Our LEAF disrupts our PV system while charging at L2

[RegGuheert]

You might want to get some CorCom line filters to put between the charger and the PV system.

Thanks for the tip! Filtering is not the first thing I will try, but if relocating the Envoy to come off the PV subpanel does not work, I may try this step. As mentioned previously, my preference would be to build a box with L6-20R and L6-20P pigtails to go inline with the EVSEupgrade. I wish I knew something about the spectrum of the signals I am trying to keep from coming out of the LEAF, but I don't have a spectrum analyzer here. It also seems like it must change with battery SOC. (This is why Nissan should filter their dirty signals!)

I'd like see the data that you envoy is reporting. For example when you think the Envoy is having trouble communicating with the inverters what do you see on the web interface.

For example are there any events during this time frame?
What does it report for: "Number of Microinverters Online"
Does the "Currently generating" number match what you would expect?
If all of them are not online what are you seeing for "Last Report" for the inverters not reporting?

Track that data every 15 minutes and I suspect you'll have a clearer idea of what is going on.

I'm not sure where to find this information on the new website, but I will say that when I have seen the problem, the website seems to match the main display on the Envoy. In other words, it will show just one or two microinverters producing in the display (all others dark). This is so even though the comm check on the Envoy is showing five bars and all 42 microinverters operating.

Just for reference, here is today's production report when it was fully sunny and the LEAF did not charge at all. Note there were no issues reporting to Enlighten. (This is today's graph, so it has not been corrected by whatever goes on with Enlighten overnight.)

 

[QueenBee]

I'm not sure where to find this information on the new website

All the data points I references can come directly from the Envoy's web interface. This means you'll see data that has nothing to do with any internet issues or Enlighten issues. The web interface can be accessed by going to the private IP address assigned to your envoy. It'll look like this site: http://solar.zlsmatteson.org/inventory?locale=en

BTW: Hopefully the Envoy was designed with the intention that it would get exposed to the internet, and then I wonder what is going on with that inverter. Over temp, GFI tripped, and AC voltage out of phase.

 

[RegGuheert]

I'm not sure where to find this information on the new website

All the data points I references can come directly from the Envoy's web interface. This means you'll see data that has nothing to do with any internet issues or Enlighten issues. The web interface can be accessed by going to the private IP address assigned to your envoy. It'll look like this site: http://solar.zlsmatteson.org/inventory?locale=en

Got it! Yeah, I've been reporting information from three places all along: 1) From the Envoy unit display, 2) From the Envoy web interface and 3) from the Enlighten website.

So, back to the questions you asked:

For example are there any events during this time frame?

Yes. As mentioned, some (not all) of the microinverters sometimes report "Microinverter failed to report."

What does it report for: "Number of Microinverters Online"

I've been reporting this number from the main display on the Envoy. To my knowledge both the "currently generating" and the "number of inverters online" are identical on the main display and through the web interface.

Does the "Currently generating" number match what you would expect?

No, that number, which I read from the face of the unit, is extremely low. I often see between 1 an 4 for that.

If all of them are not online what are you seeing for "Last Report" for the inverters not reporting?

I haven't looked at that but I expect it is within five minutes of the "failed to report" times given in the log messages. I can check that next time this comes up. I suspect we will do a lot more daytime charging during the wintertime.

Track that data every 15 minutes and I suspect you'll have a clearer idea of what is going on.

Actually, I believe the data changes every five minutes. I find it easier simply to glance at the main display since the web interface is pretty slow.

BTW: Hopefully the Envoy was designed with the intention that it would get exposed to the internet,...

Sure, that's how it communicates with Enlighten, although that is done through a secure link.

...and then I wonder what is going on with that inverter. Over temp, GFI tripped, and AC voltage out of phase.

I'm not sure which inverter you mean. There are 42 of them and most of them seem to have problems communicating with the Envoy when the charger in the LEAF is on, particularly when the SOC is below about 7 bars. In any case, I have never seen an over temp or GFI failure. AC voltage out of phase only seems to occur if the microinverters are all attempting to start up simultaneously in full sunlight such as after a power outage or when I switch them back on after service. There is currently no problem with production of any of our microinverters. In fact, production of the entire array has been much higher since February (before the LEAF) when a misbehaving microinverter was replaced and all of the units got new firmware. Yearly production is now close to 15 MWh for the entire array.

 

[QueenBee]

BTW: Hopefully the Envoy was designed with the intention that it would get exposed to the internet,...

Sure, that's how it communicates with Enlighten, although that is done through a secure link.

