Issues with Tesla Solar Panel Activation

[LareBear]

I received my approval from PG&E Utility to turn on my solar on 10/14 and approval from Tesla to turn on my solar on 10/15. I tried turning on my inverter on 10/15 at 8:00AM but it hasn't worked.

I called Tesla and we tried power cycling off/on the inverter three times with no luck and they are sending out a service technician 1 month from now. Has anyone had this issue before?

 

[jjrandorin]

I received my approval from PG&E Utility to turn on my solar on 10/14 and approval from Tesla to turn on my solar on 10/15. I tried turning on my inverter on 10/15 at 8:00AM but it hasn't worked.

I called Tesla and we tried power cycling off/on the inverter three times with no luck and they are sending out a service technician 1 month from now. Has anyone had this issue before?

It should have worked when they installed it. Silly question, but did you make sure the breaker for the PV (solar install) was also in the ON position before you tried to turn the inverter on?

 

[BrettS]

I received my approval from PG&E Utility to turn on my solar on 10/14 and approval from Tesla to turn on my solar on 10/15. I tried turning on my inverter on 10/15 at 8:00AM but it hasn't worked.

I called Tesla and we tried power cycling off/on the inverter three times with no luck and they are sending out a service technician 1 month from now. Has anyone had this issue before?

There are definitely a lot of switches and breakers that need to be turned on for the system to start working and it’s easy to miss one. What kind of inverter do you have and are there any lights on on the inverter?

 

[LareBear]

I got the Solar Edge 7600 inverter and the green and blue lights are solid. Sometimes all 3 lights including the red would flash.

The breaker is also on the On position. When I called Tesla we power cycled 3 times before they decided to send a technician next month. My system is brand new and I was sad to hear it would take another month for them to send a tech out. Has this happened to anyone else and does anyone have any recommendations?

 

[LareBear]

One more thing - no matter what I do, I don't hear the inverter being on with the humming noise even though the status lights are on. Is that a sign for something?

 

[power.saver]

One more thing - no matter what I do, I don't hear the inverter being on with the humming noise even though the status lights are on. Is that a sign for something?

There is a description of all the LED codes here.

 

[mnsweeps]

@LareBear - Did they test the system before they left on install day? I mean did you check your app to see production.

 

[BrettS]

If the green light is solid that means that the inverter is on and producing power. I wouldn’t expect to hear the inverter humming or making noise at all. My inverters are pretty much silent.

Why do you think it’s not working? If it’s just because you aren’t seeing any production information in the app then I’m thinking I might just be a monitoring or communication issue.

 

[LareBear]

@LareBear - Did they test the system before they left on install day? I mean did you check your app to see production.

Yeah they turned it on on install day before they left and it worked. I remember there was a slight humming noise. Now when it's powered on, there's no humming noise and the production on the app is zero. When I spoke to the Tesla Tech Rep over the phone, they also said they didn't see any production on their end so that was why they were going to send a field rep in one month.

 

[LareBear]

If the green light is solid that means that the inverter is on and producing power. I wouldn’t expect to hear the inverter humming or making noise at all. My inverters are pretty much silent.

Why do you think it’s not working? If it’s just because you aren’t seeing any production information in the app then I’m thinking I might just be a monitoring or communication issue.

The lights would cycle on between green and blue to all 3 colors sometimes. I believe it's not working because there's no production on the Tesla app and it's been one week since PTO or when they said I can turn it on. When I spoke with Tesla rep over the phone, they also said they couldn't see any production on their end. Any tips or advice here? I would hate to wait for a month to go by with no Solar energy.

 

[LareBear]

One more thing - I just viewed my PG&E energy usage and it shows I've been pulling 100% of my energy from the grid since PTO so it doesn't look the system is working.

 

[BrettS]

I would say turn everything on... even if it’s not working it’s not going to hurt to have it turned on. And then after it’s been on for at least 5 minutes and the sun is out, see what the status of the lights is. Report back to us and we can see what the lights might indicate.

 

[Redhill_qik]

The solid blue and green leds

One more thing - I just viewed my PG&E energy usage and it shows I've been pulling 100% of my energy from the grid since PTO so it doesn't look the system is working.

The solid green LED is supposed to indicate that the solar is producing. With the system off I would take a look at your PGE smartmeter to see how much your house is consuming then turn the system on and wait 5 minutes to for it to go through its start up. Once the green LED is on check the power on the PGE meter again to see if it is negative or lower. This would be the indication that it is working and that the app is wrong.

You can also download the mySolarEdge app and then scan the QR code on the inverter to access the data directly to see what is going on.

 

[LareBear]

The status light is green. My PG&E SmartMeter read 2,443kWH this morning at 8AM and at 2,446KwH around 3PM.

Does this mean there is something wrong and my inverter is not working? From the Tesla app, it looks like there was 0 production today. I'm hoping I can fix the issue instead of waiting 1 month for a technician to come out.

 

[BrettS]

It certainly looks like things are working then. The fact that the status light is solid green means that the inverter is producing power. Additionally your meter shows that your house only used 3kWh of power in 7 hours. That’s a really low number, and unless you had almost everything in the house off for those 7 hours it’s likely that your solar system is working and supplementing your power usage.

 

[BrettS]

How big is your solar system? And do you know how much power you typically use in a day? Your power bill should tell you. Or you could look at the total usage for the month and divide it by 30.

 

[Redhill_qik]

The status light is green. My PG&E SmartMeter read 2,443kWH this morning at 8AM and at 2,446KwH around 3PM.

Does this mean there is something wrong and my inverter is not working? From the Tesla app, it looks like there was 0 production today. I'm hoping I can fix the issue instead of waiting 1 month for a technician to come out.

The PGE smartmeter should be cycling through several numbers. 2443/2446kwh is like the odometer on the car measuring the total kWh used. It should also report the instantaneous power as 00#.###kw and the instantaneous Vrms. You want to look at the instant power number to see if it drops or goes negative when the inverter is turned on and your solar breaker is on or increases when you turn the inverter off.

 

[nwdiver]

The lights would cycle on between green and blue to all 3 colors sometimes. I believe it's not working because there's no production on the Tesla app and it's been one week since PTO or when they said I can turn it on. When I spoke with Tesla rep over the phone, they also said they couldn't see any production on their end. Any tips or advice here? I would hate to wait for a month to go by with no Solar energy.

What position is the on/off switch in? This is easy to overlook since most inverters don't have this but SolarEdge does.

 

[aesculus]

The status light is green. My PG&E SmartMeter read 2,443kWH this morning at 8AM and at 2,446KwH around 3PM.

When you are pulling from PG&E the display will flash Delivered and some number. When you are sending to PG&E it will flash Received and some number. The number is your total production for that moment minus any generated solar energy.

So if you turn your inverter (breaker off) your power consumption (Delivered) should be higher than it was the few minutes before you did the toggle. The display is always according to PG&Es perspective.

 

[BrettS]

What position is the on/off switch in?

I had that same thought, but the status light wouldn’t be solid green if the switch was off.