one DC disconnect for each system between the battery and the StoreEdge SE7600A-US. Are both DC disconnects in the same position?

Not sure I’m a noob when it comes to this stuff if you could explain what to look for I could take pictures

[oregon_phil]

Not sure I’m a noob when it comes to this stuff if you could explain what to look for I could take pictures

Take a picture of the LG Chem and everything between the LG Chem and the inverter. Look at Vivent drawing E2 and find the LG chem on the drawing.
Also, look at page 25 of the LG Chem manual. Is the auxiliary power switch turned on?

Now that I look at the LG Chem manual, I see it has an internal set of circuit breakers. These should all be ON. For the battery that is working, the circuit breakers are obviously on. What about the other battery?

You admit you are a noob and that's why I agreed that having an installer should fix the problem. If you are poking around a piece of high power high voltage equipment and you make one wrong move, you can kill yourself. All of your manuals say in bold letters "must be installed/serviced by qualified personnel".

Even checking to see if the LG Chem circuit breakers are ON will put you near high voltage. I would suggest that you have the vivent installer or any installer, sit down with you to teach you about every piece of equipment in your system if that is your end goal.

[soby]

Take a picture of the LG Chem and everything between the LG Chem and the inverter. Look at Vivent drawing E2 and find the LG chem on the drawing.
Also, look at page 25 of the LG Chem manual. Is the auxiliary power switch turned on?

Now that I look at the LG Chem manual, I see it has an internal set of circuit breakers. These should all be ON. For the battery that is working, the circuit breakers are obviously on. What about the other battery?

You admit you are a noob and that's why I agreed that having an installer should fix the problem. If you are poking around a piece of high power high voltage equipment and you make one wrong move, you can kill yourself. All of your manuals say in bold letters "must be installed/serviced by qualified personnel".

Even checking to see if the LG Chem circuit breakers are ON will put you near high voltage. I would suggest that you have the vivent installer or any installer, sit down with you to teach you about every piece of equipment in your system if that is your end goal.

I second this. I did some basic troubleshooting but I got uncomfortable quick. Even my electrician warned me not to mess with the DC side of anything. 400V DC is serious business. You have no reason to do this yourself since it's leased. There has to be some stipulation in your contract about uptime and repairs?

[Veger70]

February 11th the tech came out and updated th e software on one LG battery it wasn’t communicating with SolarEdge inverter. Now all is working.
I called to get access to SolarEdge monitoring portal. Customer service informed me that they couldn’t give me access because then they couldn’t monitor the system if they did.....
When the first full day of charging for the system at around 6PM Vivint had the batteries discharge to the grid down to 20%. Is that normal to discharge the batteries everyday for the life of the batteries?



B18250C2-F2DB-49E8-BA0B-096F1BE41DA8.jpeg

[soby]

February 11th the tech came out and updated th e software on one LG battery it wasn’t communicating with SolarEdge inverter. Now all is working.
I called to get access to SolarEdge monitoring portal. Customer service informed me that they couldn’t give me access because then they couldn’t monitor the system if they did.....
When the first full day of charging for the system at around 6PM Vivint had the batteries discharge to the grid down to 20%. Is that normal to discharge the batteries everyday for the life of the batteries?



B18250C2-F2DB-49E8-BA0B-096F1BE41DA8.jpeg

This seems like expected behavior. If set to “Maximize Self-Consumption”, the inverter will prioritize charging the battery with solar. When the sun starts to set, the inverter will start to discharge the battery to minimize grid import until the battery drops to the backup reserve (20% in your case). I would expect Vivant to have the inverter set this way by default.

[Veger70]

This seems like expected behavior. If set to “Maximize Self-Consumption”, the inverter will prioritize charging the battery with solar. When the sun starts to set, the inverter will start to discharge the battery to minimize grid import until the battery drops to the backup reserve (20% in your case). I would expect Vivant to have the inverter set this way by default.

So I guess I’m not going to get the ability to access the SolarEdge site. “Maximize Self-Consumption” mode per SolarEdge info is for “charging the battery from the PV/grid when tariffs are low and discharge the battery when tariffs are high” can you explain what i need to look for if I’m with Sonoma Clean Power or would I have to look at PG&E to get the rates? I’m not sure Vivint cares enough to be worried about this but if there’s a better mode to save money I’ll tell them

[Veger70]

Also I have 2 LG batteries 9.80 kWh each
In the morning they are only showing 7.49kWh total to charge both batteries in the morning from 20% to 100%
I would think that it would be closer to 15.7 kWh to charge both 80%
or am I reading to data wrong.

[Mike90250]

I think the Utilities discourage using the grid at night hours to recharge batteries to sell power back to the grid at peak hours.

[Ampster]

............ can you explain what i need to look for if I’m with Sonoma Clean Power or would I have to look at PG&E to get the rates? ........

All the information is on your PG&E bill. They do the billing for Sonoma Clean Power. I don't know which kind of billing you have. If you got SGIP rebate you may get something like a "paired storage' bill that does not look like the regular bill which I get. Also if you are on a paired storage plan, you should be aware that PG&E does monitor your bill against expected generation to make sure you are not selling more power than your system could generate.

Your best strategy would be first to understand the rate periods and use your battery to shift your loads away from from the peak periods and generate credits during peak and mid peak to offset usage. There is no economic incentive at the end of True Up to have a big credit.

