My newish system (44 Panasonic N330 panels with enphase IQ7X micro inverters, plus envoy) still generates net (considering envoy is a parasitic load) 5-7W at night. Not sure if this is real, from city light pollution; or if this is just something slightly miscalibrated in the solar CT or Sense.
SolarEdge SE7600HD shows -2 or -3w most of the time for me.
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I have an ABB string inverter for my 2.08 kW system. While the sun is setting, it goes as low as -20W (about 40 minutes after it crosses 0W), but once the voltage on the panels drops enough, the inverter turns itself off until morning, using 0 W. In the morning, the voltage threshold to turn on is a little higher, so it starts out at -10W, and goes positive in about 5 minutes since the array faces East.
I adjusted the threshold voltage in the settings once to try to reduce the negative amounts and times, but it didnāt seem to have a noticeable effect.
7 hoymiles inverters. Sense shows +7W generation all night. I am sure this is an error of some sort. Interestingly it goes away immediately if I turn off the AC disconnect so it is in the solar line. Also goes away and reports 0W if my dryer turns on at night but no effect from other loads. The Dryer breaker and lines are not close to the solar line or solar CTs. I suspect this is something complex relating to reactive power / āreflectionsā from the capacitance of the inverters with low power factor and low real power exchange. New to solar and sense and hoping to learn more. I found the below video very interesting to learn more about what could be happening and why it might not be a simple fix like adjust the baseline of your solar until it shows 0W at night or a small negative number related to the usage of the micro-inverters at night. If Iām wrong and it is an easy issue with an easy fix please let me know!
My Old Xantrex inverter from 2009 used exactly 2W when idle. So frugal!
Because our power demand has increased dramatically over the recent years (EV charger, induction cooktop, electric oven, and 5 head minisplit heat pump system), we just replaced the old solar with a brand new solar system (~ same panel area, twice the power!) and got a new Tesla inverter.
The Tesla inverter is more complicated because it seems to exist in several operation modes.
Truly idle, it uses 6W, never less. (i.e. 3x more than my old inverter!)
Occasionally, it uses 10W
Sometimes it uses about 29W
I guess the 29W stretch was maybe a firmware update or some other background maintenance.
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Following up on my previous post and based on just a few days of observation with the Tesla inverter, here are some more details:
The 29W usage always happens for 30-55 minutes straight right after sundown and also for a few minutes at sunrise. The rest of the night is 6W.
I am curious what it is actually doing that demands 29W for almost an hour.
Anyone know the embedded hardware they use (CPU, etc.)?