darkskies
New Member
UPDATE...
Recap...
In normal operation, the grid, generator, solar panels and battery via inverter are connected to the BackUp Interface (BUI), which connects these sources to the main panel. With the sun out, power comes from the panels, and battery (if enough charge), and potentially some from the grid, if not enough power to run the house. Once the sun is down, power comes from the battery (if above the 20% charge setting), and/or grid.
When there is a grid outage, the expectation is that the system will disconnect from the grid, and power the house from the battery. When the battery hits 20%, the inverter will trigger dry contacts on the BUI to open the circuit for the generator's power sense lines, which are connected to the main panel. The generator senses an outage, spins up, and will power the house. Hopefully the transition from battery to generator will be smooth.
Since I last wrote, we have not had an opportunity to test this backup operation out... until now.
Tuesday, the system went into WeatherGuard mode, and the battery, once charged to 100%, was not used, once the sun went down, reserving it any potential storm (as expected).
Wednesday, at 5am, with 6" of heavy snow over night, and very high winds, the power went out. I was expecting the system to run on battery for at least 10-12 hours, like it usually would do.
Well, the generator came on and ran for less than a minute (30 seconds coming up to speed), turned off, and then after a few seconds came back on and repeated the cycle continuously!
From what I could tell, the system detected the grid outage, and showed that the battery was in "backup mode", but the battery was not supplying power to the house! It remained at 98%, but the house had no power. As a result, the generator's power sense lines, connected to the main panel, detected a loss, and it powered up. Once up to speed, it started supplying power to the house. Of course, the generator's sensing lines then "saw" the power that it generated, and turned the generator off after 10 seconds or so. Now, the sense line detected no power, and it started back up.
Since the sensing lines are connected to the main panel, my work-around, was to shut off the breaker, so that the generator thought there was no power and would run continuously. At 7am, we lost internet too, so there was no way to tell what was going on with the generator or inverter, other than to look at the LCD display on the generator and LEDs on the SolarEdge gear (the box reports everything, via the Internet to SolarEdgfe, of which I can then go to their monitoring web site to see status/alarms/etc).
The outage lasted for almost 36 hours. I found out that the power had come back on, because the power glitched as the BUI switched from generator to grid, and the Internet came back up, of which I have a custom app running on one of my servers and it polls the SolarEdge API for my site and could report that the system went from FAULT -> ON GRID. I then, turned the breaker back on, so that the generator would see that we had power and would shut off.
So, it detected the outage (and return of grid), and sourced the house with generator power, but it did not send battery power to the house during the outage (like it does. when we have grid).
Frustrating, as I was hoping this was finally working. It's not...
Recap...
In normal operation, the grid, generator, solar panels and battery via inverter are connected to the BackUp Interface (BUI), which connects these sources to the main panel. With the sun out, power comes from the panels, and battery (if enough charge), and potentially some from the grid, if not enough power to run the house. Once the sun is down, power comes from the battery (if above the 20% charge setting), and/or grid.
When there is a grid outage, the expectation is that the system will disconnect from the grid, and power the house from the battery. When the battery hits 20%, the inverter will trigger dry contacts on the BUI to open the circuit for the generator's power sense lines, which are connected to the main panel. The generator senses an outage, spins up, and will power the house. Hopefully the transition from battery to generator will be smooth.
Since I last wrote, we have not had an opportunity to test this backup operation out... until now.
Tuesday, the system went into WeatherGuard mode, and the battery, once charged to 100%, was not used, once the sun went down, reserving it any potential storm (as expected).
Wednesday, at 5am, with 6" of heavy snow over night, and very high winds, the power went out. I was expecting the system to run on battery for at least 10-12 hours, like it usually would do.
Well, the generator came on and ran for less than a minute (30 seconds coming up to speed), turned off, and then after a few seconds came back on and repeated the cycle continuously!
From what I could tell, the system detected the grid outage, and showed that the battery was in "backup mode", but the battery was not supplying power to the house! It remained at 98%, but the house had no power. As a result, the generator's power sense lines, connected to the main panel, detected a loss, and it powered up. Once up to speed, it started supplying power to the house. Of course, the generator's sensing lines then "saw" the power that it generated, and turned the generator off after 10 seconds or so. Now, the sense line detected no power, and it started back up.
Since the sensing lines are connected to the main panel, my work-around, was to shut off the breaker, so that the generator thought there was no power and would run continuously. At 7am, we lost internet too, so there was no way to tell what was going on with the generator or inverter, other than to look at the LCD display on the generator and LEDs on the SolarEdge gear (the box reports everything, via the Internet to SolarEdgfe, of which I can then go to their monitoring web site to see status/alarms/etc).
The outage lasted for almost 36 hours. I found out that the power had come back on, because the power glitched as the BUI switched from generator to grid, and the Internet came back up, of which I have a custom app running on one of my servers and it polls the SolarEdge API for my site and could report that the system went from FAULT -> ON GRID. I then, turned the breaker back on, so that the generator would see that we had power and would shut off.
So, it detected the outage (and return of grid), and sourced the house with generator power, but it did not send battery power to the house during the outage (like it does. when we have grid).
Frustrating, as I was hoping this was finally working. It's not...