[soby]

So I guess I’m not going to get the ability to access the SolarEdge site. “Maximize Self-Consumption” mode per SolarEdge info is for “charging the battery from the PV/grid when tariffs are low and discharge the battery when tariffs are high” can you explain what i need to look for if I’m with Sonoma Clean Power or would I have to look at PG&E to get the rates? I’m not sure Vivint cares enough to be worried about this but if there’s a better mode to save money I’ll tell them

At a basic level, net metering allows you to use the utility company as a battery. If you generate more power than you use during the day, the utility company stores it for you and you can draw from it later. To combat this, utility companies can make Time of Use rate structure so that the power you feed the grid during the day is less valuable than the power you use at night.

Having your own on-site battery allows you to store a portion of your daytime generation for use later in the day when you'd otherwise be drawing from the grid. This can be advantagous if you discover that your electricity is most expensive at 7pm, for example. You can charge up your battery during the daytime when the utility company wont credit you as much and then program your battery to discharge the battery starting at 7pm.

It sounds like your batteries are programmed to immediately discharge the battery to meet your demand as the sun goes down. Unless you are saving money by charging and discharging your batteries fully every day, this is unnecessary wear and tear that will shorten the life of the batteries for no good reason.

My current setup with one inverter and one 9.8kWh battery has a backup reserve of 50% and is set to charge only via clipped solar (inverter output above 8kW AC). This configuration harvests energy that would otherwise be lost. Some days, especially during the winter, it doesn't charge at all because the sun isn't intense enough. Other days, it will charge it to 100% for essentially free. I then have it configured to use the stored energy to meet the household demand starting at 1am. Since household use is usually very low at that time, the battery discharges nice and slow. LG recommends staying under 3.3kW charging or discharging.

For your setup, find out if your utility company has a flat rate all the time or if it changes. That will determine if there is any benefit to "time-shifting" your solar generation to save money.

In regards to the 7.49kWh to charge your battery, that sounds like the energy needed to charge just one of the batteries. Since you have two inverters with one battery each, how does the monitoring differentiate between the two inverters?

[Ampster]

I agree with what @soby says. Since you are in PG&E territory with Sonoma Clean Power, you have probably have experienced the same PG&E outages which I have experienced. Be glad your battery is probably programmed for some reserve for backup because you never know when you will need it. I am on an EV rate so I may have different rate choices than your but the two differences between the A and B rates are the time periods for peak and the lower rate for lower usage of one choice. It is all on the PG&E website and there is a rate analysis tool that may help you decide which rate is the best.

There are third party monitoring apps and tools that can give you some insight if you can not get the data from Vivent.
EDIT: Reading earlier posts from this thread it looks like you are getting reasonable information from Vivent.

[Veger70]

Only charging one battery make sense, since only one has the charging/discharging light on the front and the other the green on light. I’ll have to contact service again.

Below is the production/consumption rates from the 13th. Looks like Vivint is discharging the battery at from 5:00 to 7:00. By 4PM we are back to drawing from the grid again which makes no sense since PG&E peak rates are M-F 4-9PM. Why wouldn’t they run it off the batteries from 4-9?




PG&E NEM agreement
Peak 0.26567
Off 0.24678

Sonoma Clean Power
Peak 0.09
Off. 0.07

Since we are leasing the solar system from Vivint we pay Vivint 0.21 per kWh for solar energy produced on there system.
I was so happy to get solar with no money out of pocket with batteries since the power outages from fires were so bad up in Santa Rosa that I didn’t think to ask on here before we signed the contract.
6A12D2B3-63BD-4C2D-8E38-EB880EA177BA.jpeg

[Ampster]

Since Vivent is only charging you for solar production not battery consumption, do they allow any configuration of the battery? Have your TOU rate periods been entered?
Try searching the Internet for Vivent user groups or videos.
The knowledge base here would have provided you good input to NOT enter into a Vivent lease. Now you need expertise on how to make the most of a battery system. I am familiar with PG&E and SCP and can answer questions about how to understand your bills and how to strategize your battery usage but I am not familiar with the subleties of configuring a Vivent system. I am familiar with Solaredge monitoring and can tell you that the answer you got from Vivent is BS. The first thing I would focus on is configurung your system to use the battery during your peak rate time period. Do you know which rate you are on? It should say on your PG&E bill.

[Veger70]

Since Vivent is only charging you for solar production not battery consumption, do they allow any configuration of the battery? Have your TOU rate periods been entered?
Try searching the Internet for Vivent user groups or videos.
The knowledge base here would have provided you good input to NOT enter into a Vivent lease. Now you need expertise on how to make the most of a battery system. I am familiar with PG&E and SCP and can answer questions about how to understand your bills and how to strategize your battery usage but I am not familiar with the subleties of configuring a Vivent system. I am familiar with Solaredge monitoring and can tell you that the answer you got from Vivent is BS. The first thing I would focus on is configurung your system to use the battery during your peak rate time period. Do you know which rate you are on? It should say on your PG&E bill.

Vivint doesn’t have a system they use SolarEdge. They just refuse to give us access. I listed the rates above under PG&E NEM Agreement, but here it is again:

PG&E NEM agreement
Peak 0.26567
Off 0.24678

Sonoma Clean Power Generation charges
Peak 0.09
Off 0.07
PG&E peak rates are M-F 4-9PM. All other Off

so any help telling them how to configure SolarEdge to maximize battery use would be great!

The tech said he updated the software on the LG battery that wasn’t working now it shows the green on symbol but is not charging/discharging.