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Growatt SPF 5000ES stuck in Grid Bypass mode - have I done something dumb?

pugwash

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We live on Bonaire an island near Aruba, it has expensive electricity, lots of sun and a Dutch run grid system. The AC to our house is 3 phase 127V 50Hz.

After much research a Growatt SPF 5000ES seemed perfect to power a subset of our 230V 50Hz appliances in a batteryless configuration.

The panels, inverter etc were purchased in the USA and shipped to Bonaire. A local registered electrician with solar experience installed the system for us. Once we removed the bonding screw it appeared to work OK. We programmed it to use PV first then AC from the grid. The PV array generates plenty of power that we can measure using a clamp meter. We were satisfied and very happy.

A month later we received our first utility bill - no savings. We did some measurements. It appears that the inverter is not using the PV power and simply passing through AC from the grid to match the attached load. ie its "stuck" in bypass mode. This is also what we see on the display and on remote monitoring using the dongle.

Interestingly, when the AC input is turned off, the inverter powers the load with PV OK, but as soon as AC is restored it is 100% passthrough.

Having read lots of threads about grounding issues with this inverter do I need to change the installation in any way to help the inverter to work correctly?

I have attached my home made diagram of the installation.

any advice much appreciated

phil


Copy of PV38A solar TT.jpg
 

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What are your settings for your setting 01, Output Source Priority? Is it SOL, Utl, SbU or SUb? I'm assuming it is not Utl. You say you have no battery connected so I'm not sure what happens in some of those modes.
 
Hi, Thanks for helping - its set to SUB - and yes there is no battery connected
 
When you cycle through your display on your Growatt, what does it show for the solar input values for voltage, amps, watts, etc.? What does it show on the Growatt web site dashboard in the block labeled "Solar" for Today and Total? Mine is shown below for tonight. I didn't have solar connected today or it would have shown something. If you can post this for your system, it might be helpful. You might want to not include the part that shows your unit serial number (next to Input/Search Number).
growatt-dashboard-example.PNG
 
Also, I assume you have shut down your inverter completely to reboot it at some point. I had mine get stuck one time and that seemed to clear it. I had been using the Growatt web site tool to change some settings on it and I think I changed the wrong thing. The restart cleared that.
 
I think your supply may be confusing the inverter and that has thrown it into bypass mode. 127v x2 is 254v which would be on the high side, but if those 2 phases are 120 degrees out, it would be more like 220v. I have never seen 3 phase where each is 120 ish, most odd.
I think you might be better served with 3 LV6548 type units.
 
thanks all - here is he relevant growatt site output - looks like 2x 127v is resulting in 222 OK - I believe the phases are 120 - once I get back on site I will try a reboot



Image 2022-07-07 at 2.45 PM.jpeg
 
If you scroll down on that Growatt dashboard page you posted above, there is another section with more details for your device. There is a circle on the right side that says "History Data" below it. If you click on that, you can see very detailed information for the state of your device and the power going different places through it. You can choose different dates and also download the data. I would suggest you look at that as well.
 
Thanks Ron, Never found this "history data" treasure trove before - I appreciate the help.

Does it look right to you? What is the meaning of iChargePV1?

Screen Shot 2022-07-13 at 3.48.46 PM.png
 
Well, that iChargePV1 is probably the interesting part. That says solar energy ("i" means current in amps) is going into your PV input from your panels and going somewhere as shown in your dashboard picture. If you keep scrolling to the right in that data, you might see some additional clues to your situation. It looks to me like 5.7 kWh from your solar went into charging your batteries so it looks like that part of your system is working. You said previously that you have no battery connected? So, where is this solar energy going if not to the load?
 
If you scroll down on that Growatt dashboard page you posted above, there is another section with more details for your device. There is a circle on the right side that says "History Data" below it. If you click on that, you can see very detailed information for the state of your device and the power going different places through it. You can choose different dates and also download the data. I would suggest you look at that as well.
I just checked this and it seems history data is not available anymore in the latest web dashboard.
 

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