PVOutput shows unusual dip to zero power

[bcroe]

The AC voltage at the inverter is what causes a HV trip. This will be the highest at your location, more
than the PoCo input since your inverter is pushing back. Bruce Roe

[Git]

My AC Voltage has been all over the map this week - It was 256 v at 6 am on the 25th

[GRickard]

Shouldn't trip until it reaches 264. That's what I was told by SolarEdge support.That's 240 + 10%.

[jpoet]

I had a problem where voltage coming in from the grid was too low and tripped the inverter - although it did throw a code. When I initially contacted SCE they tried to say that higher demand in the area in the afternoon (high temps) was causing the voltage to drop but when I pressed it further there was an actual problem with the local substation that they ended up fixing

So take a look at your incoming voltage (charts > inverter > ac voltage) and see how low it is getting. As I recall around 220 causes problems

When I had the problem on Monday, the Vac hit 250. The charts show that on a typical day, Vac bounces up and down between 240 and 245. Apparently, 250 was enough to cause an issue. It will be interesting to see if the change in country code allows the inverter to survive such a surge in the future.

Thanks for the insight.

[Git]

I had a problem where voltage coming in from the grid was too low and tripped the inverter - although it did throw a code. When I initially contacted SCE they tried to say that higher demand in the area in the afternoon (high temps) was causing the voltage to drop but when I pressed it further there was an actual problem with the local substation that they ended up fixing

So take a look at your incoming voltage (charts > inverter > ac voltage) and see how low it is getting. As I recall around 220 causes problems

[jpoet]

I sent SolarEdge an email about this on Monday, and just received a response. They suspect the AC voltage fluctuations are due to my POCO. He says:

I did update the inverter's firmware and change its country code in order to widen its voltage tolerances a bit.

I am supposed to let them know if this happens again.

Edit: It looks like he changed the country code from USA3 to USA5

[ButchDeal]

Whenever my system clips, the Vdc jumps from the "nominal" 385 volts to 435 volts. I asked SolarEdge about that, and they said it was normal behavior. What is not normal, is for the power output to go in the opposite direction of the Vdc.

Right that is what I am talking about latter in the day as it jumps way up over 400v D.C. And the AC output drops at the same time.

[jpoet]

Yeah, I see the same clipping behavior. You could see on my PVoutput page that when my inverter was knocked offline, DC voltage went high too... I think that is normal behavior in that abnormal condition. The 385 voltage would be high for a 5000A inverter, but maybe HD-Wave is tuned higher.

Yes, for the HD Wave, 385V is nominal.

Did you look for errors through the layout page by the method I described a couple posts ago? It seems much more inclusive than any other approach I've tried.

Yes. It is not reporting any errors. I wish it was, since that might give me a clue.

[sensij]

Whenever my system clips, the Vdc jumps from the "nominal" 385 volts to 435 volts. I asked SolarEdge about that, and they said it was normal behavior. What is not normal, is for the power output to go in the opposite direction of the Vdc.

Yeah, I see the same clipping behavior. You could see on my PVoutput page that when my inverter was knocked offline, DC voltage went high too... I think that is normal behavior in that abnormal condition. The 385 voltage would be high for a 5000A inverter, but maybe HD-Wave is tuned higher.

Did you look for errors through the layout page by the method I described a couple posts ago? It seems much more inclusive than any other approach I've tried.

[jpoet]

Your D.C. Cvoltage seems really high.

Whenever my system clips, the Vdc jumps from the "nominal" 385 volts to 435 volts. I asked SolarEdge about that, and they said it was normal behavior. What is not normal, is for the power output to go in the opposite direction of the Vdc.

[jpoet]

Your D.C. Cvoltage seems really high. How many optimizers do you have in eash string?
What is the configuration of your system, ptimizers, inverter, and pv modules?

SE5000H-US
18 P400 optimizers
18LG335N1c-A5 panels

found youroher post seems it is 18 modules of 335 w each and SE5000H
8 modules south and 10 east.

i think you mentioned that they lost the physical locations of the optimizers but do you know if they installed one string or two?
i suspect that they installed one string and that is causing some extra clipping and likely to shorten the life of some components.
With one string you are significantly over the wattage limit for the hdwave inverter and it would account for the high D.C. Voltages.

https://www.solaredge.com/sites/defa...tasheet-na.pdf

I went through the old "cover up a panel" technique to figure out the layout. I then provided them with the information, and they fixed the physical layout in the SolarEdge portal.

It is two separate strings:

SolarEdge-LogicalLayout.png

I noticed a news article saying there was a power outage in my area overnight. However, they had it fixed before I woke up this morning. It does make me wonder if this could have been caused by a surge from the POCO.

