Growatt Install gone wrong 6KW Hybrid

[Silverhill]

Hi,

Newbie to the forum, so please be gentle with me.

I had a Solar River Inverter with a Sofar Me3000sp battery controller with 9 x 265 w panels and 4 x 330w w panels and 4 x 3.5 KW Pylontech. . (9 x 265w Astronenergy and 4 x 330w JA solar mono half cell). All working lovely

Decided that the inverter is old and could go any minute so decided to get an engineer to add 7 more 400w panels and upgrade to a hybrid.

He recommended a Growatt 6kw hybrid.

Came today and fitted... long story short - apparently my old array is causing the new Growatt hybrid to malfunction something to do with resistance of the older panels on the old string. The new 7 panels just fitted work fine on their string.

The thing is everything worked perfect with my Solar river inverter, so why now would they not work with the Growatt.

The Engineer is a nice guy, so its not that i think he's ripping me off or anything, but I cant get my head around why it would work before but not now?

He reckons there is degradation on the panels causing issues and cant come back for a week to check.

So as you can tell Im a bit miffed.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

 

[MichaelK]

I think what he is actually talking about is different voltages being presented to the inverter by each of the different strings of panels you have. Alternatively he might be talking about the total number of amps being fed into each solar input circuit? Does your growatt have two?

This can be troubleshooted more thoroughly if you can give us the specifications of each panel and the number of series strings you are working with.

 

[Silverhill]

I added the details of the panels into the post above. He definitely used the word resistance and degradation of panels.

He said on his return, he will have to check panels individually.

But why would they work perfect prior to the growatt hybrid with 2 string inputs.

 

[Silverhill]

(9 x 265w Astronenergy and 4 x 330w JA solar mono half cell) on string 2 and the new 7 x 400w on string 1

 

[MichaelK]

(9 x 265w Astronenergy and 4 x 330w JA solar mono half cell) on string 2 and the new 7 x 400w on string 1

That's not what I'm talking about. What is the Imp, Isc, Vmp and Voc of the Astronergy panels, vs the same parameters of the JA panels. How is each string of panels created? Are all the 9 Astronergy panels one string, or are they wired 3S3P? These details are what's important here.

 

[Silverhill]

Of that I have no idea, I did not install. I paid a different engineer to fit, I'm afraid.

 

[Silverhill]

All I can tell you is that all 9 astron were installed first, then 4 x ja added at a later date, but all on the same string.

 

[MichaelK]

If you go look at the back of any of your panels you'll see a stick-on label that looks like this. It has all the relevent information.

 

[Silverhill]

Easier said then done when they're are on my roof, perhaps Google is my friend on this.

 

[kromc5]

I found out growatt inverters are sensative with the incoming voltage. I was told to wire only two panels with gave me 92v. The growatt considered that to be unstable and would shutdown constantly. What is you voltage coming in to the inverter?

 

[kromc5]

Not sure, how would I tell, gotta be honest, once the engineer said his piece, I've just had my head in my hands with frustration.... I also forgot ever panel has a micro optimiser.

You would need a volt meter and check the voltage coming into the pv inputs. I have since wired them by 3 which is 132v and now functions perfectly. Do you know if yours is a 150v or 250v?

 

[Silverhill]

Think just writing this post has made me realise how little I really know about my set up.

 

[Silverhill]

So should I just meter the two wires from the old string connected to the pv panels

 

[Rudefinger]

Some Growwatts have a stupidly low voltage limit on the solar input others have a high minimum. Google the model and check the pv voltages. It might just be a matter of re-arranging the panels to get the right voltages and amps.

SPH 6000 specs below (is this yours?)



I see there is a start voltage of 150V. Your strings of 4 may be having trouble reaching this?