[RE-wrenches] Sol-Ark phantom loads

[Roland Shackelford]

Don,

We have had this happen when you auto calibrate the CT's and the CTs aren't
properly positioned to see exported energy from the Sol-Ark inverter.
Couple other times it took several calibrations and messing with opening
and closing the cts and double checking splices on extensions of CTS.

Good luck!


Roland Shackelford

President / Owner

NABCEP PVIP #091209-162

O 808.775.7410 | M 808.938.9239 |

45-487 Lehua St Honokaa, HI 96727

Power Solutions for Generations Renewable Energy Services, Inc.
<https://www.renewablenergy.com/>


" Where there is integrity, there will be trust. Where there is trust,
there will be an atmosphere for success." - Sadhguru


On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 11:18 AM don energysolarnow.com via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> Just spent yesterday debugging a Sol-Ark 15 kW inverter phantom load
> weirdness.
> With Work Mode set at Limited Power To Home it seemed to get a bit schizo,
> pulling around 6kW in from the grid on leg L1 and around 13 kW on the other
> L2 leg, with 7kW of PV added. No house loads were involved. The monitoring
> called this a 13 kW load.
> I measured something like 50 amps on L2 and neutral; 120 Volts on L1 and
> 125 Volts on L2 at the house. My Fluke clamp-on amp meter does not say
> which way AC current is flowing. The utility meter showed it as  power
> coming in.
> At the main meter panel about 150 ft away from the house the voltages were
> better balanced; probably due to proximity to the utility transformer.
> Those leg voltages were balanced when the inverter was shut down.
> Oddly, this phantom loading decreased with decreasing PV production later
> in the day.
> Working with Sol-Ark tech support we (of course) downloaded new firmware,
> then changed Work Mode to Limited Power To Load. After a couple of resets
> this had the effect of allowing the inverter to cover just the loads in the
> battery-backed subpanel; not those at the house main panel where the CT
> sensors are located. The phantom 13kW load has not recurred.
> Has anyone seen an inverter try to mix import and export on different legs
> by creating phantom loads?
>
> Don Barch
> Energy Solar
>
>
>
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