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Grid tied Sol-Ark 15K went off grid again 10/04/24

Oldphile

Solar Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 30, 2023
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807
Location
NH
I went on a 3 week trek to visit my sons. June 23, the Sol-Ark stopped importing and exporting from the grid. My home has been running on solar powered battery since then. The MySolArk app shows both grid lines have appropriate voltage. Sol-Ark recommended a power cycle reset, but not being onsite, I couldn't. I'll try Friday. There was a grid power failure a few days ago, but that didn't jar the inverter back to it's senses. @Carlos_Sol-Ark Image is from 07/03.

1720129657256.png
 
I heard of some others who had cases where their solark parameters changed possibly from the data migration they were doing. Are you able to see your solark settings from the web? I can't see mine right now for some reason.

Because you are saying the solark is showing the grid connection, I'm guessing its a parameter somewhere that is intentionally not using the grid. You want to verify these settings. This is what it would like if you were in front of the unit.
"Grid Sell" checked
"Limited Power to Home" unchecked
"Limited Power to Load" unchecked

You can read more about the other settings as there are a lot but this should be the first ones to check. - https://www.sol-ark.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SK140-0001-002-15K-2P-N-EN-Manual.pdf

1720133780442.png
 
I heard of some others who had cases where their solark parameters changed possibly from the data migration they were doing. Are you able to see your solark settings from the web? I can't see mine right now for some reason.

Because you are saying the solark is showing the grid connection, I'm guessing its a parameter somewhere that is intentionally not using the grid. You want to verify these settings. This is what it would like if you were in front of the unit.
"Grid Sell" checked
"Limited Power to Home" unchecked
"Limited Power to Load" unchecked

You can read more about the other settings as there are a lot but this should be the first ones to check. - https://www.sol-ark.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/SK140-0001-002-15K-2P-N-EN-Manual.pdf

View attachment 226547
I could see my settings from the web until this morning. They were correct every time I checked. Now that I'm home I will check the settings on the LCD screen.
 
I verified the settings on the Sol-Ark screen. Power cycle reset did nothing. Now I noticed that grid frequency is 0 Hz. I can only guess that whatever sensor reads grid frequency has failed. Grid voltage at 0 Hz doesn't make sense.
 
Can you graph frequency and confirm it went to 0Hz concurrent with onset of issue?
Yup. Sorry about the legibility, that's caused by the new App dark theme. Jagged blue line is battery current. Yellow is SOC. Purple is frequency. Green and burgundy are grid voltage. Top grid line is 60 Hz.

1720214754373.png
 
Yup. Sorry about the legibility, that's caused by the new App dark theme. Jagged blue line is battery current. Yellow is SOC. Purple is frequency. Green and burgundy are grid voltage. Top grid line is 60 Hz.

View attachment 226723
The Dark Theme is something that I hate on the Graphs.
Please Please Sol-Ark get rid of the Dark Grey background on the Graphs.
 
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I found the problem. The new MySolArk app screwed up all the grid parameters, both voltage and frequency. Example LV3 was 300 volts. :rolleyes: Note, this occurred 06/23, well after the transfer from PowerView started.

Now I need to dial in the proper times on the Sol-Ark screen. Just like PowerView, the range for time is 0-60 sec. Cannot enter 299 seconds required for utility frequency ride through.

@Carlos_Sol-Ark
 

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Now that I have the grid back, I have a new problem. Previous to losing the grid connection, the batteries would discharge through the night at a rate of about 20 watts. This, no doubt, would be the battery BMS drain. Now, the nighttime drain rate is about 200 watts. I'm assuming that the inverter idle current is now coming from the battery instead of the grid. I will try a power cycle reset and hope that resolves it.
Edit: This is unrelated to the grid loss event. It appears the higher nighttime wattage is from increased load, due to the current heat wave and A/C use. All time slots through the night are set to 100% SOC and 0 watts. There's no reason for it to be drawing from the battery, but it is. Reset did nothing. @Carlos_Sol-Ark
Edit2: Just now verified through the battery App that my first observation was correct.
1720516235102.png
 
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Now I see that turning off TOU just moved the phantom 200 watt load from the battery to the grid. :rolleyes: I submitted a support ticket request this morning.

SolArk073124.png
 
It went off grid again. The Grid reconnect parameters in the Sol-Ark were all messed up. Restoring the values reconnected the Sol-Ark to the grid.

Also The CT sensors were reading L1 instead of L2 and L2 instead of L1. I activated Auto Detect Home Limit Sensors and corrected this.
 
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Just curious about the numbers. Did you happen to take photos of the default Grid settings from the inverter immediately after the Factory Reset?
No photos, but grid values returned to be the same as the other 2 Sol-Arks I monitor.
 
It went off grid again. The Grid reconnect parameters in the Sol-Ark were all messed up. Restoring the values reconnected the Sol-Ark to the grid.

Also The CT sensors were reading L1 instead of L2 and L2 instead of L1. I activated Auto Detect Home Limit Sensors and corrected this.
It's seems you've been more than patient and Solark should send you a replacement unit.
 
