Generac to Sol-Ark 15kw

[JamesB]

So i've contacted a few electricians and oddly enough, nobody is willing to work on connecting my 16Kw Generac Guardian to my Sol-ark 15k inverter. While I had my solar panels put on the roof, I had the generator moved from an ATS to the GEN input of the inverter. After that, the project was pretty much abandoned. So, I decided to give it a whirl myself. It appears the main connections were made based on the sol-ark schematic. I found some posts on digi-keys and ordered a pair to put into the Molex plug. Connected the pins that needed to connecting(j1-10 and (J2-18) and gave her a shot. I was happy to hear the generator exercise as expected.

The bad news is, I never see any power being consumed from the generator. It just runs. The 2 wire start is obviously working. On the inverter, I see 241 v on the line, no signal (Hz) or wattage. Any idea what I could check next? The grid is still available on the grid input if that matters. I do not have any way of disconnecting the grid AC at this point to test. waiting for a 200A disconnect.

I realize from a ton of research that my battery in the generator will die since the internal charger is currently bypassed. I'll tackle that next assuming I can ever get this thing to send power to the inverter.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you,
James B

 

[DPC]

As soon as someone says generac to me I decline working on it myself
It’s not a unique problem to generac I just like picking on them because I was Onan trained
A lot of guys are scared to touch anything modern these days because they don’t know what will happen will they be on the hook if it blows up ect

Once you touch them they become unpredictable.
Best to just keep them as the light duty short and interval back up machines they are and burden them with trying to charge batteries

 

[Browse]

I would imagine that the Sol-Ark is ignoring the GEN input since it sees power from the grid. Have you measured the voltage at the Gen input to the inverter? If there's voltage present, there might be an inverter setting you need to change to set gen priority over grid.

 

[629658]

If you have the Generac two wire start issues solved I’m also betting you won’t see the SA use the gen port unless you’re off grid. I guess you could pull your meter to test.

 

[DPC]

Stupid question

What controls all this this?
Can you post some prints?

I’ve never seen anything line this so I’m curious

 

[Danke]

What is the ATS connected to? Or what was it connected to? Is there a reason to not have generator on the ATS instead of the GEN port of the 15K?

 

[Think About It]

You probably haven't wired anything incorrectly. I've spoken about this endlessly inother threads. The generator will not start unless you have a TOU slot set with the charge box checked and the Gen charge box checked. The problem with this logic is that I don't know what time of day my power is going to go out so I can't program a TOU for utility power failure. Additionally that would break my other TOU settings.

The good news is that Sol-Ark has committed to making a software change but it will not be out until the end of this year.

The only option that I've been given is when you get the notification that your grid is down from power view, you log into powerview and can do one of two things. 1) disable the TOU. 2) use the Gen Force which will start the generator and override the TOU settings.

When I wired my inverter, I removed the generator wires from my generac ATS and moved them to the gen port on my inverter. Then I wired the load from the inverter to the ATS. I used Ilsco KUP-L-Taps on my utility feed and tied the tap into the grid port on the inverter. I removed the spade connectors from the coil wires in the ATS to make it a manual switch. I disconnected the common, +12 and transfer wires and converted them to two wire start. I left the N1 N2 and T1 wires in place as they are fused in the transfer switch and they provide battery charging, utility sense, and power to the oil and battery heaters.

With this configuration, not only can I bypass the Sol-Ark if it needs to be removed for maintenance, but I could remove my inverter entirely and restore my original wiring with little to no effort.

 

[Danke]

You probably haven't wired anything incorrectly. I've spoken about this endlessly inother threads. The generator will not start unless you have a TOU slot set with the charge box checked and the Gen charge box checked. The problem with this logic is that I don't know what time of day my power is going to go out so I can't program a TOU for utility power failure. Additionally that would break my other TOU settings.

The good news is that Sol-Ark has committed to making a software change but it will not be out until the end of this year.

The only option that I've been given is when you get the notification that your grid is down from power view, you log into powerview and can do one of two things. 1) disable the TOU. 2) use the Gen Force which will start the generator and override the TOU settings.

When I wired my inverter, I removed the generator wires from my generac ATS and moved them to the gen port on my inverter. Then I wired the load from the inverter to the ATS. I used Ilsco KUP-L-Taps on my utility feed and tied the tap into the grid port on the inverter. I removed the spade connectors from the coil wires in the ATS to make it a manual switch. I disconnected the common, +12 and transfer wires and converted them to two wire start. I left the N1 N2 and T1 wires in place as they are fused in the transfer switch and they provide battery charging, utility sense, and power to the oil and battery heaters.

With this configuration, not only can I bypass the Sol-Ark if it needs to be removed for maintenance, but I could remove my inverter entirely and restore my original wiring with little to no effort.

You have Generac ATS? What are the disadvantages leaving the connection of the generator to that?

 

[JamesB]

I would imagine that the Sol-Ark is ignoring the GEN input since it sees power from the grid. Have you measured the voltage at the Gen input to the inverter? If there's voltage present, there might be an inverter setting you need to change to set gen priority over grid.

