Installer forcing SolarEdge cellular connection on me

[sunpoweredev]

Since I already have a wireless bridge in the garage, it's literally just plug and play with an Ethernet cable. Couple of members here who have the cellular connection recommend against it due to its much delayed reporting. I believe they mentioned delayed by 4 hours. So why pay for something with inferior performance? The rep insists that the cellular is "provided to me". Sure, I paid for it somewhere in the total system cost.

I understand it is great for those who can't easily get an Ethernet or even wifi where the inverter is, but since the beginning I told the rep that I will put an Ethernet connection there, so I'm really at a loss why they insist upon having the cellular. My rep did tell me that upon the final 10% payment, after receiving the permission to operate from the utility, that they will remotely turn on the system. Based on that, it seems that they maintain control of my system, which is why I'm speculating that the cellular connection perhaps gives them additional capabilities, or at least ensure that I can't easily remove access to them just by unplugged the Ethernet.

[john phillips]

You could connect a cat5 cable from the inverter to your router. That is the default connection for the router. To do cellular they have to install a board and tell the inverter to use it. The may have the policy to give the cell connection away because it should be more reliable than your internet connection.

[ericy]

I've repeatedly asked my sales rep to remove the cellular connection from my system. Mostly he ignored my requests. Figuring maybe he wants to sell an accessory, I asked him to replace the cellular connection with the consumption monitoring even if there's an additional cost. He still refuses to remove the cellular and I'm quite perplexed as to why, even when I offer to buy another overpriced option in place of the cellular. Does it somehow allow them backdoor access to my system or something? I am buying the system outright.

What's your objection to the cellular connection?

Without it, you would need some other communications path to do any sort of monitoring - my own system has a ZigBee wireless connection to my router, but I believe one can wire it directly to your internet router.

Without any of this, you have no ability to do any monitoring. The inverter needs to periodically report data to SolarEdge, and to see how the system is performing, you just point your browser to https://monitoring.solaredge.com. Without the connection to the internet, you, the installer and SolarEdge would not have any way to see if there are faults being reported by the system. And for that matter, the consumption monitoring capability would be useless without a connection to the internet.

[sunpoweredev]

I've repeatedly asked my sales rep to remove the cellular connection from my system. Mostly he ignored my requests. Figuring maybe he wants to sell an accessory, I asked him to replace the cellular connection with the consumption monitoring even if there's an additional cost. He still refuses to remove the cellular and I'm quite perplexed as to why, even when I offer to buy another overpriced option in place of the cellular. Does it somehow allow them backdoor access to my system or something? I am buying the system outright.