AC Compressor problems after PV install

[Tony808]

Well, there is the panel on the outside of the house. That is the one with two breakers. I looked at it again last night, and one was labeled A/C - PV Tap and the other was labeled HOUSE. The "main" panel in the garage, does not have a breaker for the PV. I think those breakers are on the outside of the house in a separate panel.

As it would happen, the AC started working properly again last night. I have my AC guy coming out this afternoon to take a look at everything. After he gives me his opinion, I will contact the solar guy and get this all figured out. I appreciate everyone's input on this forum. I will follow up once I have concrete answers so maybe this can help someone else with similar problems in the future

[thastinger]

Where TF do you live where you are running A/C AT NIGHT this time of year?

[Naptown]

Where TF do you live where you are running A/C AT NIGHT this time of year?

Hawaii

[Volusiano]

Well, there is the panel on the outside of the house. That is the one with two breakers. I looked at it again last night, and one was labeled A/C - PV Tap and the other was labeled HOUSE. The "main" panel in the garage, does not have a breaker for the PV. I think those breakers are on the outside of the house in a separate panel.

Based on your description, I suspect what's going on is that perhaps the installer did a line side tap to your main panel instead of doing the backfeed into the main panel. The reason I suspect this is because you said the panel outside of the house has 2 breakers, one for PV Tap and one for HOUSE. The PV Tap breaker is obviously for the PV backfeed, the HOUSE breaker is most likely the main breaker going into the main panel in the garage.

If the PV line is tapped in after the main meter but before the main breaker, then it's a line side tap. But if it's tapped in after the main breaker, then it's just a backfeed onto the busbar. If the later, usually they just use one of the available slots in the main panel. But if you don't have anymore slot, maybe they have to do a sub panel instead.

If your solar guy confirms with you that he did a line side tap, then all is fine. In fact, that's better than doing the backfeed into the main panel, because you don't have to worry about having too much backfeed that may require derating the main panel's breaker. Either way, it's looking like they didn't really backfeed into your air conditioning system's breaker like you originally thought.