[RE-wrenches] Fwd: Home energy monitoring

Michael Welch michael.welch at re-wrenches.org
Tue Apr 13 14:11:46 PDT 2010


>I'd like to pitch in my experiences with the TED -- as others have pointed out, it leaves some things to be desired.
>
>I have a client with a TED 5000 -- Holt Kelly from this list is the installer -- and there were some limitations that haven't been resolved by Energy, Inc.
>
>The show-stopper for my client is that they have a hybrid system with a SB6000U and GVFX3648.  The customer wanted to monitor the production of both inverters.  The client has three CTs installed in their main panel -- one pair around the feeders from the meter, another pair for the SB6000U and a singleton for the GVFX3648.
>
>The problem is that only the first CT is configured to record bi-directional power.  The result is that the GVFX3648 always shows up as a load, regardless of direction of current flow.  The only solution to this limitation, right now, is to configure that CT as a "Stand-alone" system.  It turns out that the way their GUI displays the data, the SB6000's CT also needed to be configured as stand-alone system.
>
>In terms of customer support, the people I spoke to (for two hours) do not understand renewable energy systems, and do not listen.  The client has 8KW DC total and the system was exporting a fair amount of that.  The CTs were misconfigured (see earlier) and customer service didn't understand that my client was NOT using 4KW or whatever.
>
>The TED 5000 is okay in a single CT configuration.  They've promised firmware updates that will make it work better with inverters, but I'd hold out before installing in a configuration that =required= that functionality.  In my client's case, they wanted to know system net (import / export), and the other two CT values are less important.
>--
>Julie Haugh
>Senior Design Engineer
>greenHouse Computers, LLC // jfh at greenhousepc.com // greenHousePC on Skype




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