I was wondering the same thing. Not enough experience to know if that was possible though.

 

[Think About It]

You have Generac ATS? What are the disadvantages leaving the connection of the generator to that?

None, except that I wanted to have a bypass transfer switch to be able to remove the solar system entirely. I didn't have the real estate to install a manual bypass switch so I repurposed the generac ATS.

What your suggesting is to keep the generator and the utility ahead of the inverter. The inverter would not know whether the power was coming from the generator or the utility. Therefore you couldn't program the inverter to act differently on generator versus grid.

 

[JamesB]

You have Generac ATS? What are the disadvantages leaving the connection of the generator to that?

At this point, I'm not even sure. I've talked to a few electricians and they all have had something different to say. Initially, I thought the ATS worked, but then found the electrician tapped in to the util in side of the ATS. I realized the generator would cycle on, but would just sit there burning propane since the load side (out) was connected directly to util lines.

 

[JamesB]

Stupid question

What controls all this this?
Can you post some prints?

I’ve never seen anything line this so I’m curious

 

[Think About It]

At this point, I'm not even sure. I've talked to a few electricians and they all have had something different to say. Initially, I thought the ATS worked, but then found the electrician tapped in to the util in side of the ATS. I realized the generator would cycle on, but would just sit there burning propane since the load side (out) was connected directly to util lines.

Perhaps you can provide a wiring diagram.

 

[JamesB]

You probably haven't wired anything incorrectly. I've spoken about this endlessly inother threads. The generator will not start unless you have a TOU slot set with the charge box checked and the Gen charge box checked. The problem with this logic is that I don't know what time of day my power is going to go out so I can't program a TOU for utility power failure. Additionally that would break my other TOU settings.

The good news is that Sol-Ark has committed to making a software change but it will not be out until the end of this year.

The only option that I've been given is when you get the notification that your grid is down from power view, you log into powerview and can do one of two things. 1) disable the TOU. 2) use the Gen Force which will start the generator and override the TOU settings.

When I wired my inverter, I removed the generator wires from my generac ATS and moved them to the gen port on my inverter. Then I wired the load from the inverter to the ATS. I used Ilsco KUP-L-Taps on my utility feed and tied the tap into the grid port on the inverter. I removed the spade connectors from the coil wires in the ATS to make it a manual switch. I disconnected the common, +12 and transfer wires and converted them to two wire start. I left the N1 N2 and T1 wires in place as they are fused in the transfer switch and they provide battery charging, utility sense, and power to the oil and battery heaters.

With this configuration, not only can I bypass the Sol-Ark if it needs to be removed for maintenance, but I could remove my inverter entirely and restore my original wiring with little to no effort.

I do use TOU settings to limit the amount of battery I consume before shutting them down. During spring through fall months, I'm hoping the PV power generated will let me consume and recharge the batteries daily. During winter months, I can't recharge them fast enough. I also enabled the Gen Charge option.. When the battery hits x%, the generator doesn't do fire up unless I do a Gen Force command.

 

[Think About It]

I do use TOU settings to limit the amount of battery I consume before shutting them down. During spring through fall months, I'm hoping the PV power generated will let me consume and recharge the batteries daily. During winter months, I can't recharge them fast enough.

I have the same use case as you. It looks like your wired correctly, except that I don't see a main disconnect ahead of the inverter. I also like to have a bypass switch so that the solar can be completely removed.

In any case, just log into power view and turn on Gen Force. Your generator should start and it should power your loads and charge your battery.

 

[JamesB]

I have the same use case as you. It looks like your wired correctly, except that I don't see a main disconnect ahead of the inverter. I also like to have a bypass switch so that the solar can be completely removed.

In any case, just log into power view and turn on Gen Force. Your generator should start and it should power your loads and charge your battery.

If I had done it myself, it would be set up like yours. Makes a ton of sense to be able to bypass the solar and disco the util at will. So you are assuming when util goes down, the generator will become a viable source to the inverter? Did you solve the trickle charge problem to the genset battery? Is it really just run a fused single 120v hot wire to the T1 input?

 

[Think About It]

Is it really just run a fused single 120v hot wire to the T1 input?

Yes, That's the other nice thing about using your existing transfer switch is that the fuses for N1, N2 and t1 are in the switch so you don't have to put in a separate breaker. They have fuses in the switch. I believe the oil and battery heater N1 and N2. Not 100% sure though.

Again ,until the new software comes out you're going to have to log in and manually start or set up your TOU to use the generator.

 

[John Frum]

Please post picture(s) so we can map the design to the implementation.

 

[JamesB]

Planning on grabbing a new 15 A breaker for the box and running a 10A inline fuse back to the N! port. Hopefully that'll solve both. I did notice all three fuses sitting in the Generac ATS.

Are you saying you have util and gen and you CAN utilize generator power? Or is that when the grid is down or disconnected?

 

[John Frum]

Are you saying you have util and gen and you CAN utilize generator power?

@JamesB who are you asking?