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My Solaredge system dead. How to figure if it's an optimizer or inverter that's bad?

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  • Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

    It definitely is the installers fault. They made major mistakes and miss installations that were not the required or even to code.
    it was a dangerous poorly done install.
    Do you think the dangerous problems as you pointed out should have been caught by the inspector?

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    • Originally posted by solardreamer View Post

      Do you think the dangerous problems as you pointed out should have been caught by the inspector?
      I'm skeptical if it was ever inspected. I signed an agreement to allow a 3rd party inspector to inspect, but I have a suspicion the installer has a deal with a 3rd party inspector who just signs paperwork without ever seeing the site. I know for certain that no inspector ever got up on my roof to inspect or inspected at my panel. I guess it is possible that photos were taken and the inspector operates remotely off of them, but I doubt it.

      I don't know if an inspector would catch the lack of grounding via a penetrating star washer at the power optimizers, as those are hidden under the panels. But you would think an inspector would identify the wiring and breaker were not to code. There were also other things about my installation that were not to approved permitted designs such as the inverter and ac disconnect up on roof rather than around a back side alley of my house at ground level. All things considered, just makes me wonder who the electrician was and who inspected it.
      Last edited by kny; 06-25-2017, 05:15 PM.

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      • So, my system is 7194 watts on two strings: 13 west facing and 9 south facing. Today I peaked at 7077 watts measured at the breaker box, so 98.4% of nameplate power after a 60 foot 8AWG wire run from inverter to breaker. That seems surprisingly high especially as both the west AND south facing strings cannot both be operating at optimal conditions. Obviously I'm thrilled to see this, but am I wrong in being surprised at how close to Pnom I'm seeing across all 22 panels?

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        • Originally posted by kny View Post
          So, my system is 7194 watts on two strings: 13 west facing and 9 south facing. Today I peaked at 7077 watts measured at the breaker box, so 98.4% of nameplate power after a 60 foot 8AWG wire run from inverter to breaker. That seems surprisingly high especially as both the west AND south facing strings cannot both be operating at optimal conditions. Obviously I'm thrilled to see this, but am I wrong in being surprised at how close to Pnom I'm seeing across all 22 panels?
          Was it just a spike, rather than sustained mid-day production? Higher power spikes are possible when you get reflections off the edge of clouds that increase irradiance to values higher than what you'd find in a clear sky.
          CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozx

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          • Originally posted by sensij View Post

            Was it just a spike, rather than sustained mid-day production? Higher power spikes are possible when you get reflections off the edge of clouds that increase irradiance to values higher than what you'd find in a clear sky.
            Yea, peak performance measurements can give the warm and fuzzies, but day long or annual performance is what counts. I've coincidentally seen 5,350 W instantaneous into my inverter on the inverter screen as inst. output from a 16 X 327 W array, but it didn't last long.

            A lot can happen besides the usual cloud stuff. An example: Another time a neighbor was getting new windows and a large picture window still on the truck was reflecting at just the right angle on most of one array string. Only reason I noticed is because I was screwing around on the roof for some weird reason or other. I didn't record it, but seem to remember an unusually high output spike lasting about 5-10 min. off the system monitor.

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            • Originally posted by sensij View Post

              Was it just a spike, rather than sustained mid-day production? Higher power spikes are possible when you get reflections off the edge of clouds that increase irradiance to values higher than what you'd find in a clear sky.
              Pretty much a spike, but there are clouds in the sky so production is spiky all day and there is lots over 6500, so I don't think it's a hugely anomalous spike. But, what struck me is the percent of nameplate capacity. I thought Pnom was pretty much the hypothetical max under lab conditions - whereas here it's 80 degrees, not at ideal tilt, typical soiling, etc.... and I get 98.4% of hypothetical max after losses over 60' of wire run? Seems unrealistic, yet it happened, so I was surprised to see it.

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              • It isn't unrealistic. The STC irradiance at which the panels get their DC rating is 1000 W/m2. Below is my system on a cloudy day in May.

                Green is power produced, you can see I ran into the 3 kW limit of my inverter several times with 3.1 kW of panels.

                Purple is measured irradiance. From 1:00 to 1:30 pm, it was consistently over 1100 W/m2, with a peak of 1213 W/m2. Even though this is horizontal irradiance, not plane-of-array, power production approaching or exceeding STC under these conditions is not hard to imagine. Unfortunately, the *energy* represented by these spikes is not usually enough to make it worthwhile to size the system to capture them. Fun to see, nevertheless.


                ***
                *there is a slight time shift between the irradiance data and production data, due to differences in time stamping between the two sources
                **the production doesn't follow the irradiance perfectly, because the reflections and shadows of the clouds do not fall uniformly across the entire 12 panel array, and there is some data averaging over 5 min intervals that can mess with the peaks and valleys.
                *** clipping.JPG
                Last edited by sensij; 06-26-2017, 04:39 PM.
                CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozx

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                • WOW This was a good post and will definitely help me on my install of the same setup except i will be using Panasonic 330W HIT Panels. I am thankful for the OP posting all this info and glad i over-sized my SolarEdge Inverter to 7600 even though i am looking at wiring up 5Kw to start. Of course my Inverter will be right next to my main fuse panel so my AC wiring will be short.

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                  • KNY, I see you are also in DC because you talked about the DC SREC market. I also had an installer put in P300 SolarEdge optimizers on 325KW panels capable of generating almost 70 volts when the optimizers are only rated for 48. My contract also said the P400 was supposed to be used. My system was done more than a year ago but I just learned of this now. Who was your installer? Did his name start with K? If so I'd love to chat.

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                    • Originally posted by dctrex View Post
                      KNY, I see you are also in DC because you talked about the DC SREC market. I also had an installer put in P300 SolarEdge optimizers on 325KW panels capable of generating almost 70 volts when the optimizers are only rated for 48. My contract also said the P400 was supposed to be used. My system was done more than a year ago but I just learned of this now. Who was your installer? Did his name start with K? If so I'd love to chat.
                      there are some really lazy installers out there. There are some that just always use P400s less problematic but not quite as efficient, always using P300s is a major problem though as it voids the warranty on the optimizers and they perform really poorly.

                      It is really rather sad as solarEdge systems are so much easier to design and install than string systems with just a few very simple limits, but still even with them being so easy to do, some installers are just incompetent.
                      OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

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                      • Originally posted by ButchDeal View Post

                        there are some really lazy installers out there. There are some that just always use P400s less problematic but not quite as efficient, always using P300s is a major problem though as it voids the warranty on the optimizers and they perform really poorly.

                        It is really rather sad as solarEdge systems are so much easier to design and install than string systems with just a few very simple limits, but still even with them being so easy to do, some installers are just incompetent.
                        SolarEdge felt bad for me and sent me a free P300 to replace one of mine that burned out. They've actually been really helpful as I've uncovered more and more problems. However I need to buy all P400s now because I googled what overvoltage means and I'm not having it on the roof of my house. I only discovered because my system caught fire and I had a new installer crew out to inspect things. I'm a lawyer and working on drafting a new complaint now, just hoping KNY is still subscribed to this thread to see if he used the same guy and if this is a pattern.

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