[RE-wrenches] Enphase M190 current limiting

Thu Feb 4 16:12:43 PST 2016

To all,

            This is a project that I did back in 2009 and hearing of this made me wonder. As you can see below in the spring shot it’s all good. I should point out that this is a DAT and I have had a failure of a single module but none on the M190’s.

Best of luck,

Christopher Schaefer

cid:EB9951D7-9416-4A0B-9348-0AB528A6FD7F

From: RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Louis Woofenden
Sent: Wednesday, 03 February, 2016 11:48
To: RE-wrenches
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Enphase M190 current limiting

Hi Rebecca and all,

We're experiencing the same thing on several M190 sites, though not all. Interestingly, M190s that have been replaced are not having the same problem.

According to Enphase, it is a software problem. My understanding is that they are rolling back software updates on affected devices to solve the problem, but I'm not clear on the exact order that will happen. 

Not sure if being a squeaky wheel on particular systems is going to hurt or help. Kind of disappointing that they didn't properly beta test any software updates on all types of microinverter devices before rolling them out to all customers. Seems like that would be common sense.

Best,
Louis

-- 

Louis Woofenden
Engineering Director
Net Zero Solar, LLC
101. W. 5th St., Tucson, AZ 85705
Arizona ROC #248710, 259756, 259521 

Phone:  <tel:520.207.4053> 520.207.4053 Ex. 2

Cell:  <tel:520.237.5040> 520.237.5040
Fax:  <tel:520.203.7230> 520.203.7230

NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional™
NABCEP Certified Solar Heating Installer™

Luke Christy wrote:

Hi Rebecca,

After you posted this I looked at the power production history for several of our Enphase sites with M190s, and the same thing is happening. Inverter output is being clipped at 140W across the board.

This seems like a pretty big deal in terms of potential lost production for a lot of users.

Have you brought this up with Enphase? 

-Luke 

NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional™: Certification #031409-25 
NABCEP Certified Solar Heating Installer™: Certification #ST032611-03 
CoSEIA Certified PV Installer 

Solar Gain Services, LLC
PO Box 531
Monte Vista, CO 81144
sgsrenewables at gmail.com
719.588.3044
www.sgsrenewables.com <http://www.sgsrenewables.com/> 

On Jan 31, 2016, at 21:08, Rebecca Lundberg <rebecca.lundberg at powerfullygreen.com> wrote:

I just noticed that several of our sites with Enphase M190s are current limiting at 140 watts. These units used to clip at 199 watts so I feel like our customers just lost a potential 30% of their power output. It appears to be related to a firmware update 520-00008-r01-v01.08.00. We've got one site with just 8 units, 1 of them got this firmware update back in September and has been limiting to 140w since then, 5 of them got this update in late January and have been limiting to 140w since then, the other two are at a previous firmware version and are performing as we would expect up to 199w. Have any of you noticed this same thing? Do you know what this is about? It doesn't feel very fair on the user end of things.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Lundberg
Powerfully Gree

 n

Minnesota

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-- 
-- 

Louis Woofenden
Engineering Director
Net Zero Solar, LLC
101. W. 5th St., Tucson, AZ 85705
Arizona ROC #248710, 259756, 259521 

Phone:  <tel:520.207.4053> 520.207.4053 Ex. 2

Cell:  <tel:520.237.5040> 520.237.5040
Fax:  <tel:520.203.7230> 520.203.7230

NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional™
NABCEP Certified Solar Heating Installer™

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