Solar/Battery system - when internet connection is down.

[SouthWestern]

Hi, I am new to solar and so I hope this is not a silly question...
We are looking for a solar/battery system that functions fully, or at least with all essential functionality, when the internet is down or if the cloud servers are down. Is this possible and which manufacturers should we look at?
One system I found the answer for needs the connection and the cloud for virtually all control - and then if the internet and servers do not get back on line, the system is "bricked" - permanently and needing a fresh engineer install. OK that is after 90 days so unlikely but if the company went bust...
Thanks in advance!

[solardreamer]

Is this for a grid-tied system?

[SouthWestern]

Is this for a grid-tied system?

Yes it is.
We have space for either 3kW or 6kW of panels, and are thinking of +/-10kW of battery.
Resilience is an important factor for us, so it should power the house when the grid is down, and function when the internet and/or cloud is down.

[solardreamer]

Yes it is.
We have space for either 3kW or 6kW of panels, and are thinking of +/-10kW of battery.
Resilience is an important factor for us, so it should power the house when the grid is down, and function when the internet and/or cloud is down.

Consider yourself one of the few solar owners smart enough to consider this issue.

Definitely stay away from Enphase and Tesla if you want full visibility and control when there is no Internet/Cloud connectivity. They try to lock customers into their proprietary ecosystems with heavy Internet/Cloud dependence.

Grid-tied vendors that can support fully functional systems without Internet/Cloud connectivity include Growatt, SMA, Hoymiles, Schneider, EG4, etc.

[SouthWestern]

Grid-tied vendors that can support fully functional systems without Internet/Cloud connectivity include Growatt, SMA, Hoymiles, Schneider, EG4, etc.

Excellent! I'll start looking at those... I am in UK so a European supplier would be great if there is not a big price penalty. A system that relies on China-based cloud does not sound so great...

[mman]

Consider yourself one of the few solar owners smart enough to consider this issue.

Definitely stay away from Enphase and Tesla if you want full visibility and control when there is no Internet/Cloud connectivity. They try to lock customers into their proprietary ecosystems with heavy Internet/Cloud dependence.

Grid-tied vendors that can support fully functional systems without Internet/Cloud connectivity include Growatt, SMA, Hoymiles, Schneider, EG4, etc.

I agree to avoid Tesla. Their customer service is so de-centralized that, inevitably when you're going to have a nuanced issue and need to have a single champion or post-of-contact from customer service, you're not going to get it. Avoid Tesla.

[azdave]

Why spend that kind of money on a system that will cease to function fully without an internet connection or proper vendor support? Too many solar companies are going under these days or are failing to support their older customers when they perform updates and break things.

https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum/solar-panels-for-home/solar-panel-system-equipment/443648-sunpower-sunstrong-monitoring-situation

[Srrndhound]

We are looking for a solar/battery system that functions fully, or at least with all essential functionality, when the internet is down or if the cloud servers are down. Is this possible and which manufacturers should we look at?

I guess it depends on how you define essential functionality.

My SolarEdge system will operate as usual when it cannot connect to the cloud servers. Happened just yesterday for 3 hours. I only knew it because the EV charger LED ring changed from green to orange (no connection), and when I checked the phone app it was not updating data.

After the connection was restored, I could see that it was operating normally the whole time.

The EV charger and batteries are connected to the inverter through RS485, so even with internet WAN, LAN, Wi-Fi, cellular, and grid failure, it is my understanding the PV collection and battery backup will continue to operate. I have not had the opportunity to confirm that thus far.

[solardreamer]

I guess it depends on how you define essential functionality.

My SolarEdge system will operate as usual when it cannot connect to the cloud servers. Happened just yesterday for 3 hours. I only knew it because the EV charger LED ring changed from green to orange (no connection), and when I checked the phone app it was not updating data.

After the connection was restored, I could see that it was operating normally the whole time.

The EV charger and batteries are connected to the inverter through RS485, so even with internet WAN, LAN, Wi-Fi, cellular, and grid failure, it is my understanding the PV collection and battery backup will continue to operate. I have not had the opportunity to confirm that thus far.

How do you know how much charge is left in the battery when the cloud server is not available?

[Srrndhound]

How do you know how much charge is left in the battery when the cloud server is not available?

It is my understanding that this information is not available without a connection to the servers. Flying blind in that case. SetApp will still connect but it will not display SOC.
[Edit to add correction. SetApp can display SOE.]

My inverter has three ways to access internet.
1) Home Wi-Fi tied to the local network supplier
2) Cellular modem (4G, 5 years)
3) Home Wi-Fi tied to StarLink

None of that matters if the servers in Israel go down.

