Solaredge 7600 HD Inverter error code???

[traxxi2003]

Hello everyone, after looking online without any luck I figure I post it here and see if anyone knows what it means. On my Solaredge 7600 HD inverter, I found recorded " Error Code: 181
Internal error" listed on the monitoring website every day since March 4th sometimes several recordings on the same day. However, energy production has been good. One thing I'd like to point out is that my inverter has been running what I suspect rather hot. Today, for example, the highest ambient temp was 74 where I leave but the Inverter temperature was 177 degrees with production maxed out at 7.61kwh. I called GogreenSolar since I purchased my system from them, they are having an engineer calling me tomorrow. I've already contacted Solaredge tech support and they claim they do not see any errors on their end but I can see them right on their monitoring website. Any ideas as too what could be happening with my inverter?

System Config:

Solaredge 7600 HD
10,800 watts (Gigawatts 300watts panels x 36)
Panels installed facing West 25 degree angle

[traxxi2003]

This temperature reading was taken around 2:00pm today. Outside ambient temperature at the time was 74 degrees.

[ButchDeal]

Hello everyone, after looking online without any luck I figure I post it here and see if anyone knows what it means. On my Solaredge 7600 HD inverter, I found recorded " Error Code: 181
Internal error" listed on the monitoring website every day since March 4th sometimes several recordings on the same day. However, energy production has been good. One thing I'd like to point out is that my inverter has been running what I suspect rather hot. Today, for example, the highest ambient temp was 74 where I leave but the Inverter temperature was 177 degrees with production maxed out at 7.61kwh. I called GogreenSolar since I purchased my system from them, they are having an engineer calling me tomorrow. I've already contacted Solaredge tech support and they claim they do not see any errors on their end but I can see them right on their monitoring website. Any ideas as too what could be happening with my inverter?

System Config:

Solaredge 7600 HD
10,800 watts (Gigawatts 300watts panels x 36)
Panels installed facing West 25 degree angle

That is 10.8kw solar all facing west? Thatis a bit undersized of an inverter for a single azimuth 10.8kw on a 7.6kw
how much shade is there?

[traxxi2003]

Hello Butch, I agree with you! No shade on my site. When I was buying my system I asked the technician if it was better to go with the 10kw Solaredge inverter and he said no because as the 7600 inverter would be able to start producing power much sooner than the 10kw. Right now here in CA Ive been clipping since the middle of February. Solar production has been at least 20% higher compared to their estimations.

[traxxi2003]

I just checked the error log on my inverter and I found this code. Anyone knows what it means? I looked on the manual and is not listed.

[ButchDeal]

Hello Butch, I agree with you! No shade on my site. When I was buying my system I asked the technician if it was better to go with the 10kw Solaredge inverter and he said no because as the 7600 inverter would be able to start producing power much sooner than the 10kw. Right now here in CA Ive been clipping since the middle of February. Solar production has been at least 20% higher compared to their estimations.

Your installer is wrong and lazy. You should get the installer to either replace your inverter with a 10kw one or add an SE3800

you are clipping and the inverter is the inverter is getting hot with the excess power.

[JSchnee21]

What Butch said +1000. How many hours per day is your inverter output saturated at ~7600W? Can you upload a screen shot from the SE monitoring portal? You probably have a "tabletop mesa" for at least a couple hours on sunny days.

Your installer definitely:

1) doesn't know what they are talking about -- what they said was correct about string inverters (to a limited extent), NOT SE.
2) needs to upgrade you to the 10kW or 11.4kW SE inverter -- they're roughly the same price

What size breaker panel do you have? Is this a load or line side tap? My guess is that you have a load side tap (aka solar PV input breaker backfeeding your 200amp panel) and that is why they installed the 7600W inverter.

It seems many California AHJ's don't like line side taps for some reason. I have no idea why this is the case. Here in NJ they do them all the time. But I don't think I've seen a CA poster on this board with one. I would suspect the issue / concern is the "clamp on puncture" approach (aka the cheap way out). If you do it properly with a junction box I cannot see the concern. But every AHJ is a unique snowflake (-:

-Jonathan

[traxxi2003]

So am I correct in assuming that if I had the 10.0kw inverter I would be producing more power while running it much cooler?

[traxxi2003]

These are photos of the charts that show how much my system is clipping. Keep in mind this is only March and I'm already clipping over 3hrs per day. Come Summer I will probably be clipping 5-6 hrs per day.

[ButchDeal]

So am I correct in assuming that if I had the 10.0kw inverter I would be producing more power while running it much cooler?

yes or you could go with two inverters and split the array leaving the SE7600H and adding an SE3800H (or SE3000H).

[JSchnee21]

Yes, you will produce more power with a larger inverter. However, you may not make a lot more power. It depends on the area under the curve of the cut off region versus the AUC of the non-cutoff region.

Also, keep in mind, while the total number of sun hours increases in the Summer, due to increases in temperature, peak kW will decrease some and your power curve will "broaden." But there are multiple factors which influence this. Angle of the sun, your latitude, roof pitch, temp, dust / smoke / moisture / debris in the air. Also as the panels soil and age, peak kW will go down ~3 to 5% in the first year. How old is your system? When was it installed?

See attached. Your panel's Pmax temperature coefficient is -0.40% / degree C. STC is measured at 25C. Out on a roof, in the Summer, your panels may be 50-60C. So let's say they are 55C. That's a delta of 30C * -0.40% = 12% de-rating. So your panel's output would drop from 300W (@1000W/m2) to 264W. And it's pretty rare that your solar insolation would be as high as 1000W / m2 -- but it depends on the region of the country where you live.