It's seems you've been more than patient and Solark should send you a replacement unit.
I think they should reflash the firmware. However, I can't get a response to any support tickets this year. I requested another support ticket last night. I was testing Grid Peak shaving and it doesn't appear to be working. Then the Grid parameter issue resurfaced.

Good thing I have Pytes batteries and not EG4. 🥴 Sol-Ark would probably blame the batteries.
 
Grid outages and anomalies are the number one reason CTs become miscalibrated. Auto-detect home limiter sensors can also be tricky. When CTs reverse polarity incorrectly and TOU SOC indicates the battery should still cover the whole home, the inverter overcompensates sending more battery power pulses on the leg the external CT is reporting grid import power. These pulses result in stepped up voltage attempting to charge a single grid leg, causing a voltage spread between L1 and L2 voltages. This can also interfere w the voltage waveform and potentially messes with the phase angle causing simulated frequency distortion resulting in grid disconnects.

Recommendations before performing auto detect:

- Turn off grid sell (if applicable)
- Switch to limited power to load (resets external CTs to read positive grid import polarity, if external CTs show reverse polarity in Limited Power Power to Load, you have them installed wrong)
- non-backup loads must be demanding some power
- Lower TOU battery power to only cover a portion of the load (not full load, this keeps CTs showing grid import power, helps build a reference point for CT calibration)
- Then switch back to limited power to home when ready and quickly run Auto Detect Home Limiter sensors

Once complete and observe if whole home load is greater than critical load alone. Inverter should still say some grid power being imported if whole home loads are greater than the battery power in the TOU setting

Then revert your TOU settings back to normal and enable grid sell (if applicable if allowed to backfeed).

Assuming CTs are in the correct location facing the correct direction, if it’s still not working (assuming it worked before), perform factory reset.

Note: performing auto-detect too many times in a row can scramble memory registers. Factory reset is generally used to correct this.
 
Grid outages and anomalies are the number one reason CTs become miscalibrated. Auto-detect home limiter sensors can also be tricky. When CTs reverse polarity incorrectly and TOU SOC indicates the battery should still cover the whole home, the inverter overcompensates sending more battery power pulses on the leg the external CT is reporting grid import power. These pulses result in stepped up voltage attempting to charge a single grid leg, causing a voltage spread between L1 and L2 voltages. This can also interfere w the voltage waveform and potentially messes with the phase angle causing simulated frequency distortion resulting in grid disconnects.

Recommendations before performing auto detect:

- Turn off grid sell (if applicable)
- Switch to limited power to load (resets external CTs to read positive grid import polarity, if external CTs show reverse polarity in Limited Power Power to Load, you have them installed wrong)
- non-backup loads must be demanding some power
- Lower TOU battery power to only cover a portion of the load (not full load, this keeps CTs showing grid import power, helps build a reference point for CT calibration)
- Then switch back to limited power to home when ready and quickly run Auto Detect Home Limiter sensors

Once complete and observe if whole home load is greater than critical load alone. Inverter should still say some grid power being imported if whole home loads are greater than the battery power in the TOU setting

Then revert your TOU settings back to normal and enable grid sell (if applicable if allowed to backfeed).

Assuming CTs are in the correct location facing the correct direction, if it’s still not working (assuming it worked before), perform factory reset.

Note: performing auto-detect too many times in a row can scramble memory registers. Factory reset is generally used to correct this.
My configuration is whole home backup. All loads are on the load terminals.
 
Grid outages and anomalies are the number one reason CTs become miscalibrated. Auto-detect home limiter sensors can also be tricky. When CTs reverse polarity incorrectly and TOU SOC indicates the battery should still cover the whole home, the inverter overcompensates sending more battery power pulses on the leg the external CT is reporting grid import power. These pulses result in stepped up voltage attempting to charge a single grid leg, causing a voltage spread between L1 and L2 voltages. This can also interfere w the voltage waveform and potentially messes with the phase angle causing simulated frequency distortion resulting in grid disconnects.

Recommendations before performing auto detect:

- Turn off grid sell (if applicable)
- Switch to limited power to load (resets external CTs to read positive grid import polarity, if external CTs show reverse polarity in Limited Power Power to Load, you have them installed wrong)
- non-backup loads must be demanding some power
- Lower TOU battery power to only cover a portion of the load (not full load, this keeps CTs showing grid import power, helps build a reference point for CT calibration)
- Then switch back to limited power to home when ready and quickly run Auto Detect Home Limiter sensors

Once complete and observe if whole home load is greater than critical load alone. Inverter should still say some grid power being imported if whole home loads are greater than the battery power in the TOU setting

Then revert your TOU settings back to normal and enable grid sell (if applicable if allowed to backfeed).

Assuming CTs are in the correct location facing the correct direction, if it’s still not working (assuming it worked before), perform factory reset.

Note: performing auto-detect too many times in a row can scramble memory registers. Factory reset is generally used to correct this.
Did you get the issue resolved?
 

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