Solar production before interconnected

[Big_Tex22]

New member- new and uneducated to solar!!

So our solar is installed and we’re waiting on interconnection from oncor. We have 28 panels and enphase iq7s etc.

Our enphase app says we’re getting 100% production to what we’re consuming. The production/consumption kWh have matched every day according to the app stats.

Does that mean we are actually producing that or is the gateway measuring what we’re drawing from the grid? I know we won’t be able to tell total production until we are able to feed back to the grid, but is it still metering what we’re getting from the panels before we’re back feeding? t

[Ampster]

It sounds like the current transformers that are supposed to measure production and consumption are configured wrong or hooked up wrong. Have you asked your installer about that?

[peakbagger]

Odds are its the above plus highly likely your power bill will substantially increase this month as most utilities set up their meters by default to treat power being pushed to the grid as power being bought from the grid. When they finally get around to doing the interconnection, the utility will swap the meter with one configured to measure your production and change the billing software to treat it correctly. The tricky part is some meters measure purchases and export to the grid separately but the billing software still treats export as sales. So may be best to keep things shut off until the utility does their thing. Even then keep a close eye on the bill after they have done so.

[Will792]

Check graph of production and consumption on Energy tab in the app. If the shape is the same then consumption CT installation is not correct.

[SolTex]

Our installer would not turn on our Enphase system (40 panels plus IQ7+ inverters plus 2 10T storage modules) until they received the signed PTO (Permission To Operate) from Oncor. Once our system was turned on, it took another 45 days before we got a new meter installed and started seeing any indication that we were selling excess production back to the grid. Until the correct digital meter is in place, anything that you put back into the grid will not generate any credits to your account. Screen grab below is typical Enlighten graph for our system in the summer months:

https://www.oncor.com/content/oncorwww/us/en/home/smart-energy/renewables-solar-and-more/residential-small-commercial-thinking-about-solar.html

Screen Shot 2022-04-10 at 5.09.48 PM.png

[Bob Moffit]

Odds are its the above plus highly likely your power bill will substantially increase this month as most utilities set up their meters by default to treat power being pushed to the grid as power being bought from the grid. When they finally get around to doing the interconnection, the utility will swap the meter with one configured to measure your production and change the billing software to treat it correctly. The tricky part is some meters measure purchases and export to the grid separately but the billing software still treats export as sales. So may be best to keep things shut off until the utility does their thing. Even then keep a close eye on the bill after they have done so.

Hi BigTex22, I think you really want to pay attention to the above point - if you don't have the proper meter installed, you will pay the power company for all the energy that you send to the grid.