New Solar add, readings aren’t correct….in comparison

I just got PTO and now have Solaredge system running. It’s a 10kw system, I’m about the middle of the day, and here’s what solar edge says and what sense says…do I have setup wron, or wiring wrong etc.

What could it be, see the two attachments.

It’s reading about half…


I see two things wrong with your Sense data after adding the solar.

  • Your Sense reading is half of your solar inverter reading. An easy check would be to go under Settings > My Home > Monitor to see if Sense is missing one of the two legs of your solar backfeed. Here’s what it should look like for a working solar monitoring setup:

  • Your Sense also seems to be losing Total Usage when solar ramps up. Your Total Usage looks like it is showing net usage. You should see Total Usage even when your solar is rolling in.

I recommend contacting support@sense.com on the second issue. They can reconfigure.

Hmm, I had installed originally, but the solar guys had to pull to replace panel, doesnt look like they got CT’s right???

Yup, the leg on the left (L0) looks like it is all screwed up. Right leg (L1) looks normal. To me, it looks like the L0 solar CT isn’t seeing any power and that has caused misconfiguration of the L0 main. If your L0 solar was about 835W, the same as the L1, and the polarity was reversed on the L0 main (which is really only showing net power right now), your L0 main would be reading 1305W which would look like normal operation. I would contact support @sense.com, but first check the solar CTs.

WHen you say polarity was reversed, do you mean , both not oriented the same way? And if so, is there a wrong way, or just that both need to be the same way…(as i remember from the left hand thumb rule for current direction?)

Quite honestly, Sense guides people to a consistent orientation for the mains and solar CTs, but the setup/calibration is designed to adjust and configure to any of the 16 possible combinations of orientations. Sometimes Sense gets it wrong. Sometimes users and electricians, like mine, make inconsistent changes in orientation after setup. support@sense.com can fix things on their end.

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So I fixed my solar sensor, was on the wrong lead, now solar shows up ok…see snapshot…but the mains isn’t right? This is a whole new box.

How can I get the mains corrected?

CT’s seem to be correct, same direction etc.

Here’s the all grid leads…
And solar leads

Whoa, never mind….I guess

I re-setup my solar calibration, after moving the CT….and now things appear fine.
(I guess the two mains from grid and load in panel are not necessarily balanced load)
See results below

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Two thoughts here.

  • Building on my prior statement, Sense has some conventions for what is the right orientation for CTs (today - with labels for the mains pair and the solar pair, facing in the same direction - 4 of the 16 possible combinations), but Sense setup can be adjusted via the software to any of the 16 possible orientation combinations). Once Sense has adjusted to what it thinks is right from the last pass through setup, the setup conventions could be out the window. Sense is configured based on what it thinks are the correct polarities and L0/L1 relationships (which solar sensor is on the same leg as each main).
  • So in your case, you are now trying to flip the sensors to match the polarities that Sense setup configured them for, not based on original setup conventions in the guide. Just looking at your screenshot, I would say that you need to reverse the solar CT that is negative (the one that was zeroed out earlier). After that there maybe more steps.
  • Alternately, you could contact support@sense.com. They have the capability to rerun setup of the CT while they supervise. They have the ability to do additional measurements, flips, crossovers (to match L0 Solar with L0 Mains), etc. To see a little bit more of this diagnostic capability, you can watch this Sense video about their Sense Pro App for Sense-partnered installers (electricians and solar installers that include Sense in their bundled work offerings).

Not available to end users or just any electrician, probably because they don’t want the liability from end users moving CTs around inside their panels to fix things. Usually setup gets it right if all the CTs are placed via the label conventions and on the right wires. At worst it typically errors out and tells the user to contact sense@support.com.

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I think you’re right there but the automatic “recalibration” vs manual (flipping CTs) does lead me to ponder less Support intensive methods:

  • Sense could create a “Signal test” option in Settings>My Home>Monitor>Signals which in theory does something like a forced polarity check (and maybe something deeper on phases and other factors) but in practice could be used by electricians and “others” (read: at your own risk; limited liability) to manually initiate the otherwise automatic (delayed) recalibration after flipping and “physically correcting” CTs.

  • Settings>My Home>Monitor>Signals>Signals test could potentially also have something like a “Calibrate automatically” toggle or similar modal switch.

It’s also a place where Support or the Community can point to for CT or Signals problems. Similar to “Network test”.

Thinking further: That would be a good place to confirm, for example, 208V vs 240V supply and the associated phase differences that could be an issue with other support questions.

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Thought I’d follow up with the latest…

With the help of tech support, we discovered, my solar electrician moved my CT’s around in the panel to make room for the solar edge CT’s. Such that it was so tight, that one of the grid supply CT’s clamp was being pushed open when the electrical panel was pushed on…

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