...and then I wonder what is going on with that inverter. Over temp, GFI tripped, and AC voltage out of phase.

I'm not sure which inverter you mean. There are 42 of them and most of them seem to have problems communicating with the Envoy when the charger in the LEAF is on, particularly when the SOC is below about 7 bars. In any case, I have never seen an over temp or GFI failure. AC voltage out of phase only seems to occur if the microinverters are all attempting to start up simultaneously in full sunlight such as after a power outage or when I switch them back on after service. There is currently no problem with production of any of our microinverters. In fact, production of the entire array has been much higher since February (before the LEAF) when a misbehaving microinverter was replaced and all of the units got new firmware. Yearly production is now close to 15 MWh for the entire array.

My comments were referring specifically to this random Envoy site that I found while googling: http://solar.zlsmatteson.org/inventory?locale=en" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[cracovian]

Old thread but the new issue to me I too experience similar powerline communication issues when L2 charging my 2012 LEAF. It tends to happen when I come close to the max output of my small system... Aside from reporting gaps and Envoy showing 0W, am I still producing all the power that I would otherwise?

 

[DaveEV]

What messages does your Envoy report during that time?

 

[RegGuheert]

Aside from reporting gaps and Envoy showing 0W, am I still producing all the power that I would otherwise?

I would say you are likely producing fine.

Even when there are gaps showing for a given day, the Envoy and Enlighten seem to have a way to clean up after themselves and retrieve all of the correct production data from the microinverters eventually. If the data is in the Envoy, this seems to occur between Enlighten and the Envoy overnight. If the data has not made it to the Envoy, I'm not sure when/how it occurs but it typically does seem to happen.

I have very, very few gaps in my data that did not get corrected automatically by the system.

 

[cracovian]

Thank you for your responses, guys! The message I get is 0W and 0 for connected devices when it would say 8 otherwise and in the full sun. It also only happens when my 2012 is charging. My 2013 that's connected and charging right now doesn't seem to affect powerline communication. Very odd obviously but there are significant charging and software differences between the two, so I'm not too surprised. Still sucks though...

 

[RegGuheert]

Looking at your page online, I see some strangeness that I recently noticed at a site local to me. On the site labelled "REC" you will notice that there are over four days from December 29 until January 2 where every quarter hour has the same energy level recorded. Your site has the same behavior during part of each of the afternoons of January 7, 8 and 9.

So it seems that with so many customers to service now, Enphase no longer goes back and collects all the data that was missed as I have seen in the past. Rather, it appears that they now simply read the energy produced during the outage and show an average value for each 15-minute period during the outage.

That might explain some strange artifacts I have recently seen on some of my inverters. Fortunately, when we charge our LEAF, we only lose communications with a few of our inverters, so the data still looks decent.

BTW, I do remember that the effects on communications do change depending on the state-of-charge, just like you are seeing.

So while I still think this is having no effect on your actual solar production, it does appear that it is distorting your data somewhat when you charge during the daytime. That would bug me. Can you move your Envoy closer to your main power panel, or is there not internet available there?

 

[DaveEV]

Reg, if the envoy cant read production data from an inverter, the data is lost. It's always been that way. The inverters don't appear to be able to store any data onboard.

 

[RegGuheert]

Reg, if the envoy cant read production data from an inverter, the data is lost. It's always been that way.

Thanks! I don't know how I managed to miss this point. You even stated it on the first page of this thread:

Looking at your Enlighten site, you have a typical case of loss of communications between the Envoy and inverters. The inverters continued to produce power during the event, but because the Envoy isn't able to read production data from the inverters, the data gets averaged out. This shows itself on Enlighten as a flat line - if you look at the logs on your Envoy (point your browser to the IP address shown on the display), the event log will show a bunch of "failed to communicate with inverter" SET messages when the problem occurred and CLR messages when the problem resolved itself.

The inverters don't appear to be able to store any data onboard.

For some reason I have always imagined they had some on-board data storage, but I have not been able to support that idea with any data I have here. I'm not sure where I got this misconception.

Note to cracovian: I have been charging the LEAF for the past two hours (since 8:00AM) while the PV system ramped up production, just like in the OP of this thread and there have been no dropouts of communication during that entire time. What has changed? Not much. The only thing I can think of is that Enphase has updated the firmware in the Envoy and all the microinverters since I originally posted about my issues here. Perhaps they have improved the reliability of their communications in their more recent firmware versions. Of course your system is new, so your firmware is likely up-to-date.