Solar PV Hints, Tips & Troubleshooting

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120168078#Comment_120168078

Ah cool - it's looks exactly like that picture you posted with the button half way up - so I've reset it there now.

Unfortunately it's still not connecting up for me. It's vey annoying, the data logger is broadcasting a signal but it won't connect to my wifi.

slave1

To remove issues like this I disabled all router WiFi functionality and put in a separate mesh WiFi in the house. Now it doesn't matter who the broadband provider is because the mesh is constant

Geeyfds53573

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120168774#Comment_120168774

Press and held it for a few seconds until it changes colour? red to green ( I think )then and only then is it reset - if not the video says contact solis if a reset doesn’t fix it

Black_Knight

Anyone else have their Solis cloud app showing "self use" as zero all the time, but "battery charging" seems to be what my generation + battery charging is.

facehugger99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120168953#Comment_120168953

Yeah - it definitely reset.

I have emailed Solis - I might try and delete the plant info as per a pervious suggestion and see if that works.

Balmed Out

My app hasn't had data recently so I unscrewed the data logger and put back on again planning on redoing the network setup. While all three led's had been on after putting it back only the power was on. I took it off and on again but same story. I thought maybe I didn't have it tight enough so tightened it but no joy however I discovered I had over-tightened the section on the data logger itself of the grey stick and its black head. I can still twist the connection to the inverter but not the data logger and so cant remove.

Is brute force the best option or is there a knack?

silver_sky

Opened a ticket back in October for a longstanding issue with my Solis inverter. No response in months although around new year-ish it was finally assigned. I checked back today and the fecking thing was closed 2 weeks ago. No email alert on it, so I filled in the satisfaction survey that popped up and that seemed to have got their attention 😂

saccaromyces

Hi all, haven't been on since panel fitting, was waiting for first elec bill to see how things were going. Hope its ok to post here, if you need to move thats ok. Anyway,

At first glance bill looks ok €172. But add €200 gov grant plus €50 from EI. Plus micro gen total €111. Thats a wopping €533. I never had a bill like this. They also told me my kwh has gone from 865 for last year to 1106 this year, I thought the panels would reduce my kwh usage or am I missing something. It appears to me my bill has gone up instead of down. Can someone help explain this or advise.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185765#Comment_120185765

Not really for the quotes thread, @Jonathan could you move this to somewhere more appropriate (maybe troubleshooting?)

But I'll continue.

First things first,couple of questions

what do you have?

Have you any statistics from your solar?

Are you on a smart meter? Are the readings accurate, was last year's reading accurate. Did you just use more power this year?

How long have you had it installed?

Moving on from that the price per kWh has at least doubled on last year.

If you look at the monthly thread, you'll see for Dec/Jan the output is only 100 or so kwh per month, if you were able to use it all, your kwh for the bill would actually have been maybe 1300ish.

Also it looks like the microgen payment was backdated a bit too, if you didn't have solar you wouldn't have had that payment,

On a deemed export on a ,6kw inverter its roughly a euro a day.

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2022 - No PM requests - See Mod note post #1.

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120186430#Comment_120186430

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120185765#Comment_120185765

Adding to what’s above, you pay per kWh. Is that for a 2 month billing period? So if you used 1106 in the 2 month billing period, that’s €475 just for units (excluding vat and standing charges) if you’re paying 43c (inc vat) per kWh. That’s around the rate for people renewing now for 24hr meters on Bonkers.ie. So while it’s a terrifying cost, it’s correct based on usage.

Ignore all else and check first what kWh’s you used. Then you can start to work out why that’s increasing (if it has). When your provider said it was ‘865 units last year’ (which is about 250 lower than the other figure you mention), do they mean the last billing period (which covered Christmas too, so we use a lot of power if lights are on 24x7, guests over, heating cranked up, Dec was Baltic….). Or was that 865 units those same months the previous year? Even the pumps moving water around our rads for our oil / gas boilers use a low of watts. So if your gas heating was on a lot, it’s using some electricity for the pump and boiler itself (just not for the heating part of course).

Are those figure actual readings, or estimated?

All our electricity costs have doubled. But you need to see are you also using more. Then why that is.

As a comparison, in the last 2 months we’ve used 1600kWh. 600 for the house and we’re low usage (but excludes cooking). 600 is electric heaters in parts of the house (gas heating covers other parts). 400 for our EV.

What’s changed electricity consumption wise for summer into autumn V winter? Tumble dryers cost €1 an hour, or more if paying 40c per kWh. Are you heating with electricity (rads or hot water in immersion)… Electric rads if left unchecked will use a huge amount per day. Did you get an EV.

What is your heating system? Do you like rooms like a sauna is using electric heating in places? And, and…

You should also look at moving to another tariff possibly. But that’s after you find our what’s going wrong (if anything). 

championc

Analyse your data.

