Seven years ago Solar City installed two rows of panels and a PowerOne inverter on my house. At the time, they gave three options for payment, purchase outright, 20-year lease with fixed and scheduled payment increases, or lease, but prepay the lease and avoid the ongoing payments and increases. The third option was thousands less than purchase outright, although you did not get the potential tax advantage. Also, with the third option, Solar City continued to own the equipment, and would, therefore provide any needed service for no additional charge. I chose that last option, lease and prepay the lease.
To complete the equipment story, this past Spring I purchased, through Infinity Energy, a Powerwall and another row of panels. These were Enphase panels with microinverters, and, therefore, independent of the original system. After the install, I added a UPS for my desktop computer, cable modem and router. I read the extended thread about requesting a change in the maximum cycles. Tesla agreed to change it to 62.75 Hz based on the specific Cyberpower UPS I had selected.
Until recently, the only issue I had, occurred during a Northern California planned power shutoff. While the Powerwall took over without problem, recharged from solar during the day and continued to provide power during the evening, all as hoped for, I noticed about 12 hours into the shutoff, that the power seemed to cycle off and immediately back on three times over a one-hour period. Tesla has been investigating for over a month, can see that activity from my record, and when I check in, assures me they will have an answer soon.
That completes the background. Last week, I received a text from Tesla saying my solar panels were not producing electricity and asking me to cycle the inverter. I checked the app and saw that the original Solar City system was indeed not producing electricity and had not been for a couple of days. The Enphase panels were fine, but obviously my total output was greatly reduced. When I checked the PowerOne inverter, it listed Error E031. Cycling the power on the inverter and to the inverter did not help. I reported that information back to Tesla and a day later they replied and said they would replace the inverter under warranty. It will take 2 to 4 weeks to have one in stock, and they will then schedule the visit.
My specific question is whether there might be a relation between that power cycling I had during the blackout and my PowerOne inverter possibly showing some early signs of an issue. I would say that until it died, it seemed to be working fine, with my total power output across the two systems pretty much as expected. I'm planning to call in to Tesla to ask about progress on my open case on the power cycling, but wanted to be prepared if they latch on to the inverter as the source of the issue. Any other thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
To complete the equipment story, this past Spring I purchased, through Infinity Energy, a Powerwall and another row of panels. These were Enphase panels with microinverters, and, therefore, independent of the original system. After the install, I added a UPS for my desktop computer, cable modem and router. I read the extended thread about requesting a change in the maximum cycles. Tesla agreed to change it to 62.75 Hz based on the specific Cyberpower UPS I had selected.
Until recently, the only issue I had, occurred during a Northern California planned power shutoff. While the Powerwall took over without problem, recharged from solar during the day and continued to provide power during the evening, all as hoped for, I noticed about 12 hours into the shutoff, that the power seemed to cycle off and immediately back on three times over a one-hour period. Tesla has been investigating for over a month, can see that activity from my record, and when I check in, assures me they will have an answer soon.
That completes the background. Last week, I received a text from Tesla saying my solar panels were not producing electricity and asking me to cycle the inverter. I checked the app and saw that the original Solar City system was indeed not producing electricity and had not been for a couple of days. The Enphase panels were fine, but obviously my total output was greatly reduced. When I checked the PowerOne inverter, it listed Error E031. Cycling the power on the inverter and to the inverter did not help. I reported that information back to Tesla and a day later they replied and said they would replace the inverter under warranty. It will take 2 to 4 weeks to have one in stock, and they will then schedule the visit.
My specific question is whether there might be a relation between that power cycling I had during the blackout and my PowerOne inverter possibly showing some early signs of an issue. I would say that until it died, it seemed to be working fine, with my total power output across the two systems pretty much as expected. I'm planning to call in to Tesla to ask about progress on my open case on the power cycling, but wanted to be prepared if they latch on to the inverter as the source of the issue. Any other thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
