I was inspecting a friend's rooftop array in Albuquerque last fall. He also didn't know who the installer was or the module type. Fortunately, PNM (or the state electrical inspector) requires that a weather-proof tube be mounted next to the production meter on the outside of the house containing the system drawings. Very helpful!
BTW, he had Hanwa modules. They are in great shape!
My advice to solar installers is to make sure and place your company's sticker somewhere readily visible so you don't miss out on referrals.
Equitable Solar Solutions/Coldharbour Inst.
Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2023 04:29 AM
From: william fitch
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
God. All those "on hold" conditions are "so real world", which of course is a BIG problem. You triggered an idea. When you said allot of people don't even know their installer because the wife.... etc.. Maybe on the sheet he is producing there can be fill in lines for system installer, date, panel mfg., inverter mfg. and any phone numbers at the install time. This would give the System owner an opportunity to put basic info where it can be "had" easily. Like a basic contact emergency sheet, etc..
Additionally, all your "finds" show that the inverter is the trouble point for continued smooth output, which is why I don't like micro-inverters. 50 panels, 50 more points of inverter failures. String inverters on the ground is best unless heavy shadowing is an issue for the array.
EDIT: Regarding the "getting to get people to..." thoughts. You can lead a horse to water...
People generally will not do things that they are not interested in. Take 3 simple things. Repairing a Car, cutting the grass and vacuuming a floor.
If people do not repair their car, mow the lawn or vacuum the floor, the unavoidable result is they get stranded at home, walk in field high grass and probably break local zoning rules and eventually live with dirt floors. All three of these unacceptable results FORCES people to take care of the situation, NOT INTEREST. If the solar isn't working, for one, they may not even notice because it does not effect their ability to "live". Now, if their solar went out and their power went out, guess what, it would be dealt with ASAP as people have to do that live off-grid. Grid tie are void from such symptoms.
SO my point is that you can design a really good sheet, but at the end of the day for grid tie people, some will bother and some won't based on their interests mostly.
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william fitch
Owner
www.WeAreSolar.com
Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2023 07:14 PM
From: Rich Stromberg
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
I can't speak for other states but in Colorado, the utilities I have worked with require that they (the utility) installs a producton meter. An electrician or solar installer can set the meter recepticle but only the utilty can install the actual production meter.
Maybe just using a single photo of the meter will make the flyer a little clearer for novices - who are the intended audience anyway.
The intent here isn't to determine what percentage your array might have degraded since your install or if there is a single rogue module in the array. The intent is to make sure that owners are checking their inverter or their meter every now and then to make sure that the inverter isn't in a fault state or completely dead. I see this issue way more than I like to or might have expected.
The fact that many homeowners I talk with don't know their module manufacturer, module wattage or even system nameplate total size confirms the concept that "There are no products - only services". While early adopters would get into the nitty gritty, so many of the people I talk with simply want a solar array to reduce ther energy costs. Once it is installed, they tend to forget about it and assume all is working fine. A neighbor of mine couldn't even tell me who installed his system, let alone the module type. "I don't know. My wife scheduled it."
I have encountered a Sunny Boy inverter that was in a fault state at a large mountain research facility. It had been offline for months. This fall I paid a visit to a housing authority building and found the 100kW central inverter with a system fault that had been in this state for at least several months and possibly more than a year. No one in the accounts payable department was checking to notice if their electrical bills had gone up. There was also no remote monitoring system. A simple system reset brought everything back to life.
I visited a senior living center with 6 14.4kW inverters on the roof. Two inverters were running and reflected normal total kWh produced in the 6 years since the system was installed. Two inverters were in a fault state and their producton logs showed that one inverter had been offline for a year and a half. The other had been offline for 4.5 years. The other two inverters were in a fault state and the displays wouldn't even provide production data nor fault codes. These are the kinds of issues we want to help system owners catch quickly before they lose significant energy savings or worse, not detect a problem until their inverter is out of warranty.
On this flyer or maybe a separate one, just show some typical inverters so people know where to look for a fault light. I mostly have images of inverters in a normal state like this:
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Rich Stromberg
Equitable Solar Solutions co-founder
PhD student at University of Alaska
Researcher at Alaska Center for Energy and Power
Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2023 02:43 PM
From: william fitch
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
Hi: I can see you put a chunk of time into this. I like the line style drawings and print size and font.
