Need help with this phase of build (Growatt 5000 k with transformm

[Dskvid]

Hello this project started late August, I had the panels ground mounted for a couple of weeks but just getting started on this. So I have a couple of questions and please point out all many things I’m doing wrong. But the main reason I am currently posting is because I’m getting voltage on the Ground in the load box. I am not currently grounded to house. I have been this doing phases, at this point I have 220 volts/ 2K watts of solar outside, batteries up and talking to inverter. The batteries are being charged from 50 ish perecent for the 1st time but inverter is switched off and as you can see no loads on it yet. I have seen many all the videos I could find about wiring the transformer, currently doing this method of it’s own 50 amp breaker. I would assume that the voltage is coming from the ground wire I have connected from the inverter. Eventually I will adding a critical load panel but for know I want to run this as a power backup to start. I will adding a 20 amp outlet here at the inverter.

1- So how do I get rid of voltage so touching the panel is safe? Disconnect ground from the inverter? I plan to pulll power back over for pass through eventually. If I run a ground wire from main house panel to here would that solve this for now?

2- the Growatt 5000 is switched off but is seeing Solar and says it’s charging my batteries but is it charging them at the same rate as if the inverter was turned on? I ask because I have only seen like a 3 percent raise in and they have been under charge for a couple of hours now. I know there are lots of factors involved.

Thanks for reading and the help.

 

[Samsonite801]

Could you post a picture/diagram showing your present wiring scheme? I am having trouble visualizing what you're describing from the description. There should never be voltage on the chassis of the solar panel array at any rate...

 

[Dskvid]

Could you post a picture/diagram showing your present wiring scheme? I am having trouble visualizing what you're describing from the description. There should never be voltage on the chassis of the solar panel array at any rate...

 

[Dskvid]

Sorry for the confusion. I have voltage on the little sub panel next to the inverter not the solar array structure. This box is a Eaton 8 space box with main lugs and didn't come with a separate Grounding bar so I added one. I powered up it yesterday to checked the voltage to see if the A/T was working and creating balanced 120 on L1 and L2 and it it is. The problem is if I touch the load center housing I feel electricity on it. That's what I am trying to solve at the moment.

I want to run this a independent backup for a little while, then add in power from the grid with a 40 amp breaker from main house panel for pass through power when batteries are depleted. At that time the inverter will be grounded to House panel. The final goal is to add a new Critical loads panel and move all my 120 loads and 240 Well pump and Water Heater to it. I will probably add a inner-locking kit so I can bypass the solar system if needed.

 

[BartHenry]

Hello this project started late August, I had the panels ground mounted for a couple of weeks but just getting started on this. So I have a couple of questions and please point out all many things I’m doing wrong. But the main reason I am currently posting is because I’m getting voltage on the Ground in the load box. I am not currently grounded to house. I have been this doing phases, at this point I have 220 volts/ 2K watts of solar outside, batteries up and talking to inverter. The batteries are being charged from 50 ish perecent for the 1st time but inverter is switched off and as you can see no loads on it yet. I have seen many all the videos I could find about wiring the transformer, currently doing this method of it’s own 50 amp breaker. I would assume that the voltage is coming from the ground wire I have connected from the inverter. Eventually I will adding a critical load panel but for know I want to run this as a power backup to start. I will adding a 20 amp outlet here at the inverter.

1- So how do I get rid of voltage so touching the panel is safe? Disconnect ground from the inverter? I plan to pulll power back over for pass through eventually. If I run a ground wire from main house panel to here would that solve this for now?

2- the Growatt 5000 is switched off but is seeing Solar and says it’s charging my batteries but is it charging them at the same rate as if the inverter was turned on? I ask because I have only seen like a 3 percent raise in and they have been under charge for a couple of hours now. I know there are lots of factors involved.

Thanks for reading and the help.

run all your grounds ( inverter, transformer and breaker box, back to your main panel ground.

 

[Samsonite801]

Also going forward (since you want to tie into your AC grid feed), have you read these threads?

Safe Grid Use of the 5000ES and transformer

UPDATED: Issue #1: neutral-ground bonding, we have had these units ship under the American version, The PCB is not the same, some others here show removing the screw bond, but then find that the board still has a conductor trace that leaks to ground. This is why you need to buy these from an...

diysolarforum.com

and:

Growatt 5kW ES + Mid-Point Transformer explained but not AC input from grid

Signature Solar has a nice video " Growatt 5kw ES + Mid-point Transformer explained"; however, the video is for a setup with solar/battery. Can anybody explain how to connect the utility to the AC input of the inverter? Is it L1 and L2 to L and N of the inverter AC input(240 volts)? What...

diysolarforum.com

Bonus thread:

Design Review - Growatt SPF 5000 ES Grid Backup & Neutral Bonding

This seems to be a very popular setup, but thus far, nobody seems to have cracked the DaVinci code of safely using a Growatt SPF 5000 ES with a SEAUTO-TX-5000 Auto-Transformer and using the AC input of the Growatt in a 'utility first' configuration. Signature Solar has posted a schematic that...

diysolarforum.com

Just to help get familiar with the caveats involved with auto-transformer, N-G bond, and handling neutral...

