The attached graph shows everything hunky-dory on a very sunny day until a grid outage at about 14:42 which lasted for a few minutes. I was not aware that the solar system had stopped working until around 8pm and then I had to manually re-start the system.
Is this system behaviour normal after a grid outage? Will it always require manual intervention after a grid outage, or is there a fault? I sincerely hope not.
Is that just your router/comms not recovering and auto reconnecting after a power failure?
Brassy Looks like you're getting a lot of clipping and wasting solar. Why not charge your battery through the peak period, and get more of that lovely sun converted to money. 😃
SteveCook : No.
TimHutchings : Clipping is because the inverter max capacity is 5kW, Battery charges from daybreak and when it gets to 100%, excess solar not needed by the home is exported. Time of day is not relevant. I pay 21p/kWh import and receive 15p/kWh for export. all day. Battery supplies the home until sunrise, very little (<0.7kWh) is imported.
My query relates to the system not recovering after a grid outage.
Brassy Clipping is because the inverter max capacity is 5kW
Max input capacity is 7.5kW. [Assuming it's a new-ish hybrid.] But since it can only output 5kW on AC, it can only accept the full 7.5kW if there's somewhere else (ie the battery) to send the other 2.5kW (less losses).
SteveCook Is that just your router/comms not recovering and auto reconnecting after a power failure?
It does still seem to be recording consumption. Though it's interesting that it doesn't seem to be recording where that's come from (no grid import) ?
Is there a tiny amount of solar being recorded? It's hard to see behind the consumption data, but peering closely, it looks like there's something underneath it.
Was the restart just a reboot, or did you power-cycle it ?
DD : Hi DD.
The inverter is a GIV-HY5.0, from Feb this year. I have always thought that 5kW is the conversion capacity between the DC and AC bus, and on occasion I have seen more that this being converted with excess DC going to the battery, so your info about a 7.5kW max capacity squares with this. Thank you.
Back to the grid outage problem at about 2:40pm; I did not see the effect on the inverter until about 8:30pm, and it was recording "full" consumption before that. And yes, there is a tiny amount of solar generation, (usually <100W) as well as battery output (about 30W) being recorded during this time, but not enough to satisfy the recorded consumption. And no grid import is being recorded during this time.
At first about 8:30 I tried an inverter re-start from the cloud page, but nothing changed.
Then I followed the shut-down and start-up procedure provided by my installed; battery off, battery DC isolator off, AC grid isolator off, inverter DC isolator off; and after about a minute DC isolator on, AC isolator on, battery DC isolator on, battery on. Only after that did the system appear to start working normally.
My concern is that the solar PV system required manual intervention to re-start it after a grid outage, Will this need to be done after every grid outage? Why? This is not robust, and rather worrying.
Brassy I don't think I've ever had my system (also 5kW hybrid) fail to recover after a power cut.
It's interesting that it didn't record any grid import when there surely must have been. I wonder if the little meter that monitors the CT clamp had failed in some way. Could any of the RCDs have tripped, and then got reset as part of your shutdown/powerup sequence ?
The solar and battery power seem to be very roughly just enough to cover the power consumption of the inverter and bms respectively. Almost as if not only can it not send power to the (full) battery, but it also cannot (must not ?) export, and so had to fully curtail generation. I believe it is a safety requirement that it stop generating AC during a power cut, since that could potentially impact engineers working on the cables outside.
Oh - one thought - it probably has to stop generating if grid voltage or frequency are out of spec. I wonder if the power was sort-of back, but it wasn't "clean" in some sense.
Were there any notifications on the portal ?
Probably have to contact GE support to see if they can find out more about what happened.
(On clipping, there are various strategies for avoiding clipping, but it primarily comes down to ensuring there's space in the battery to accept excess PV power. A forum search should find more, if you are interested.)
DD
It's interesting that it didn't record any grid import when there surely must have been. I wonder if the little meter that monitors the CT clamp had failed in some way. Could any of the RCDs have tripped, and then got reset as part of your shutdown/powerup sequence ?
The EM115 will go off on grid failure as there will be nothing to power it unless you have it wired on an EPS setup from your inverter/battery.
The green front display window of the EM115 will go dark.
Did any RCD or MCB feeding the EM115 trip on grid failure/reset