Growatt spf Not Seeing PV In The Morning

[shopman]

Thought I'd post a followup here. After running around in circles with Signature Solar tech support and getting nowhere, I contacted Growatt directly. Within a day they sent me a link to a google drive with updated firmware that supposedly fixes this issue of intermittent generation at sunrise. I flashed the inverter today so after tropical storm Kay leaves us and the sun returns, I'll let you know if there are any further issues. Growatt USA is very helpful and I suggest people go straight to the source for support vs dealing with SS until they get their act together.

 

[brainbyte]

His/her issue appears to be during peak production. Mine just doesn't want to get out of bed in the mornings.

Same problem here, just that with two other/different inverter models, from two different producers --> MPP Solar PIP6048MT 6kW, the one that I have now installed, and the previous inverter from Powland 5kW, that I have replaced. In the morning, they do not see the real PV panels voltage & wattage, even if I have the battery 100% charged, and I know for sure that the panels produce enough to cover my current home loads/appliances. Which are below 250Watts during the night and until the early morning. I have to cycle at least once or twice before the MPPT kicks in as it should, and the voltage/wattage production is displayed properly. I even tried to "combine" different settings from prog. 2 and prog. 16, which are the source for powering the loads, and the charger source priority, respectively. Nothing appears to be working.

 

[reddv1]

Thought I'd post a followup here. After running around in circles with Signature Solar tech support and getting nowhere, I contacted Growatt directly. Within a day they sent me a link to a google drive with updated firmware that supposedly fixes this issue of intermittent generation at sunrise. I flashed the inverter today so after tropical storm Kay leaves us and the sun returns, I'll let you know if there are any further issues. Growatt USA is very helpful and I suggest people go straight to the source for support vs dealing with SS until they get their act together.

Any update?

 

[MT_OffGrid]

After finally getting an answer on safely wiring the Growatt spf6000t dvm-us to the grid, I was ready to finish installing this unit in the shop, and now a new issue arises. At 8am this morning, as most mornings, I was checking in with Solar Assistant and noticed no pv production. By 8am the system should be producing around ~1.5k. A quick trip to the shop confirmed no pv production and batteries at 54%. The solar panel icon on the Growatt lcd display was not lit. Pv voltage to the Growatt measured 97v. Cycled pv breakers. No change. Had to turn the Growatt off, wait for it to power down, and restart. Waited till it fully rebooted and turned on the pv breakers. It then recognized the pv input and began charging the batteries. This unit has been up and running 100% off grid since January with no issues ... other than questions caused by a severely lacking manual concerning wiring to the grid and n-g bonding. Nothing in the system has been changed, settings or otherwise.

My search'fu isn't that great as I found a few threads pertaining to the issue but no resolution.

I have the exact same problem. I have a quick disconnect from batteries to the inverters and I cut the power for 10 seconds, restart the inverters and it starts charging again. I do not want to do this every morning.

 

[Kornbread]

Mine appears to have fixed itself. No problem with it not waking with the morning sunshine since that singular issue.

 

[shopman]

Any update?

After installing the new firmware I've had no further problems. The firmware update also corrected several items that could not be changed, or would not appear correctly in Solar Assistant. Very pleased so far with Growatt support.

 

[Albrntt]

After installing the new firmware I've had no further problems. The firmware update also corrected several items that could not be changed, or would not appear correctly in Solar Assistant. Very pleased so far with Growatt support.

Thanks for the follow up. What firmware versions are you running after the update?

 

[shopman]

Thanks for the follow up. What firmware versions are you running after the update?

Firmware version 511.03. Secondary firmware version 058.01.

 

[iMakerShop]

Pro Tip (TM) : if you use Solar Assistant, you can get the SCCs to start working by changing the cutoff voltage settings by editing the inverter settings in the configuration tab and click save. Apparently programming a new value causes the SCC to start working. I keep my cutoff set to 56.4 but when the SCC fails to start, I change it to 56.5 or 56.3 to get it working. I then set it back to 54.6 after confirming the MPPTs are producing power. The avoids having to shit down the inverter (and power to your loads).

 

[Kornbread]

I just let the battery and SCC do their thing. Never touched the settings.

 

[Kornbread]

It's baaaaaaaaaaaack. Didn't start up with the sunshine and I lost a whole day of power while the batteries are down to 35%.