 

[Dskvid]

Thanks for the quick replies. I will check those out. I will only be receiving power from the grid, not sell back.
I also may have figured out why I got a may have felt the power off the box. Today I turned it on but did not feel anything when I touched the box but I still meter some voltage on the ground. I thought what was different the remember I wasn’t wearing any shoes yesterday so I was grounded. Electricity is Fun.

 

[Samsonite801]

run all your grounds ( inverter, transformer and breaker box, back to your main panel ground.

The OP needs to understand about where the N-G bond for the power source is located. If the inverter is providing N-G bond while turned on, then only the Growatt should be grounded to the main panel ground as if it were an appliance (as it is the active power source for its sub-circuits), where the sub-circuits, meaning the sub panel and the auto-transformer should be grounded to the inverter where its N-G bond is located.

But there is more to it than that. Some people will break the N-G bonding in the inverter to make it be somewhere else. NEC says you should only have one N-G bond for all of a power source's sub circuits (closest to the power source as possible). Then when bypassing the inverter, you want to break that N-G bond (many inverters do this automatically when in bypass), then those sub-circuits will be N-G bonded upstream by the main power panel.

I don't remember what was the reason why people would remove the N-G bond screw in the Growatts now (it's a bit foggy since I've read those threads quite some time ago), but it might've had something to do with the auto-transformers maybe bonding N-G..

I'm just saying, please go read those threads I posted above to make sure the OP fully understands the NEC rules, and safety requirements involved in how grounding and N-G bonds work. Neutral and ground should be separate for the entire runs from the appliances back to the power source until the point where a single N-G bond is made. And in bypass, we don't want the auto-transformer bridged to the power company transformer (in parallel), must be fully bypassed, or it can get hot trying to balance out all the neighbor's imbalances.

I never was a huge fan of using the auto-transformer method in building a split-phase (grid-connected) system in the USA, I did read the threads, but never got too involved with all the details about setting one up, since there was a risk of over-volting household appliances under some fault circumstances.

 

[Dskvid]

The OP needs to understand about where the N-G bond for the power source is located. If the inverter is providing N-G bond while turned on, then only the Growatt should be grounded to the main panel ground as if it were an appliance (as it is the active power source for its sub-circuits), where the sub-circuits, meaning the sub panel and the auto-transformer should be grounded to the inverter where its N-G bond is located.

But there is more to it than that. Some people will break the N-G bonding in the inverter to make it be somewhere else. NEC says you should only have one N-G bond for all of a power source's sub circuits (closest to the power source as possible). Then when bypassing the inverter, you want to break that N-G bond (many inverters do this automatically when in bypass), then those sub-circuits will be N-G bonded upstream by the main power panel.

I don't remember what was the reason why people would remove the N-G bond screw in the Growatts now (it's a bit foggy since I've read those threads quite some time ago), but it might've had something to do with the auto-transformers maybe bonding N-G..

I'm just saying, please go read those threads I posted above to make sure the OP fully understands the NEC rules, and safety requirements involved in how grounding and N-G bonds work. Neutral and ground should be separate for the entire runs from the appliances back to the power source until the point where a single N-G bond is made. And in bypass, we don't want the auto-transformer bridged to the power company transformer (in parallel), must be fully bypassed, or it can get hot trying to balance out all the neighbor's imbalances.

I never was a huge fan of using the auto-transformer method in building a split-phase (grid-connected) system in the USA, I did read the threads, but never got too involved with all the details about setting one up, since there was a risk of over-volting household appliances under some fault circumstances.

I believe they remove that N-G screw inside the inventer when they run these in a series, however this was bought from Sig. Solar and is the US version so that is not in use internally i believe.

 

[Dskvid]

The OP needs to understand about where the N-G bond for the power source is located. If the inverter is providing N-G bond while turned on, then only the Growatt should be grounded to the main panel ground as if it were an appliance (as it is the active power source for its sub-circuits), where the sub-circuits, meaning the sub panel and the auto-transformer should be grounded to the inverter where its N-G bond is located.

But there is more to it than that. Some people will break the N-G bonding in the inverter to make it be somewhere else. NEC says you should only have one N-G bond for all of a power source's sub circuits (closest to the power source as possible). Then when bypassing the inverter, you want to break that N-G bond (many inverters do this automatically when in bypass), then those sub-circuits will be N-G bonded upstream by the main power panel.

I don't remember what was the reason why people would remove the N-G bond screw in the Growatts now (it's a bit foggy since I've read those threads quite some time ago), but it might've had something to do with the auto-transformers maybe bonding N-G..

I'm just saying, please go read those threads I posted above to make sure the OP fully understands the NEC rules, and safety requirements involved in how grounding and N-G bonds work. Neutral and ground should be separate for the entire runs from the appliances back to the power source until the point where a single N-G bond is made. And in bypass, we don't want the auto-transformer bridged to the power company transformer (in parallel), must be fully bypassed, or it can get hot trying to balance out all the neighbor's imbalances.

I never was a huge fan of using the auto-transformer method in building a split-phase (grid-connected) system in the USA, I did read the threads, but never got too involved with all the details about setting one up, since there was a risk of over-volting household appliances under some fault circumstances.

I believe they remove that N-G screw inside the inventer when they run these in a series, however this was bought from Sig. Solar and is the US version so that is not in use internally i believe.