Failure of local and remote data access to SMA inverter

[Richard Griffin]

My SMA inverter has no buttons or displays so has a "local" interface in the form of its own WIFI SSID

This trips our occasionally and indeed SMA swapped the inverter twice to try and cure it.

I can usually continue to access current production and historical graphs on SMA's Web Portal so not much of problem.

Reset only requires a brief off / on of the AC circuit breaker (if the sun is down) or AC and DC breakers (which I avoid doing) if the sun is up.

but I can't do it at present, without moving two cars out of the garage, so it will wait.

It's very rare, perhaps twice a year, except last month when it has happened five times!!!

I've noticed the SMA portal, normally instant, has all been two hours behind occasionally and on 3 days their emailed daily readings, (normally within a tenth of a KW) have been way out.

I suspect that it's all related to Internet overload. What does anyone think. 

Richard

[John Haynes]

Hi Richard

I guess this depends on one's perspective and interests.

I have an engineering background so was interested in the technology from Day 1 back  in 2011.

For the first year, I recorded the output daily on a spreadsheet but after the end of the first year dropped this to weekly (which I still do).

Like you, I had problems with the local display from my Aurora Power One Inverter and after an Inverter swap in year 3 which failed to solve the problem, I gave up.

Since then, I have taken and still take the data from the Generation Meter which is conveniently in the cupboard under the stairs along with all the other electrical equipment.

I am aware that there is a difference between the value on the Inverter (in the loft) and the Generation meter (taking the swap into account) and the correction factor in my case is 1.0204

As has been commented elsewhere, the generation Meter is calibrated and as that is what the FiT is paid on, then that is good enough for me. One has to trust that the calibration is correct as you have to with other Utility provider meters.

If you are doing statistical analysis as I do, year on year comparisons etc, then providing the data source is the same, then the analysis would be correct. It would only create errors in the analysis if there was a mixture of Generation Meter data and Inverter data  within the same analysis without the use of a correction figure.

I would also agree that the Internet reliability has decreased since the beginning of March when so many people started working from home who had previously sat in offices. The sheer numbers of people and the huge rise in video conferencing and streaming has quite clearly resulted in overload in some areas.

By the way, also from an engineering perspective, leaving cars stationery for long periods does them no good. Even if you're not going anywhere because of the lockdown, then start the cars and run them until the engine is up to temperature for at least 10 minutes. Move them and use the brakes to stop them rusting and binding.

Hope this helps

John Haynes 

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[Gary Coombs]

I too have SMA inverters and have always noticed a time delay.  If you want more instant data then the Sunny Explorer PC software is not bad.  It can also be used to configure aspects of your system and its reporting. Trouble is, it struggles to deal properly with my two inverters, which are linked by a loop-through CAT5 cable as set out in the manual, so I no longer use it to gather data.

Instead I use sunny portal to download daily totals to my geek-sheet in Excel and my TGMs and utility meter for other data.  In addition, I have 2 immerSUN diverters and the myimmerSUN monitoring system.  That is not calibrated either and shows higher generation than the TGM and SMAs but it is useful to get an idea of total household consumption as well as import, export, diverted and generated.  As John says, as long as you are comparing apples with apples and know when to switch to comparing pears with pears, it doesn't really matter which readings are the more accurate...

[Kevin Morrison]

For a quick and easy way to connect to the SMA inverters, download the app Oxley Solar into your phone.  It connects to the inverter via Bluetooth and gives you live and historical information.  I have an eco-eye to keep track of generation over consumption.

Kevin

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[Gary Coombs]

Interesting, but as a general rule, why would you not use the SMA App?  My issue is with the PC software which does not pick up on the double inverter situation properly, the web app and the phone app are fine

On Friday, May 1, 2020 at 9:00:08 AM UTC+1, Richard Griffin wrote: