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Experience with NEP BDM-600?

Turkey Hollow Solar

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Northern Vermont
I'm working on component selection for a new 10kW ground mount.

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with the NEP BDM-600 dual-panel microinverters?

How about the gateway and software?

Thanks!
 
I have 6 NEP BDM300x2 dual Microinverters which I purchased in 2016 along with a gateway (my first Microinverters).

The BDM600 is basically the same as the BDM300x2 except I believe it may meet some of the new requirements such as support for frequency-shift.

I’ve got nothing but good things to say about NEP, especially in terms of product quality and customer support.

Three times I’ve discovered issues with instability in one or several Microinverters associated with ‘glitches’ in my local grid signal, three times I contacted NEP to provide the IP address of my gateway and the serial numbers of the Microinverters resetting in the middle of the day as the though the power has gone out even though it had not.

And three times by the next morning they had made changes to certain parameters so that my Microinverters are more accommodating of the vagaries and glitches of my specific grid signal and the problem was resolved.

I’m not sure what ‘up to date’ software you are concerned about but their gateway is plug and play and supports basic monitoring capability through web interface.

I’m considering the new BDM500 ‘Mactoinverter’ NEP has just announced for my next build since I’m considering a few panels in the 460-550W range…
 
Thanks for the feedback....sorry for the slow reply.

I'm also looking at APSystems microinverters...these are another option.

Yes with those big panels the 500W inverter is probably the way to go...a 300W would clip like crazy.
 
I have a 48 panel system with 24 BDM-600 inverters. The are mounted on a low pitch roof. When the outside temperature reached 90F the inverters overheat and shutdown. NEP's response was to raise the over temperature alert above the shutdown point. This merely hid the problem from their web browser, but the utility smart meter shows zero output during the middle of the day. I live in east Texas it is above 90 often! They may work fine for free standing applications, but be careful with roof mounted units.
 
@RichardB have you continued to have "shutdown" when the temperature exceeds 90F? Would you be willing to share what the unit cost of the BDM-600 was and/or where you procured it? CED? The data sheet for the BDM-600X | Dual 590Wac states:
Ambient Temperature -40°F to +149°F (-40°C to +65°C)
Operating Temperature -40°F to +185°F (-40°C to +85°C)
There seems to be a discrepancy between the stated temperature specifications and your personal experience. Has NEP provided an explanation?
 
I sent an email to NEP at Jul 18, 2022, 9:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time which was acknolwedge by returned receipt 20 minutes later on "Mon, Jul 18, 10:18 PM". My email asked:
[removed, see Reply #5 above]
I would like an explanation as to the experience RichardB had with your product versus your technical specifications which state an operating temperature to 185 degrees F:


Source: BDM 600-LV (BDM-300X2) MICROINVERTER

Can you understand that installing and using a microinverter that shuts down at 90 degrees F or more makes the product unacceptable? I am very interested in your product and am surprised by the experience stated above.

Thank you,
No response so far. I'll update with a reply to this topic if and when I receive a response.
 
@RichardB have you continued to have "shutdown" when the temperature exceeds 90F? Would you be willing to share what the unit cost of the BDM-600 was and/or where you procured it? CED? The data sheet for the BDM-600X | Dual 590Wac states:

There seems to be a discrepancy between the stated temperature specifications and your personal experience. Has NEP provided an explanation?
The NEP Inverters require almost 3 inches of clearance above and below them for proper cooling. The installer did not do this correctly. This large clearance requirement makes using them for flat roof installation impractical.
 
Thank you, @RichardB. I'd say that specification is pretty critical and ought to appear on their dimension diagram.

Day 2. No response from NEP.

I downloaded their PDF document entitled "BDM 600 LV INGLES" modified 3/10/21, and named it BDM-600-LV.pdf You might think they would have specified clearances somewhere within the 2 sheet file.

Acrobat_2022-07-21_17-00-39.png
 
I have a 48 panel system with 24 BDM-600 inverters. The are mounted on a low pitch roof. When the outside temperature reached 90F the inverters overheat and shutdown. NEP's response was to raise the over temperature alert above the shutdown point. This merely hid the problem from their web browser, but the utility smart meter shows zero output during the middle of the day. I live in east Texas it is above 90 often! They may work fine for free standing applications, but be careful with roof mounted units.
Did you ever get this issue sorted out with NEP?

What vintage BDM-600s do you have? The newer ones with integrated daisy-chain trunk cables or the older ‘300x2’ model requiring an external trunk cable?
 
I never did receive a response from NEP. Recall, they did acknowledge receipt through the return-receipt facility in email.
 
I never did receive a response from NEP. Recall, they did acknowledge receipt through the return-receipt facility in email.
So you are still stuck with underperforming NEP Microinverters or did you do something else?

If you still have the NEPs, have you been able to characterize the behavior and estimate how much lost production it is costing you?
 
@fafrd I'm not the one who had the problem. I simply posed a question to the manufacturer asking for an explanation and no response was given to my inquiry. @RichardB is the one who wrote about the problem he encountered in east Texas when the temperature got hot.
 
@fafrd I'm not the one who had the problem. I simply posed a question to the manufacturer asking for an explanation and no response was given to my inquiry. @RichardB is the one who wrote about the problem he encountered in east Texas when the temperature got hot.
I removed the NEP Inverters and had them replaced with Tigo TS4-A-O and SMA Inverters. Only thing that was saved was the panels. I am looking at my legal option to recover my money.
 
I removed the NEP Inverters and had them replaced with Tigo TS4-A-O and SMA Inverters. Only thing that was saved was the panels. I am looking at my legal option to recover my money.
Can you characterize the lost power production you were experiencing and whether it was uniform throughout the day or greater in the afternoon after the Microinverters have heated up?

I have the same Microinverters and while my gateway is reporting that everything is A-OK, I want to check whether I might actually be getting less output than us being reported.

Did you get any response from NEP on this issue? Did they offer you any sort or replacement or compensation?
 
Can you characterize the lost power production you were experiencing and whether it was uniform throughout the day or greater in the afternoon after the Microinverters have heated up?

I have the same Microinverters and while my gateway is reporting that everything is A-OK, I want to check whether I might actually be getting less output than us being reported.

Did you get any response from NEP on this issue? Did they offer you any sort or replacement or compensation?
There response to the problem was to change the 'Alert' temperature setting to 5 degrees above the actual Inverter overtemp shutdown value. If this was a car, they pulled out the "Check Engine' light.

You can pull the 'real-time' (updated every two minutes) data by using the network connection. http://192.168.1.41/nep/realdata/mod/##" use your gateway IP address. 0 for the overall system or 1-n for each panel. It takes a bit of software to evaluate the panels over time to find the shutdown and restart temperatures, but it can be done.
 
Tigo TS4-A-O product at:

https://www.tigoenergy.com/product/ts4-a-o

From Tigo's about page: https://www.tigoenergy.com/about

Tigo was founded in Silicon Valley, California in 2007 to accelerate the adoption of solar energy worldwide.
The company is still headquartered in Silicon Valley and has offices and installations all over the world.



SMA "Headquarters: Niestetal, Germany" and "Founded: 1981" per https://www.sma-america.com/company/about-sma.html
 
There response to the problem was to change the 'Alert' temperature setting to 5 degrees above the actual Inverter overtemp shutdown value. If this was a car, they pulled out the "Check Engine' light.

You can pull the 'real-time' (updated every two minutes) data by using the network connection. http://192.168.1.41/nep/realdata/mod/##" use your gateway IP address. 0 for the overall system or 1-n for each panel. It takes a bit of software to evaluate the panels over time to find the shutdown and restart temperatures, but it can be done.
Very helpful - thanks. I’ll have a look at that and see if I can learn anything from the data.

Is there any way to check or modify the parameter settings in the Microinverters directly?
 
Very helpful - thanks. I’ll have a look at that and see if I can learn anything from the data.

Is there any way to check or modify the parameter settings in the Microinverters directly?
They updated mine remotely so I can't help you with that.
 
There response to the problem was to change the 'Alert' temperature setting to 5 degrees above the actual Inverter overtemp shutdown value. If this was a car, they pulled out the "Check Engine' light.

You can pull the 'real-time' (updated every two minutes) data by using the network connection. http://192.168.1.41/nep/realdata/mod/##" use your gateway IP address. 0 for the overall system or 1-n for each panel. It takes a bit of software to evaluate the panels over time to find the shutdown and restart temperatures, but it can be done.
I’m seeing the raw data you were referring to but am unsure what I am looking for.

DC_voltage seems to be panel voltage (~Vmp)

AC_voltage is grid/output voltage

AC_current is in units I can’t figure out - is that 1/100th Amps?

Temperature is also in units I don’t understand - is that degrees C x 10?

And power is in mW? Is that the number that should change when there is a shutdown event?

any idea what ‘ENG_output’ represents???
 
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