Tweet
Hi,
My first post, so I hope I have the correct forum and don't violate any rules. We have a 7.28 kW system composed of 26 Canadian Solar 280-Watt panels feeding 13 APS YC500a inverters, in a grid tie system. We chose a microinverter system over a string inverter system on account of some minor shading in the early am and late pm from neighbours trees, which undoubtedly will get a bit worse over time. The southern sky is wide open. Also, we liked the idea of being able to see which panels were working and which not. We chose APS over Enphase because we'd heard disturbing reports about Enphase lately. Also, we searched the Internet and could find nothing bad about APS. Finally, APS was slightly less expensive. Alas, we have two issues, which we think may be attributable to the APS equipment.
1. We've had inverter failures! The first time we lost six of them, nearly all at the same time. The last time we lost only one. The installer has been good about replacing them, but we had assumed solar would be trouble-free. We don't want techs going up on the roof at repeated intervals! Both times the inverters went out on nice blue-sky days around 2 pm. Also, both times the monitoring system went rather haywire for hours after the failure. This leads to the second issue.
2. We find the monitoring system to be rather 'flaky'. Usually it will go for days or weeks on end with no problems, but sometimes it reports inverters going on and off seemingly at random, and putting out too high or too low voltage (compared to the other modules/inverters). Sometimes if the thing shows a bunch of panels off line we'll momentarily open the circuit breaker on the solar; usually everything returns to normal (unless an inverter(s) has actually died). The monitor box (ECU) is getting a full 5-bar signal from the inverters.
We have no evidence of any power surges. We live in a quiet residential neighbourhood where there would not be any industrial equipment such as welders. There are no nearby ham radio operators. And, no other equipment has been affected, including our extensive computers, LAN system, Wi-fi, and z-wave alarm/automation system. Nevertheless, between the first and second failures we installed a whole house surge suppressor breaker in our load centre, just in case.
The installer has been getting the cold shoulder from APS about all of this, despite being a major solar installer in this area.
So, on to a few questions:
1. Is this a normal experience with a microinveter system? If so, how come nothing turns up on the Internet when we Googled? If not, is it that APS microinverters are more prone to failure than others? Again, how come we found nothing bad mentioned on a Google search. I should mention that it has not yet begun to get really hot here yet. While it is usually temperate, we do get periods of 30 to 40 degrees C (85 to 100 F). Our climate is dry here in the southern interior of British Columbia.
2. Should we rip the APS equipment and go with something else? If so, should we go string inverter or should we go with an optimiser system? If not, what, if anything should we do or look for to help figure out why these failures are happening?
We naively thought that this system would go up on the roof and we'd have nothing to do for the next 25-years or so (by which time we'll be on the wrong side of the mud anyway
).
Thanks for any help!
Maurice
My first post, so I hope I have the correct forum and don't violate any rules. We have a 7.28 kW system composed of 26 Canadian Solar 280-Watt panels feeding 13 APS YC500a inverters, in a grid tie system. We chose a microinverter system over a string inverter system on account of some minor shading in the early am and late pm from neighbours trees, which undoubtedly will get a bit worse over time. The southern sky is wide open. Also, we liked the idea of being able to see which panels were working and which not. We chose APS over Enphase because we'd heard disturbing reports about Enphase lately. Also, we searched the Internet and could find nothing bad about APS. Finally, APS was slightly less expensive. Alas, we have two issues, which we think may be attributable to the APS equipment.
1. We've had inverter failures! The first time we lost six of them, nearly all at the same time. The last time we lost only one. The installer has been good about replacing them, but we had assumed solar would be trouble-free. We don't want techs going up on the roof at repeated intervals! Both times the inverters went out on nice blue-sky days around 2 pm. Also, both times the monitoring system went rather haywire for hours after the failure. This leads to the second issue.
2. We find the monitoring system to be rather 'flaky'. Usually it will go for days or weeks on end with no problems, but sometimes it reports inverters going on and off seemingly at random, and putting out too high or too low voltage (compared to the other modules/inverters). Sometimes if the thing shows a bunch of panels off line we'll momentarily open the circuit breaker on the solar; usually everything returns to normal (unless an inverter(s) has actually died). The monitor box (ECU) is getting a full 5-bar signal from the inverters.
We have no evidence of any power surges. We live in a quiet residential neighbourhood where there would not be any industrial equipment such as welders. There are no nearby ham radio operators. And, no other equipment has been affected, including our extensive computers, LAN system, Wi-fi, and z-wave alarm/automation system. Nevertheless, between the first and second failures we installed a whole house surge suppressor breaker in our load centre, just in case.
The installer has been getting the cold shoulder from APS about all of this, despite being a major solar installer in this area.
So, on to a few questions:
1. Is this a normal experience with a microinveter system? If so, how come nothing turns up on the Internet when we Googled? If not, is it that APS microinverters are more prone to failure than others? Again, how come we found nothing bad mentioned on a Google search. I should mention that it has not yet begun to get really hot here yet. While it is usually temperate, we do get periods of 30 to 40 degrees C (85 to 100 F). Our climate is dry here in the southern interior of British Columbia.
2. Should we rip the APS equipment and go with something else? If so, should we go string inverter or should we go with an optimiser system? If not, what, if anything should we do or look for to help figure out why these failures are happening?
We naively thought that this system would go up on the roof and we'd have nothing to do for the next 25-years or so (by which time we'll be on the wrong side of the mud anyway
).Thanks for any help!
Maurice
Comment