I have 12.2kW (37*330W) on an older 11.4kW A-Series inverter. It has two cooling fans, and routinely hits 130-150F in the Summer.

A larger inverter will run somewhat cooler, especially if it is not clipping and is installed in the shade (North or East Face, or Garage or Basement). But, it will still probably be 120-150F (SWAG). But, I'd agree with your sentiment that larger inverter would be working less hard and should, in theory, last longer.

[ButchDeal]

Yes, you will produce more power with a larger inverter. However, you may not make a lot more power. It depends on the area under the curve of the cut off region versus the AUC of the non-cutoff region.


I have 12.2kW (37*330W) on an older 11.4kW A-Series inverter. It has two cooling fans, and routinely hits 130-150F in the Summer.

A larger inverter will run somewhat cooler, especially if it is not clipping and is installed in the shade (North or East Face, or Garage or Basement). But, it will still probably be 120-150F (SWAG). But, I'd agree with your sentiment that larger inverter would be working less hard and should, in theory, last longer.

It isn't just that this is an inverter working at capacity, as this is solarEdge, the inverter is cranking up the DC bus voltage to get the optimizers off peak efficiency.
This higher DC voltage is making everything less efficient and have to dump heat. The optimizers are getting hotter than they would otherwise. The inverter is using a DC buck converter which it normally wouldn't to cut the voltage before inverting, jacking its temperature up.

In your situation you have 12.2kW on an 11.4kW inverter, just 800w over, which is a well matched size ratio especially if there is any shadowing or multiple azimuths.

OP though has 10.8kW on 7.6kW inverter, 3.2kW over on a single unshadowed azimuth. The size is in the allowed warranty specs for the inverter but a very poor design.

Whats more the OPs installer put in this smaller inverter as it was easier for the installer, not because it was a good design choice for the customer.

OP do you have full owner access on the web monitoring portal? Can you graph the DC bus voltage and AC power on a strong solar day?

[traxxi2003]

Today I waisted 30 minutes talking with my Solar Provider- GoGreenSolar from California. They did recognized that there is a heating issue with my system. I already knew that!! But their stance on the issue is: since the system is producing power as they promised there nothing for them or Solaredge to do on the matter at least for the time been. They did mentioned that if later on as ambient temps start to increase and as a result my inverter starts to shutdown because of heat then they will look into it. Not happy about their thinking. To me and I'm no expert electronics and heat don't play well. I was wondering if there is a way to add a cooling fan to the inverter heat sink in such a way that the fan turns on with the inverter maybe that will help cool down the unit some. Solaredge and GoGreenSolar will not do anything until the unit fails. Last option for me is bite the bullet and buy my own Solaredge 10KW HD inverter and keep the 7.6kw as spare or sell it. Bellow are the AC PWR /DC Vlotage graphs you asked. What you all think I should do?

[JSchnee21]

Did you purchase your system outright (with cash or a loan) or is this a lease / PPA? Where there any details about the planned (versus installed) equipment in the sales contract you signed? Did the installer violate the contract in any way? Or was this just a detail that got overlooked (caveat emptor)?

Once again, if you have a load side tap, you may not be able to increase to a larger inverter (or two inverters) based on the current rating (and the 120% rule) of the bus bars in your breaker panel. If you have a line side tap, then you may have more flexibility. In some cases, folks with smaller (100amp) older breaker panels choose to upgrade their panel at the same time. But this can add $1200-2500 in electrical work to the installation.

I'm not saying the installer wasn't in the wrong (either because they failed to adequately explain that your breaker panel may not handle a larger inverter and yet they gladly sold you more solar panels -- or simply because they are not good at their job). But, making enemies of your installer may not be the best approach if you hope to get service from them in the future. You may have to meet them half way and offer to pay the difference, etc. and encourage them to pickup the labor, for example, and give you a credit on a lightly used inverter.

But keep in mind a larger inverter may require heavier wiring between it and your breaker panel (depending on the gauge of wire installed). And potentially even a bigger conduit -- depending on how many corners their electrician cut. There may also may/will be other costs including updated drawings, permits, inspections, updated PoCo interconnect agreements, etc. Your PoCo may limit residential installs to a certain size (often this is 10kW) after which liability insurance or a more expensive "commercial" style interconnect agreement may be required.

So it's not just as simple as swapping one white box for another. I'm not trying to bust your chops I am sympathetic to your plight. Sadly, your story is all too common -- on this board alone there is often a similar / identical story every two or three months.

Sometimes installers see the error of their ways and are willing to work out a deal to make everyone whole (as it's usually in their best interest). But unfortunately, so many solar installers go out of business in less than 5yrs many are only out to make a quick buck.

How many days has your system been running? What percentage of days have seen clipping of 1 hour or more? As Butch pointed out, checking the DC voltage is the best approach to check for clipping. Normally it runs ~350-370V DC or so depending on the model inverter and string length. If you see that voltage spike up by 20 or more volts and hold steady at a new, higher voltage (often 400-420 or so) then you definitely have clipping.

Did you buy an extended warranty on your inverter from Solar Edge? Though your installer? Do you have proof of this warranty? (you can call SE and have them look up your serial number). Worse case you may just have to live with it.

[traxxi2003]

I purchased my system out right and I did my own installation as they wanted to charge $16,000 for installation. And yes they configured the system and the reason I was given as to why they configured the system with the 7.6kw inverter was because in order to maximize power production they needed to drive the inverter to max output since all of my panels face West and I asked that my system generated at lest 30% more than my monthly power consumption. I have future plans of adding a pool.