[RE-wrenches] Enphase monitoring picking up other systems

Mon Apr 14 11:26:49 PDT 2014

Hi Benn,

Our customer service team can help you resolve this issue, and I am also
happy to speak with you about this.

That is a somewhat unusual scenario, because once an array of
microinverters has been communicating with one Envoy (EMU was the original
product name,) then those microinverters should be associated with that
Envoy.  For the scenario that you described to occur, the older site's
Envoy must have been removed or not communicating with it's
microinverters.  Since those older microinverters have not been
communicating with any other EMU or Envoy for a while, they reported all of
their production data to the new Envoy when you plugged it in.  The
situation you described can also occur when the Envoy or EMU had been
previously installed at another system and already was holding that data in
it.

If you want to remove the other devices from the Envoy, you can connect the
Envoy to a laptop or to a network, and access the local host page of the
Envoy by entering the IP Address that is displayed on the Envoy's LCD
screen into you browser's address bar.  Once you've accessed the Envoy's
local host page, you can delete the extra devices from the device menu.  To
access that menu, you will need to enter 'admin' for the user name and
'admin' for the password.

If the Envoy has reported those erroneous devices from the Envoy to the
web, then those devices must also be removed from Enlighten, as August
mentioned.

This scenario you described, with two arrays reporting to a single Envoy,
can only occur when the separate residences share a common utility
transformer.  If you are developing a large project with many homes or
apartments on the same transformer,  then we have some best practices that
we recommend, to ensure a trouble free commissioning.  You can view our
Multitenant Application Note online.

I would say that Line Communication Filters are not necessary for this
application.  LCFs are really designed for commercial scale projects.  We
have evaluated a number of smaller, 20A to 60A filters that are available
for filtering:powerline communications in single phase applications, but
they are likely not needed in your scenario.  That technical brief, Filters
for Single Phase Applications, is available on our website.

For commercial scale applications, some of these same design parameters can
come into play.  Our Envoy is limited to 600 microinverters, so a large
system may need to use powerline filters or transformers to isolate the
separate Envoy's communication domains.  You can read more about that in
our Commercial Design Guide online.

All of our US downloads are available at:
http://enphase.com/global/resources/geo_us/  The docs discussed are
primarily located under our tech briefs.

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Louis Woofenden <louis at woofenden.net>wrote:

>
> Hi Benn,
>
> We've run into these problems when simultaneously commissioning systems in
> adjacent units of a housing development where we did PV systems on all
> homes, and 2-3 homes are on one utility transformer. I'm a little surprised
> that the Envoy picked up inverters from an existing system, unless those
> microinverters were never associated with another Envoy. My understanding
> from Enphase is that once they are "bound" to one Envoy, they won't be
> easily picked up in a device scan. But maybe I'm missing something, or got
> bad info from tech support.
>
> We've definitely had to work with Enphase tech support on a couple of
> systems to remove inverters from one Envoy, then do a device scan on
> another Envoy, as August suggested. Another option is to spend the money
> for the Array Gun scanner (SocketMobile CHS7xi scanner), and use the iOS
> Enphase Installer Toolkit app to build arrays and "provision" the Envoy,
> sending the inverter serial numbers directly to the Envoy, without need for
> a device scan. Not sure if this is worth it at the $450 retail price for
> the scanner, but if you can find one used, it might be. I recently was able
> to pick one up for about $250 used.
>
> Haven't yet had issues serious enough to require LCFs on residential
> systems. Crossing my fingers on that one.
>
> Best,
>
> Louis Woofenden
>
> Net Zero Solar, Tucson, AZ
>
>
> On 4/14/14, 9:08 AM, Benn Kilburn wrote:
>
>  Wrenches,
> I'm sure i read a thread on this list about dealing with this, i've
> searched but cannot find it.  If anyone recalls the subject line, please
> let me know.
>
>  We are dealing with setting up Enphase monitoring in neighborhoods with
> other Enphase systems nearby and these 'other' systems are being picked up
> by the EMU.
>
>  A few weeks ago we finished a 14 module (3.5kW) install and i plugged in
> the EMU to search for the inverters.  As it was picking up the first few
> inverters, it was showing several hundred kWh already produced???  Not bad
> for a 14 module system being in operation for 10 min!!!  (yes the inverters
> were new, out of the box)
>
>  After 30-40 min, the EMU had picked up 28 inverters in total.  There
> were 14 on the system we had just installed, and 14 on a house across the
> street that we had installed back in Nov'13.  I'm pretty sure it had picked
> up the 14 across the street before picking up the ones we just installed.
> Funny that we can sometimes have communication issues btwn the inverters
> and EMU in some houses, and here we have EMU's picking up inverters across
> the street!?!
>
>  Anywho... has anyone dealt with this and streamlined a process with
> Enphase to remedy this issue?
>
>  Cheers,
> Benn
>
>
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-- 

Cordially,

*Nick Soleil*

*Field Applications Engineer*

*Enphase Energy*

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