Finally going solar. I have a question about Enphase microinverters and Powerwall compatibility

[swedge]

Now, would love to put an elevator in my house, so that is on my list to look at. EXPENSIVE!!

Or you could wait till Musk's next company called NHNT (Neither Here Nor There) gets his matter transporter de-bugged*. I think it uses MTOE technology, matter transport over ethernet. ;-)

Wow, we have wandered far off thread. Sorry. I should go for a walk.

* think Jeff Goldblum in The Fly

 

[eaa795]

My enphase app stopped reporting in December, saying the micro inverters aren't reporting. I've had the installer out a few times and they replace my enphase gateway. Still no reports. Nothing changed in my system in December, but someone suggested the power walls are interfering with the gateway. Anyone with a suggested fix?

 

[swedge]

Let us know as I am interested.

I just got my first NEM2 True-Up. The "adjustment" was around $65, so pretty much what I was aiming for. I ran with Esport Everything and Grid Charging. Oh, and there was a check earlier this year for around $140 from Tesla for VPP exports last year. So in effect my only electricity cost was the ~$10 per month Minimum Monthly Charges.

I am mystified by the adjustment amount. After all my study and simulation and tracking, and the very cloudy year here so far, I was calculating that my true-up was going to come in around $300. I do see how PG&E calculated the $65, but I do not yet understand why they did it that way. So I'm still drilling down to figure that out. I'm back to re-reading the NEM2 Tariff the terminology of which bears little resemblance to the obfuscatory 15 page Black&White "detailed" bill.

After I figure out why they calculated the way they did, I plan to see how much the various setting and strategies contributed.

Oversizing the solar is one way to minimize the yearly cost, but that is more capital up front. Optimizing the size and operation of the system to minimize the annual cost is my game, but it is made difficult by PG&E utterly failing to document the factors which determine the True-Up amount. There is a thread on that topic, and I will probably post there when I get more clarity.

 

[swedge]

My enphase app stopped reporting in December, saying the micro inverters aren't reporting. I've had the installer out a few times and they replace my enphase gateway. Still no reports. Nothing changed in my system in December, but someone suggested the power walls are interfering with the gateway. Anyone with a suggested fix?

Something changed in December. I'd guess something is putting noise onto the AC lines over which the microinverters communicate with the gateway. Another possibility is a poor ground or neutral connection connection.

My Enphase system has never had any power line communication issues, but I have had RF interference problems with other devices which was caused by LED bulbs and also by light dimmers. Those put out such a splash of wide band noise that a portable AM radio can help track it down. Or an oscilloscope on the AC coming into the gateway.

Sorry I can't offer more specific suggestions.

SW

 

[charlesj]

My enphase app stopped reporting in December, saying the micro inverters aren't reporting. I've had the installer out a few times and they replace my enphase gateway. Still no reports. Nothing changed in my system in December, but someone suggested the power walls are interfering with the gateway. Anyone with a suggested fix?

Without reading the rest of history here, when was Tesla installed?
I have Enphase with no issues. My Enphase gateway as you call that box is on the other side of house where Tesla's Gateway is located.
Is your problem resolved? Doesn't seem to be.
My Enphase breaker in subpanel and its breaker in the garage is by battery breakers along with 2nd subpanel's breaker.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

It can, but I believe you also need to install Enphase's equivalent of the Tesla Gateway to manage isolation from the grid, which also makes your system ready for batteries in the future. A friend got quoted about $10K to have that gateway installed, on a solar install that itself was only $10-15K total - that's $10K without any batteries, to get sunlight backup. That installer also said it basically doesn't work, and advised against it - my digging around suggested maybe it's because there's no way to manage loads to ensure they stay below the available solar output, so if your loads are too high, the whole thing probably just shuts down....

I'm interested in the concept, as I have older M215 micro's, that they've supposedly made compatible with this - but not for $10K...

Enphase needs to publish recommended installation costs. 10k is extremely outrageous..
That is why I went with powerwall..

 

[sunwarriors]

Enphase needs to publish recommended installation costs. 10k is extremely outrageous..
That is why I went with powerwall..

Don't installers set the price? Whenever you see some installer throw a high price, it's usually because they don't want to do the work for low cost or bother for whatever reason (too much work). From wwu123's quote example, that installer doesn't like sunlight backup because it is a problem on very cloudy days and won't work (obviously if cloudy) and more work if they charged less. I think the gateway is only like $2k? or something in cost.