I tried to look at this in two ways. First as me. The second as someone else like a "regular" person. Second is hard of course.
First as me. The wording in the first big block of print beginning with, "If you have a single meter".
The fact is whether you have a single meter or "X" number of meters, the first meter(IE Utility meter) will always show you the exact same info., second or more meters aside. SO the "user" can always count on that meter to show both "to the grid" and "from the grid" KWH numbers.
Regarding the second meter, I don't know how many installers use expensive digital meters for production. Additionally, to connect with it remotely would probably require specific coms equipment. I always use simple commercial grade scrolling numbers meters which can go both ways if needed, and read to 100,000 KWH's than cycle around back to zero, etc. for another loop. They are cheap and reliable. I know some states, at an increasing number will now except inverter read numbers for production and SREC validation, so installers are not necessarily using the "second" meters anymore. I do, but that is beside the point. I think the trend is away from.
Second as someone else:
Showing the "pictures" of the production meter along with the utility meter and doing the whole number and line thing, my eyes were getting a bit crossed and confused. It may be more easily understood if you SHOW a single meter, the utility meter, and explain the fields as you did, and leave the rest to just verbal info. After all, on the production meter if digital, everything will be zeros except for one field (Aside from 88888). That would clean up the whole line thing making it easier to follow. And if it is just a regular "numbers" meter, what you see is what you get. You might also mention the production meter if there is one, may not be next to the utility meter but on some kind of separate "power wall" next to a sub panel (Mine is that way in the garage/barn)
As a whole though, nice job...
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william fitch
Owner
www.WeAreSolar.com
Original Message:
Sent: 03-14-2023 11:52 AM
From: Kyle Combes
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
Hi All,
After chatting with Rich, I put together this infographic to help people check their meters. It seems like the biggest commonality and should be fairly easy for them to find. Unfortunately, there's still a good deal of variation in meters, so it's not exactly a simple infographic.
Let me know your thoughts. I can change the color scheme if it's too low contrast.
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Kyle Combes
Software Engineer, Technical Product Manager & ASES intern
Original Message:
Sent: 02-05-2023 06:21 PM
From: william fitch
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
There really isn't consistency that a "regular" person would see. All these companies have their own proprietary interfaces. It's just like EV interfaces. They are al different.
The idea of a universal go to "manual" sounds like a good idea, except once finished if it in fact covered all the bases, would probably be more complicated then if hey would grab the original manual or pull it up on line.
To a certain degree, dare I say, people really have to be motivated to really want to find a solution, rather than just complain. You can lead a horse to water as they say, but you can not make them drink. In this case the water maybe contains about 50% personal responsibility and real interest.
I think you might be able to come up with a, "Cheap Tricks" reference card, much like the ones used for techs in the field regarding complex new guidelines and regulations, like the ones around electrical code, and solar code changes, etc..
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william fitch
Owner
www.WeAreSolar.com
Original Message:
Sent: 02-05-2023 05:52 PM
From: Kyle Combes
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
Hi Mike and Ken,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.
It seems that those with newer systems are well covered in terms of monitoring ability.
If the primary target audience for this kind of educational material is folks with older systems, my next question is this: How much consistency is there between the user interfaces of older systems/inverters? If we need to recommend they go out and click through menus on their inverter, how much specific information can we give them? Or will I just have to say "Find your users manual and look for the section that tells you how to see the number of kWh generated"? I'm not familiar with these systems, and I could put together something very basic and high-level, but I'm worried that won't be very helpful.
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Kyle Combes
Software Engineer & Technical Product Manager
Oceanworks, Inc
Original Message:
Sent: 02-05-2023 02:01 PM
From: Mike Curran
Subject: How Do I Know My System is Still Making Power?
Hi Kyle - Fyi, here's a link to the public site for my Emphase system
https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/Hctc107221, which covers 2 larger arrays plus a single ground mount panel for comparison purposes (steeper angle for winter compared to other array roof mounts). The earliest array I put up in 2012 but I'm sure Enphase has been doing this monitoring since before that. Perfectly adequate for my purposes, and I have an Emporia Energy smart monitor for whole house net to/from grid (see earlier posts in this thread).
I also have 2 separate grid-tied battery backup systems with Outback Power equipment. Outback offers an app called OpticsRE that both monitors status and allows much system programming. Screenshot of one of the two systems' power flow chart from Optics shown below.
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Mike Curran
Retired EE
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