Xantrex SW Series [RE-wrenches]

[Joel Davidson]

You asked about the Grid Tie Forum. Here is a posting. I am sure Trace's
competition is happy to know that people are calling Trace's repsonsive
"highly defensive tone" and "actively encouraging those who ask me for
advice on grid-tied PV systems to avoid buying Trace if at all
possible."

Topic:  I Think We Solved The Problem (6 of 6), Read 24 times
 Conf: Grid Tie Applications
 From: karn (karn at qualcomm.com)
 Date: Sunday, December 09, 2001 05:47 PM

On 10/30/01 9:02:47 AM, dstorm wrote:

>I suggest that the spec's on
>incoming grid voltage should
>be widened up a bit in the
>next software version that
>Trace comes out with.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Did you see the news release about the SW
inverter failing UL's islanding tests? Given the highly defensive tone
of
Trace's response, I suspect that Trace has been desperately trying to
meet those standards for some time. And since the whole point of the
4.10 release was to tighten the grid sell limits to achieve UL and IEEE
compliance, I seriously doubt they'll relax them again -- especially if
even
4.10 fails UL's tests.

And it also seems that the SW inverter exceeds the harmonic distortion
limits. This one is much less of a surprise to me, given how the SW
inverter works. I've always noticed how much noisier the inverter is
when
selling into the grid than when it's running standalone at the same
power
level. Trace's solution? Add a new, heavy and undoubtedly expensive
"grid tie interface" box. They don't say much about it, but I'm willing
to
bet it's filled with a bunch of passive LC filters, one for each of the
important harmonics.

This is the last straw for me. I am now actively encouraging those who
ask me for advice on grid-tied PV systems to avoid buying Trace if at
all
possible.

Phil

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