[solardreamer]

It is my understanding that this information is not available without a connection to the servers. Flying blind in that case.

Then it has the same problem that many other proprietary home battery owners have complained about. In an extended outage it's not possible to know how much battery charge is available especially when the sun goes down which can be pretty low during cloudy/stormy days. So people have ended up with no power due to drained battery over night because they don't know the battery charge level in order to ration usage until the sun is up again to recharge the battery. This is especially a serious problem for AC coupled home batteries (e.g. Powerwall) because once they are drained enough they will not start up/charge again until the grid returns.

Frankly, it's pretty ridiculous that such expensive and critical equipment doesn't have a simple and dedicated battery charge level display like in the typical USB battery banks that cost much less.

[Srrndhound]

Then it has the same problem that many other proprietary home battery owners have complained about. In an extended outage it's not possible to know how much battery charge is available...

I'd like to offer a correction to my previous post, where I said that SetApp will not display SOC. I was looking at the wrong area in the App.

Once you have connected to the inverter's internal Wi-Fi via SetApp, it will open the Commissioning screen. Select Status. Then scroll down to Battery. It displays SOE in percentage, from 0-100. That is no better than a simple battery level bar graph, as it has no history data to see the trend as in the MySolarEdge monitor app. But it also displays whether the battery is charging, discharging or idle, and the amount of power flowing in/out. This data is separate for each battery, if there's more than one.

So yes, it is possible to know these details when both the grid and internet are down, but is it not a user friendly process.

Frankly, it's pretty ridiculous that such expensive and critical equipment doesn't have a simple and dedicated battery charge level display like in the typical USB battery banks that cost much less.

I agree. Even my vacuum cleaner has a battery display!

[solardreamer]

I'd like to offer a correction to my previous post, where I said that SetApp will not display SOC. I was looking at the wrong area in the App.

Once you have connected to the inverter's internal Wi-Fi via SetApp, it will open the Commissioning screen. Select Status. Then scroll down to Battery. It displays SOE in percentage, from 0-100. That is no better than a simple battery level bar graph, as it has no history data to see the trend as in the MySolarEdge monitor app. But it also displays whether the battery is charging, discharging or idle, and the amount of power flowing in/out. This data is separate for each battery, if there's more than one.

So yes, it is possible to know these details when both the grid and internet are down, but is it not a user friendly process.

That's onerous. It's a telling sign of the state of the market that most people are still so unaware that they don't object to similar issues before buying such expensive equipment. I doubt few of them would buy a car without a dedicated fuel gauge.

[Srrndhound]

That's onerous. It's a telling sign of the state of the market that most people are still so unaware that they don't object to similar issues before buying such expensive equipment. I doubt few of them would buy a car without a dedicated fuel gauge.

With all respect, I do not think a fuel gauge is a good analogy here. A fuel gauge gets used regularly. Checking battery levels when SolarEdge's servers are off line is quite rare, even more so during a simultaneous grid failure when the need to do so is most acute.

I've had my system almost 3 years and was never unable to check status via the monitor app (I have seen reports of users losing monitor access for periods of time, so I acknowledge it can happen).

Nonetheless, I am glad you raised the question as it got me to dig a little deeper into finding an alternative way to check battery levels if needed. Thanks much.

[solardreamer]

With all respect, I do not think a fuel gauge is a good analogy here. A fuel gauge gets used regularly. Checking battery levels when SolarEdge's servers are off line is quite rare, even more so during a simultaneous grid failure when the need to do so is most acute.

Sorry, I should have provided more context. I was referring more to the use of dedicated apps for basic monitoring and control so it's not just about when the grid is down. Perhaps a more relevant example is my own experience with an EVSE that required cloud connectivity and a dedicated app for monitoring and control. It worked great when there is no cloud connectivity issues and it was just me using it with the app. It would occasionally lose cloud connectivity for various reasons and provide only reduced functionality (e.g. no scheduled charging) but I could manage to work through it. However, when we added additional EV's it became a nightmare because other family members are not so technical savvy nor do they care to use the app (and potentially work through associated cloud connectivity issues). The "smart app" became a burden and I was struggling to provide tech support when I was not at home. In the end, I bought another EVSE with dedicated LCD display and button controls that allow anyone in the family (or visiting friends) to easily use the basic functions and didn't require the cloud for core functionality. The new EVSE also supports remote monitoring and control but it's supplemental. I've also had similar experience with some other appliances/devices (e.g. a camera requiring a dedicated app that became a paperweight when the company went out of business and the app was no longer supported when phone OS was updated). So, I have decided to never buy another appliance that *only* provides monitoring and control through dedicated apps or require cloud connectivity for core functionality.