Generally, with Enphase (and any battery), I feel one shouldn't bother with sunlight backup nor 1 small battery unless you at least get 20 kWh because the install has some fixed items that can't be avoided. 0 battery, $10k, 1 battery $18k, 2 battery $25k, etc...

My 2 batteries weren't much more than PWs (w/SGIP that Tesla can't get, but yes, less kWh) so as I keep saying, 1 quoted example isn't everyone (and usually overblown here) if one follows the solar reddit.

 

[swedge]

Don't installers set the price? Whenever you see some installer throw a high price, it's usually because they don't want to do the work for low cost or bother for whatever reason (too much work). From wwu123's quote example, that installer doesn't like sunlight backup because it is a problem on very cloudy days and won't work (obviously if cloudy) and more work if they charged less. I think the gateway is only like $2k? or something in cost.

Generally, with Enphase (and any battery), I feel one shouldn't bother with sunlight backup nor 1 small battery unless you at least get 20 kWh because the install has some fixed items that can't be avoided. 0 battery, $10k, 1 battery $18k, 2 battery $25k, etc...

My 2 batteries weren't much more than PWs (w/SGIP that Tesla can't get, but yes, less kWh) so as I keep saying, 1 quoted example isn't everyone (and usually overblown here) if one follows the solar reddit.

I put in one PowerWall, which seemed sufficient. On PG&E's EV2-A rate, off peak is from midnight till 3PM, and between 3 PM and midnight we use around 50% of the PW's capacity. So that works.

But now, Export Everything EE gives an additional savings opportunity. Much of the year, the PW gets to 100% around noon, so solar starts exporting while the rate is still off-peak. EE exports starting at 4 pm and self adjusts to get down to the backup reserve when the rate drops.

So, what if I had a 2nd Powerwall? All that off-peak export could be time shifted to export at peak pricing. And with grid charging, that can happen all year. So rather than arbitrage on 30% of PW capacity as I have now, with 2 PW I could do so on 130%.

My real mistake was that my PW was paid for by SGIP, and they would have gladly paid for 2. Sigh.

As it is, my first NEM2 sure-up just came in at around $65 for the year, plus of course the monthly minimum billing. So my single PW is doing about as good as can be. But when we replace gas heating with electric heat pumps, I will really wish I had gone bigger.

My point is that if one can afford 2 PW's, it may be a very good idea.

 

[eaa795]

Without reading the rest of history here, when was Tesla installed?
I have Enphase with no issues. My Enphase gateway as you call that box is on the other side of house where Tesla's Gateway is located.
Is your problem resolved? Doesn't seem to be.
My Enphase breaker in subpanel and its breaker in the garage is by battery breakers along with 2nd subpanel's breaker.

Tesla was installed a couple of years ago. Enphase is blaming the installer saying that there may be wires loose or burned? All seems crazy.

 

[charlesj]

Tesla was installed a couple of years ago. Enphase is blaming the installer saying that there may be wires loose or burned? All seems crazy.

That is interesting. Did micros report properly after battery installation? If so, curious that it would stop reporting sometime after battery installation.
Where is the breaker for the solar in relations to the Enphase Gateway? And the internet.
Mine is on the 2nd floor subpanel and the Gateway in the study on the 2nd floor outlet. It reads well. Internet is not far.

 

[h2ofun]

I put in one PowerWall, which seemed sufficient. On PG&E's EV2-A rate, off peak is from midnight till 3PM, and between 3 PM and midnight we use around 50% of the PW's capacity. So that works.

But now, Export Everything EE gives an additional savings opportunity. Much of the year, the PW gets to 100% around noon, so solar starts exporting while the rate is still off-peak. EE exports starting at 4 pm and self adjusts to get down to the backup reserve when the rate drops.

So, what if I had a 2nd Powerwall? All that off-peak export could be time shifted to export at peak pricing. And with grid charging, that can happen all year. So rather than arbitrage on 30% of PW capacity as I have now, with 2 PW I could do so on 130%.

My real mistake was that my PW was paid for by SGIP, and they would have gladly paid for 2. Sigh.

As it is, my first NEM2 sure-up just came in at around $65 for the year, plus of course the monthly minimum billing. So my single PW is doing about as good as can be. But when we replace gas heating with electric heat pumps, I will really wish I had gone bigger.

My point is that if one can afford 2 PW's, it may be a very good idea.

THis is why I have 7 now

 

[swedge]

My enphase app stopped reporting in December, saying the micro inverters aren't reporting. I've had the installer out a few times and they replace my enphase gateway. Still no reports. Nothing changed in my system in December, but someone suggested the power walls are interfering with the gateway. Anyone with a suggested fix?

