Anyone replace SunPOwer Microinverters?

[snifferpro]

Has anyone replaced either under warranty or otherwise their Sunpower Micro Inverters with Enphase inverters?

If so, what were the circumstances?
How did you prove SunPower inverters were failing?

Currently having issues with micro inverters not producing to capacity.

SunPOwer customer support not responsive.

[J.P.M.]

If you do ever manage to get some sentience and reason out of Sunpower, one of their first questions they'll ask will be whether or not you contacted your installer.

In your 07/28 post you mentioned you e mailed both S.P. and your installer. Did you ever get a response from your installer ?

If not, have you called your installer back ?

The squeeky wheel gets the grease.

BTW, per my conversation w/ my installer last Fri., he's getting the runaround from S.P. as well. I plan on yanking his chain this P.M.

[snifferpro]

I did get a response from my installer. However, he is the sales manager and I have an appointment with him today at 2PM.

As for SP their response was to ask me to clarify my concerns.
So to appease them I sent them the following;

"I am questioning a couple of things.

1. Why does the app show Production decreasing while usage Increases.

2. I am suggesting that panel ending in 829 is still having issues along with many other panels.

3. What brand of MI's are in my panels? Sunpower branded or Enphase branded?

4. What are the serial numbers of all my inverters?
5. Is my system capable of using the Enphase Equinox system to monitor per panel production?
6. If my system is not capable of the above, what is the cost to make it compliant?
7. Panel/MI issues are occurring between 8am and 12pm and then again between 1400 and 1600 - coincidence? I don't think so.


I sent both SunPower Tech Support and Arizona Solar Concepts (Doug Riecks) ample documentation to support my claims.
If you did not get a copy I will be glad to send you all the data I collected since the 829 issue in May. There will probably be at least 3 emails with doc.



It's a lot of data and data that was acquired from the same monitoring program you used to determine an issue with panel 829.


"
I have data from the partner site for May, June, and July that clearly shows random individual panels failing.

I am anxious to see what my installer manager has to say.

It is looking more and more likely that I will have to go to the BBB to see if I can get some results.

Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know the serial numbers of any Enphase branded MI's as opposed to SunPower branded MI's

[J.P.M.]

I did get a response from my installer. However, he is the sales manager and I have an appointment with him today at 2PM.

As for SP their response was to ask me to clarify my concerns.
So to appease them I sent them the following;

"I am questioning a couple of things.

1. Why does the app show Production decreasing while usage Increases.

2. I am suggesting that panel ending in 829 is still having issues along with many other panels.

3. What brand of MI's are in my panels? Sunpower branded or Enphase branded?

4. What are the serial numbers of all my inverters?
5. Is my system capable of using the Enphase Equinox system to monitor per panel production?
6. If my system is not capable of the above, what is the cost to make it compliant?
7. Panel/MI issues are occurring between 8am and 12pm and then again between 1400 and 1600 - coincidence? I don't think so.


I sent both SunPower Tech Support and Arizona Solar Concepts (Doug Riecks) ample documentation to support my claims.
If you did not get a copy I will be glad to send you all the data I collected since the 829 issue in May. There will probably be at least 3 emails with doc.



It's a lot of data and data that was acquired from the same monitoring program you used to determine an issue with panel 829.


"
I have data from the partner site for May, June, and July that clearly shows random individual panels failing.

I am anxious to see what my installer manager has to say.

It is looking more and more likely that I will have to go to the BBB to see if I can get some results.

Just out of curiosity, do you happen to know the serial numbers of any Enphase branded MI's as opposed to SunPower branded MI's

I'd call Arizona Solar Concepts if I didn't hear from them by tomorrow. Start all conversations by identifying yourself and asking the name of the person you're speaking with.

[snifferpro]

Just got off the phone with ACS and SunPower engineering. I gave them specific dates and times when panels are failing and they are going to investigate and have answers by the end of the week. Sunpower Tech Support apparently is not in the loop at this point. My array was producing 3.8kwh up until May 20th. Since then, kwh production has been well below 3.8.
Individual panels/MI's failing randomly would account for this drop in production.

One thing I that I told ACS and SunPower is that they CANNOT send scripts to my pvs6 and firmware updates to my MI's without notifying me of when and what they do.
I own the equipment - they have no right sending scripts and firmware updates without notifying me. Email correspondence says that they sent scripts to the PVS6 and firmware updates to the MI's.. Not acceptable.

Will keep everyone posted.

[10kredline]

I had 8 MI's replaced. They're the iq7x's on the black 350 AC panels. Diagnostics were not working. One or more MI's in the string caused the breaker for the string to trip. I had to tell sunpower to take everything off my roof in order for them to replace the micros since they couldn't tell which one was the problem. After that, they moved pretty quick. Now, diagnostics are working 10/10 and no more electrical issue. My dealer kept me in the look the entire time. Sunpower themselves are a pain in the ass. Which is a shame, because the system performs above and beyond.14.2kw AC system produced 18000 kwh last year.

[solarix]

I have several Enphase and Solaredge customers (we did not do the original install) that have had all their microinverters replaced under warranty. These were early generation units and this is hot Arizona, but I recommend against the use of these devices ever.