A simple thing - an installer installed my friends Eddi clamp the wrong was around. This meant that it saw export when in fact he was importing, which in turn would turn the Eddi on and then cause more import as it tried to draw that amount, and around and around it could have gone.

Thankfully, he asked me on day 2 of his system

slave1

It's amazing how many times an incorrect CT clamp is put in place by installers, I mean it has an arrow on it and if they don't know which way to point it they shouldn't be installing

saccaromyces

Ok thank everybody first of all. I have 6.6kw panels. 6kwh sofar inverter, 2 x2.4 dyness batteries. In since 25.11.22. Billing period from then until 31.1.23. Smart metre. Same period last year. 865 units. This year 1106.

Screenshot_20230201-194558_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

Yes I understand prices have gone up but this about the amount of units, I've never used that. Heating is oil as is hot water, so nothing extra on than last year, and no panels last year, so even as little production that I'm getting from panels, I'm using more unit than when I had no panels....no ev here, maybe the panels are burning more electricity than what they produce....

Championc, how to analyse, my concern is the more the panel produce power, the more my consumption, so I'm think something not set up correct

Screenshot_20230201-200006_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

This is my reading today.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120189008#Comment_120189008

Just to be clear, panels dont use any electric, they only generate.

Generally the inverters run from solar or batteries, so they don't consume directly from the grid.

Your using the power somewhere, but was last years reading estimated or actual readings, for both start and finish

Can you share a screenshot for December?

Your generation numbers for December/January are good, 376 generated, 180 exported.

Do you have an eddi or anything like that?

Are the batteries charging at night or anything like that?

Will the app, show you graphs for today showing consumption, solar, battery use and stuff like that

championc

You could be charging the battery and immediately discharging it, every night. That would be wasting 5kWh every day.

If you have a Solid inverter, have you Discharge set to Yes ??? It should be OFF

saccaromyces

Last year was a reading. No eddie have termo panels for last 15 years for hot water. Just switched to night saver and am charging batteries between 2 and 4 am. For about a week now. Discharging from 4to9pm. But not sure about the discharging to be honest. As the graph swows releaingcharge earlier. I have 6kwh sofar inverter.

Screenshot_20230201-223541_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

Screenshot_20230201-223710_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

The gap is where we lost intwrnet over Christmas. Thanks lad appreciate your time.

championc

Yep. Something very odd. Your consumption is totally in proportion to your generation. I would say that this is almost impossible.

I would say that most people consumption would be fairly level from day to day, except maybe for EV charging.

Sorry, I don't understand the 24hr graph

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120189874#Comment_120189874

"discharging from 4 to 9pm" Do you mean you are telling the battery to discharge during those times? Be careful - if you set that up in a solis inverter you are just dumping your battery to the grid - not actually using the energy in the house load. Maybe your inverter is different.

championc

09:00 - 14:00 looks like exporting to me, and just dumping out 10kWh total (which interestingly is the difference daily between your blue and red stripes !!!

The devils

Maybe send a pic of your invertor screen set up/discharge times etc it looks like your telling your invertor to dump your power even if your using it..

saccaromyces

Isn't this getting very interesting, heres a pic of charge and discharge.

Screenshot_20230202-070802_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

Maybe too much info on 24 hr graph, sorry.

Screenshot_20230202-072813_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

Screenshot_20230202-073037_SOLARMAN Smart.jpg

Try this.

yankinlk

Can you disable the discharge times? They should not be set. That setting is only used if you are offered a very high FIT rate... It's not going to benefit you in Ireland.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120190481#Comment_120190481

You have a sofar inverter right?

What mode is it set to?

(I have a me3000, settings, code is 0715, and scroll down to the work mode set on the second page)

Time of use might be set, and set to discharge.

Are you on any smart plans?

graememk

And while your there, look at the screen, and see what it says, ie how much the house is using /coming from solar/battery

championc

If Solis, give a photo of the discharge settings screen

If So far, what Mode are you running (should be Auto)

If another, post a pic of the charging / discharging settings

We know your settings are fooked up. We cannot point you to where to look if we are guessing what inverter you have.

con747

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120191199#Comment_120191199

They say they have "I have 6.6kw panels. 6kwh sofar inverter, 2 x2.4 dyness batteries" in post #3675

Taxburden carrier

Esb networks are working in my neighbourhood next week and the power will be off for a while.

This is the first outage for my system.

Does anyone know if this will mean for me? . Will I need to reset Solis timers for night charging etc or will everything just power back up as it was?

Thanks in advance 🙂

championc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120192840#Comment_120192840

CMOS should keep the times and all settings

The devils

Guys tried installing home assistant..

Vitual box with Hass..

Windows 10 machine etc..can't seem to get virtual box to open...keeps failing.

Would anybody have a step by step guide - I've tried the you tube one (3mins to get home assistant on pc) however as I said virtual box will not open.

Anyhelo would be appreciated