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Has Anyone Encountered This Issue With Solaredge Inverter?

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  • Has Anyone Encountered This Issue With Solaredge Inverter?

    So I just got a brand new 11.725 kW system.

    LG 335's Neon 2.
    Solaredge P370 Power optimizers
    Solaredge SE10000A-US inverter.

    The system is working beautifully but unfortunately the inverter reboots every time somebody showers. We have a tankless water heater (Ecosmart Eco 11) to be exact. I called Solaredge and we ran a few diagnostics and the rep was able to clearly see what he calls "Total harmonic distortion".

    Now, I paid good money for this system and it is very disappointing the inverter shuts off every time the shower is on due to this abnormality.

    Solaredge Rep suggested two solutions to the problem:

    1. Move apart the breakers for the water heater on the inside of the house. (Hope that the issue gets resolved but if not option 2)

    2. AC line filtering

    Attached image below is Solaredge reps live diagnostic while shower was on. Clearly causing the inverter to reboot.

    My solar installer is saying their license is for PV only and he doesn't wanna risk his license. So there's that.

    So my question is the following: Has anyone encountered this error and resolved it? Any suggestions?

    Screen Shot 2018-01-29 at 6.45.02 PM.png
    Last edited by Techm7; 01-29-2018, 07:48 PM.

  • #2
    I've seen a lot worse. Apparently the solid state heater control is not filtered. I would try a
    low frequency line filter of some sort, some simple magnetic reg units have been around a
    long time, rugged but heavy. I have a SOLA here, but at 180VA not big enough for the
    tankless heater. I'd probably dump the tankless heater.

    I once had a tank heater that had to be run manually, and I found once hot it maintained
    temp for half a week. The"advantages" of tankless appear grossly exaggerated to me.
    Bruce Roe
    Last edited by bcroe; 01-29-2018, 08:17 PM.

    Comment


    • #3
      is the water heater Gas or Electric ??
      Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
      || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
      || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

      solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
      gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Mike90250 View Post
        is the water heater Gas or Electric ??
        it's electric

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by bcroe View Post
          I've seen a lot worse. Apparently the solid state heater control is not filtered. I would try a
          low frequency line filter of some sort, some simple magnetic reg units have been around a
          long time, rugged but heavy. I have a SOLA here, but at 180VA not big enough for the
          tankless heater. I'd probably dump the tankless heater.

          I once had a tank heater that had to be run manually, and I found once hot it maintained
          temp for half a week. The"advantages" of tankless appear grossly exaggerated to me.
          Bruce Roe
          I see. Wish I didn't make that decision. I have a Tesla battery being installed soon, do you think it will solve the problem or still exist?

          Comment


          • #6
            Really, a tankless electric hot water heater? I'm not sure I see the energy savings in that. I assume you don't have natural gas or propane available? Given how inexpensive the Ecosmarts are, I agree with Bruce, dump it, and replace it with a large, well insulated, high efficiency unit -- natural gas if possible.

            For your EcoSmart -- that's 13kW with a 60amp two pole breaker (according to the specs on Amazon). Given the size of your PV array, I assume you have a line side tap? And the breaker for your hot water heater is in your electrical panel? If so, no amount of moving the breaker around will likely help. While it's possible you are getting a harmonic, I'm more inclined to expect its a voltage sag. What's the voltage drop to when it kicks on? How does this compare to when you AC kicks on? What happens if both are running together?!?! Do you have a 200 amp service?

            Filtering, Starting Capacitor, and/or isolation transformer come to mind for the hot water heater. Eaton makes a 60amp Split phase line filter AEGIS series. But it probably costs more than your hot water heater. Not sure if a few cheap chokes would be sufficient. I would call Ecosmart and see what they suggest.

            Comment


            • #7
              I had a problem with mine doing this when the LED can lights were on. When it was having the harmonic problem, the inverter would rattle like a Gieger Counter. Once I was finally able to figure out what was causing it, it was easily fixed. With help from TJ at SolarEdge support, I found that all I had to do was connect a small motor run capacitor($8) between L1 & L2. Haven't had a problem since.

              Good luck,
              Greg

              Comment


              • #8
                GRickard, do you remember what size and type capacitor you purchased?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Techm7 View Post
                  So I just got a brand new 11.725 kW system.

                  LG 335's Neon 2.
                  Solaredge P370 Power optimizers
                  Solaredge SE10000A-US inverter.
                  You JUST had this system installed and they didn't use the SE10000H-US model? That is bit strange. The HDWave version has far better harmonics but this is likely more of a voltage sag issue.
                  The problem is that tankless electric hot water heaters are HUGE electric loads. There are few even rated for a shower and they generally are only rated for low flow showers at that.
                  Its breaker should definitely be moved closer to the main in the MSP, and might help.
                  OutBack FP1 w/ CS6P-250P http://bit.ly/1Sg5VNH

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Yup my guess is voltage sag is the culprit. In rare situation you may have some loose connections in the panel or the meter but expect its time to dump the heater. Of course if the PV system was sized to deal with such a large load I expect the system may be way oversized once you dump the heater. Far better off with heat pump hot water heater with a well insulated tank and maybe a use timer on it.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Nwatson
                      GRickard, do you remember what size and type capacitor you purchased?
                      This sort of filter is not at all critical. You need a some 300VAC continuous run (oil) capacitor,
                      5 or 10 mfd ought to handle the high frequency noise. Bruce Roe

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by bcroe View Post

                        This sort of filter is not at all critical. You need a some 300VAC continuous run (oil) capacitor,
                        5 or 10 mfd ought to handle the high frequency noise. Bruce Roe
                        Thank you for the reply Bruce. The customer's SE inverter resets constantly due to harmonic distortion. SE and the Utility are pointing fingers at one another and trading sine wave graphs. Do you add this capacitor at the point of interconnection, or is any location on the AC side ok? Again, thank you for you for your help. Noah

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Nwatson View Post

                          Thank you for the reply Bruce. The customer's SE inverter resets constantly due to harmonic distortion. SE and the Utility are pointing fingers at one another and trading sine wave graphs. Do you add this capacitor at the point of interconnection, or is any location on the AC side ok? Again, thank you for you for your help. Noah
                          The idea here is to knock down those high frequency spikes riding the sine wave. This level of
                          filter is not going to affect the basic 60 Hz waveforms. Near the source would be best, next is
                          the device being interfered with.

                          I think of harmonic distortion as things like the 3rd (180 Hz) or 5th (300 Hz) harmonic, noise
                          in the pic above is of far higher frequencies which I call spikes.

                          good luck, Bruce Roe

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Nwatson View Post
                            GRickard, do you remember what size and type capacitor you purchased?
                            Seems like I used a 10mf run capacitor. I just wired it across a 2 pole breaker in the panel and never had another trip.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              I had to change over to Envoy microinverters because the Pantheon micro inverters kept going down. I do not blame Sunpower for not wanting anything to do with Solarbridge as I think they may have got the fingers burned. I am interested in using any program that can replace the Solarbridge system and Arduino seems to be able to do something. What I would like to know are the codes to access and activate the Pantheon microinverters which a guess and perhaps hope are common to all microinverters. I Australia we have smart meters which are able to shutdown our system if need be so to me it seems that the codes may be common. Anybody out there know about this? I have 90 Pantheon microinverters removed during the changeover and I do know that at the time of the changeover 20 of my 22 were working so I feel that I will have quite a few to use on a stand alone system.

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