I have two separate solar PV arrays with separate inverters that get combined in a junction box before being sent to the power company’s Gross Production Meter. Basically, the junction box with two DP breakers is being run backward to function as a combiner.
I’ve connected my Sense to the common feed to the junction box so that Sense sees the total solar production. It seems as though this is confusing Sense. I don’t know why it would - current is current. Maybe I’m the one who is confused?
FYI I also have solar with 2 inverters. It might be a bit different than your common connection. In my case each inverter is connected to its own DP breaker. I ran the wires coming from each leg on each inverter through the current probes and it works just fine. Make sure you get the sensors oriented correctly or it won’t add the 2 together.
Steve, I believe I have the same Panel set up as you are describing, could you take a picture of your set up so I can see how you ran the legs through the probes? Are you running both wires for breaker 1 through one probe and both wires for breaker 2 through the other? Or are you running one wire from each breaker through each probe respectively (i.e. both reds through one probe, and both blacks through the other).
Hi I am running one wire from breaker 1 and one from breaker 2 through one CT. The second CT has the other 2 wires. One from each of the breakers. As you mention, the reds through one and the blacks through the other. Be sure however that the way your panel is wired has both reds on one phase and both blacks on the other phase. I’ll try and post a picture for you.
Hey steve, any chance you were able to take that picture? I had a defective inverters so i’ve only been running part of the system. My second inverter was just replaced it upon turning it on, sense started giving me odd readings… i’m reading negative numbers on solar production and energy usage. Only thing that was changed was turning on my second inverter.
Helps out a lot, thank you. I mimic the set up you are using as you described and then shown in the pictures. For some reason Sense is taking The production from my larger inverter and subtracting it by the production from my smaller inverter and displaying the difference. It’s also showing me in the negative on power usage during production times as well. I’m using net metering, however did not have any of these issues until the second inverter was turned on.
Or another way of doing this - is it possible to put TWO red wires in a CT Sensor and TWO black wires in the other? Would sense track that accurately from both ? If that is a possability then I can just have the electrician pull a bunch of extra wire into the box and put the sensors around the wires before terminating on the breaker
Hi everyone - I’m trying to sort a similar situation out here as well - I have TWO solar inverters going into my 200A panel - each inverter handles 7kw and the electrian plans to supply each one to a separate breaker. I really want to find a way to use the sense solar monitor but not sure how to make this work since the load will be “split” among two separate breakers. Does anyone know any ways this could be done - even if it means routing the wires to a box where they are combined and then a single feed into the main?
Yes, that is the way to do it!
I have combined 3 wires to 3 different breakers in my solar production CT’s.
As long as you keep L1’s (black) & L2’s (red) together.
Do the current flows need to be going in the same direction in order for this to work? I have 2 PV arrays that go into my main panel (from their inverters), PV A comes in from the top and PV B comes in from the bottom. When I had the CT’s on L1 and L2 for both PV’s, the output in the Sense app deducted PV B from PV A instead of taking the sum of the two PV’s.
Yup - you have to run the 2 PV backfeeds for same leg/phase (L1/L2) through the same CT. If you run opposing polarities through a CT, the fields created by the currents will cancel each other out - that’s physics.
Thanks. I did have same L1/L2 going through each CT. Maybe I’m not understanding? Here is a shot of how I had it configured, the two top breakers are for my PV’s. Should this work?
Try posting photo again - it didn’t come through for some reason. But Sense isn’t capable of deducting B from A - That addition / subtraction happens inside the CT. If you’re getting subtraction, it is either from a difference in wire direction or phase / leg going through the CT.