When the POCO installed my net-meter, they guy gave me a hard time about how big my solar system was. He said most houses in my neighborhood only need a 3kW system, so he assumed I had 2x what I needed (He was looking at the max output from the panels, and not the max from the inverter). If I only used enough energy to require a 3kW system, I would not have gone solar! That being said, I am over sized a bit -- probably by about 20%, until I get my EV. I really only needed 17 panels, and partially went with 18 just for aesthetics.

The POCO guy also told me that in my neighborhood there are only four houses on each transformer, and that if every house on the transformer went solar, the transformer would need to be replaced -- with that expense being put on the last house going solar. I am the only one near me with solar.

[ButchDeal]

In theory, I am setup as a "sub installer", so have access to most things on the SolarEdge portal. I tried to generate a "Status and Alerts Summary" report for my site, but the resulting PDF is zero bytes.

The individual panels do not seem to show any issues. The inverter, however... 2017-08-28-Inverter-Iac-Vdc.png





Green: Iac Red: Vdc

The inverter is not logging any errors or warnings, but something is not right. I can ask the electrician that did the install to take a look at these charts. I wonder if it will do any good to email these charts to SolarEdge support?

Any advice you guys can give, is appreciated!

Edit: Add annotation to charts.

Your D.C. Cvoltage seems really high. How many optimizers do you have in eash string?
What is the configuration of your system, ptimizers, inverter, and pv modules?

found youroher post seems it is 18 modules of 335 w each and SE5000H
8 modules south and 10 east.

i think you mentioned that they lost the physical locations of the optimizers but do you know if they installed one string or two?
i suspect that they installed one string and that is causing some extra clipping and likely to shorten the life of some components.
With one string you are significantly over the wattage limit for the hdwave inverter and it would account for the high D.C. Voltages.

https://www.solaredge.com/sites/defa...tasheet-na.pdf

[AzRoute66]

OK, so then the entire unavoidable 'delay' is the one between the optimizer and the inverter, and it can be 'lengthy' enough that nobody would consider it 'real time' in any sense. Of course, if you want to see it on the Enphase/SE internet tools, a further delay is encountered and if you want to see it on PVOutput, yet another delay occurs.

"But all of it has a TCP/IP protocol that has collision avoidance and wait times to rebroadcast." --- I can assure you that TCP doesn't do either of those things. IP will retransmit a lost packet, but has no collision detection or avoidance or wait times. The collision detection/avoidance/wait you are thinking of happens in the ethernet, ISDN, etc. protocols, which are the physical layers in the stack most commonly associated with TCP/IP.

"Of course you know that IPv6 RFC was only submitted in December of 1998, though right?" --- Sounds right. But we were working on IPv6 long before then. I helped write the test suite. And our organization, the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) at Ft. Huachuca is still the lead test and accreditation agent for all DoD-wide IPv6 implementations to the best of my knowledge.

[jpoet]

I am with sensij on this. you should look through the solaredge monitoring for issue. The voltage information looks odd as well.
Get the installer to give you full access on solarEdge monitoring portal and configure your account as owner.

In theory, I am setup as a "sub installer", so have access to most things on the SolarEdge portal. I tried to generate a "Status and Alerts Summary" report for my site, but the resulting PDF is zero bytes.

Then you can go to the web site and look at all the optimizers, DC voltages etc and see what is going on
https://monitoring.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/home

The individual panels do not seem to show any issues. The inverter, however...
2017-08-28-Inverter-Iac-Vdc.png

Green: Iac Red: Vdc

2017-08-28-Inverter-Pac-Vac.png

Green: Vac Red: Pac


The inverter is not logging any errors or warnings, but something is not right. I can ask the electrician that did the install to take a look at these charts. I wonder if it will do any good to email these charts to SolarEdge support?

Any advice you guys can give, is appreciated!

Edit: Add annotation to charts.

[sensij]

AzRoute66 ... almost got it. The serial number and output data of the last reporting optimizer can be made to scroll across the inverter's display, so if someone were dedicated enough, it might be possible to reconstruct the optimizer data that gets sent to the portal.

jpoet Here is where I found the error:

1) Log in to your SE account.
2) Go to layout
3) Click on the inverter
4) Click on the "i" that shows up (next to the bar chart icon, blue in the image below)
5) Click on the "errors" tab in the window that opens.

I did not find the error in the "Alerts" section of the portal, and did not try looking for it locally at the inverter. I'm not sure if special access is needed to follow these steps.

Screenshot below.

SE error.JPG