[RE-wrenches] Schneider Electric XW Pro

[Kent Osterberg]

I just finished a call with Schneider Electric tech support about 
setting up a multi-inverter XW Pro system. My complaint was (and is) 
that despite what the manual says, you can't set up a XW Pro slave unit 
in a multi-inverter system using the system control panel (SCP); that 
can only be done using the gateway or the configuration tool. And once a 
XW Pro is set up to be a slave, the only path back to being a master is 
with the gateway or the configuration tool, or to reset the unit to 
factory defaults with the SCP. Technician explained that the 20-year old 
design of the SCP doesn't have enough memory to allow the 120/240 split 
phase options. However, it does seem to have enough memory for 120 or 
240 single phase and 120/208 three phase, ...

The reason this is a thorn in my side is that Schneider wants to market 
this inverter for off grid use and seems to totally ignore what happens 
when you have an off grid power system failure. If you have a master 
inverter failure and need to reconfigure the system, it needs to be 
something that can be corrected easily - in the middle of the night. No 
ac power, no computer, no phones, no internet. The only option seems to 
be to reset a slave unit with the SCP and then reprogram it.

No longer as enthusiastic about using Schneider for off grid power.

Kent Osterberg
Blue Mountain Solar