@shopman It's been a couple months since the reflash, any problems, and any problems in the process of reflashing?

 

[shopman]

It's baaaaaaaaaaaack. Didn't start up with the sunshine and I lost a whole day of power while the batteries are down to 35%.

@shopman It's been a couple months since the reflash, any problems, and any problems in the process of reflashing?

Still working fine. Email Growatt America and they will send you a link where you can download the firmware along with a link to a Signature Solar video that explains how to flash it. Flashing went without any errors and took less than 5 minutes.

 

[J.P.]

It's baaaaaaaaaaaack. Didn't start up with the sunshine and I lost a whole day of power while the batteries are down to 35%.

@shopman It's been a couple months since the reflash, any problems, and any problems in the process of reflashing?

Yes, I have the same problem with my Growatt 12kw SPF 12k DVM MPV. It will work fine for several months and then out of the blue it will just not see the PV one morning and start charging. this is the third or forth time it has happened over the past year or so. I think I will see if there is a firmware update and try that.

 

[bluago2]

I've got the same problem. The inverters don't even recognize the existence of solar panels in the morning until I completely disconnect and reconnect power, and then everything works perfectly.

 

[Mattb4]

I've got the same problem. The inverters don't even recognize the existence of solar panels in the morning until I completely disconnect and reconnect power, and then everything works perfectly.

Might want to watch your max boost voltage. It is possible that it can temporarily exceed the AIO's battery over voltage protection limit during the final stages of charging. On my unit the voltage amount is not mentioned but it does say in the manual that exceeding it will cause both PV and Mains to stop charging.

I believe I experienced this when I had the boost setting for my EAsun set at 28.8v (I did witness voltage spikes up over 30v briefly) for my 24v setup. I also had to do a complete disconnect and reconnect. But since I dropped my Boost voltage down to 28.4V I no longer experience the issue.

Not sure if that helps anyone.

 

[Kornbread]

Might want to watch your max boost voltage. It is possible that it can temporarily exceed the AIO's battery over voltage protection limit during the final stages of charging. On my unit the voltage amount is not mentioned but it does say in the manual that exceeding it will cause both PV and Mains to stop charging.

I believe I experienced this when I had the boost setting for my EAsun set at 28.8v (I did witness voltage spikes up over 30v briefly) for my 24v setup. I also had to do a complete disconnect and reconnect. But since I dropped my Boost voltage down to 28.4V I no longer experience the issue.

Not sure if that helps anyone.

Would you mind explaining this a bit further? Not discounting you, just trying to understand.

 

[Mattb4]

Would you mind explaining this a bit further? Not discounting you, just trying to understand.

There are protection events for the inverters covered in the manual. One of them is Battery over voltage protection. It specifically says that both PV and utility charging ceases if it is triggered. It does not say if it resets or if you need to disconnect the inverter to get a reset to happen.

So just for the sake of preventing it I reduced my Boost voltage for lithium batteries just a bit. For me it seems to have worked.

 

[Kornbread]

There are protection events for the inverters covered in the manual. One of them is Battery over voltage protection. It specifically says that both PV and utility charging ceases if it is triggered. It does not say if it resets or if you need to disconnect the inverter to get a reset to happen.

So just for the sake of preventing it I reduced my Boost voltage for lithium batteries just a bit. For me it seems to have worked.

Thinking about this ... the Eg4 LiFePower4 battery's bms does try and take the batteries up to 57volts. I'll look back through SolarAssistant's history and look for this.

 

[timselectric]

Thinking about this ... the Eg4 LiFePower4 battery's bms does try and take the batteries up to 57volts. I'll look back through SolarAssistant's history and look for this.

A good indicator is DC bus voltage.
When solar voltage is high.(sunny with minimal load)
And battery voltage is above around 56.5v.
DC bus voltage can easily climb too high.

 

[Kornbread]

This is the first occurrence of PV no start. On 7/22 the batteries were full by ~14:00 and PV followed loads. PV failed to start early the next morning. You can see where I manually reset the inverter around 10am on the 23rd.



Here is the battery voltage on 7/22&7/23. The bms tries to fill the batteries to the limit with +57v on the 22nd, and the aio fails to strat PV charging the next morning. Maybe there is something to the high voltage triggering something in the aio.