It does not make sense that your solar installer would leave if the micro inverters are not connecting to the Envoy. So, maybe that is not the problem.

Wait a second... Is your Envoy connecting to the Enphase servers? Do you know if your Enphase Envoy gateway is connecting to the internet? That is, are you having internet problems or is it power line communication problems. The app gets it's info from the Enphase servers. The servers get the info from your Envoy gateway through your home network and the internet. The Envoy gets the info from the microinvertes via power line communications.

The fist step is to figure out which link is broken.

The Envoy has a local web interface which you should be able to view on any web browser. This connects to the envoy over your home network. On my home network, using Safari I go to http://envoy.local.

Enphanse describes this here: https://support.enphase.com/s/article/How-do-I-access-the-Envoy-S-or-IQ-Envoy-s-local-web-interface

They also have troubleshooting pages such as: https://support.enphase.com/s/artic...-a-Microinverters-Not-Reporting-system-status

 

[charlesj]

...

The Envoy has a local web interface which you should be able to view on any web browser. This connects to the envoy over your home network. On my home network, using Safari I go to http://envoy.local.

...

Many thanks. Didn't know or forgot about this.
Just tried it just by clicking on your link.
Interesting.

 

[miimura]

envoy.local doesn't work for me. I just go to my router and find the IP address assigned to my Envoy and put the IP address in a web browser and it comes up.

 

[miimura]

When my Powerwall system was installed, I was concerned about the powerline communication between the Envoy and the micros being interrupted. So, I made sure that the Envoy was plugged into a circuit that was fed from the Generation panel where the solar was relocated. I've never had any issues with Enphase monitoring.

 

[wwu123]

@eaa795,

Things were a lot simpler, and more limited, with the original Envoy, which is what I have with my 10-yr old system. There's a little LCD right on the Envoy, which after a tediously long bootup time, and time to re-establish PLC with the micro's, show whether it has a Internet web connection, as well as how many micro's are connected. From the very beginning, using most outlets in my house would only show 13-15 or my 16 micro's. For some odd reason, only in my master bedroom, the farthest point from my main panel, could I reliably get all 16 to report, so the bedroom floor is where the Envoy has sat for the past decade. Even an outlet right on the inside wall opposite the main panel, so presumably the shortest run back to the panel, couldn't get all to report.

I say simpler, because I understand the new Envoy (aka IQ Gateway), has fancier features like CT's for production and consumption monitoring inside your main panel, and therefore it seems the new Envoy has to be hardwired to the load panel, and so typically outside or in the garage or similar. Otherwise I was going to suggest unplugging your Envoy and moving it around the house to see if plugging into a different outlet might get some or all to show up.

envoy.local doesn't work for mine either. I guess another feature of the older, simpler Envoy is that little LCD also shows what local IP address it's grabbed, so typing that IP into a browser brings the local interface right up....

 

[BGbreeder]

One could always reserve an ip address for one's envoy, and assign it the envoy.local name if one really wanted to...

 

[swedge]

One could always reserve an ip address for one's envoy, and assign it the envoy.local name if one really wanted to...

Or, once the static IP address is set, either in the Envoy or assigned by your router, http:// followed by that IP address will get you there too.

 

[charlesj]

envoy.local doesn't work for me. I just go to my router and find the IP address assigned to my Envoy and put the IP address in a web browser and it comes up.

Did you click on the link in the post?
I just tried to type it in the address bar without that http:// and doesn't work, then a couple of other variants, nothing.
The link still works though.
Then tried the address bar again, carefully typing in what is in that link, it works.

 

[eaa795]

Did you click on the link in the post?
I just tried to type it in the address bar without that http:// and doesn't work, then a couple of other variants, nothing.
The link still works though.
Then tried the address bar again, carefully typing in what is in that link, it works.

With the old gateway, it was both the data connection over the internet timing out and the microinverters not reporting. With the new gateway, the internet connection was solid, but no microinverters. After a couple of days, 5 came online as normal. I contacted Enphase again. The person found that the microinverters hadn’t been assigned to the new gateway by the installer. He couldn’t explain why 5 were reporting normal. He says that he reassigned all to the new gateway, but there still was no reporting. Then, a few days later, all now reporting normal. But no historical info uploading. I don’t really care about that. I only want the reporting to monitor whether any of the microinverters are not working.

Thanks to all for suggested help.