Our LEAF disrupts our PV system while charging at L2

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RegGuheert

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
Messages
6,419
Location
Northern VA
We just received our EVSEUgraded Panasonic EVSE yesterday and the car charged for the first time ever at our house on L2 this morning between about 8:00AM an 9:00AM. During this period of time, the Envoy unit for our Enphase PV system reported 0W of production. At this point I will assume that only powerline communication was disrupted, but I cannot be sure since the production reported on Enlighten during that period is nonsensical. This afternoon I should be able to easily determine if production stops by turning on the charger and observing our power meter to see if power is flowing out of our house or in. If it is flowing in, then charging has stopped production as well as powerline communication,

My belief is that this is caused by the same problem reported in the Electrical line noise while charging at 240V thread, but I had understood that our LEAF was built after Nissan had already incorporated the fix for L2 conducted emissions.

I have a couple of questions as I begin my engagement with Nissan to get this resolved:

Q1: I ran 10/3 (plus ground) to the outlet, even though the neutral was not required. It is a long, difficult run of about 150 feet and I want to be able to repurpose it in the future, if desired. While it is clear that I should cap the neutral (white) wire at the outlet end, I'm thinking perhaps I would be better off capping the end in my main panel, as well. As it stands right now, that wire is capacitively coupled to the L1 and L2 ( black and red) wires, so any voltage noise will be coupled directly into the neutral in my main panel. There is also magnetic coupling, so any ripple currents will also induce currents into the neutral. Unfortunately, the Envoy communicates with the microinverters using the neutral line, so this is likely where the noise is coming from. Does anyone know the code requirement for this white wire in the panel? Should it be connected to the neutral bar or capped?

Q2: Does anyone know of a car later than mine (5926) that included a charger with the L2 noise problem?

Q3: Is there any law which limits the conducted emissions from the charger in the LEAF? If so, what is it and which government agency oversees it?

Q4: Is the Envoy one of those devices that we simply must accept that it doesn't work if communication is disrupted by noise?

Q5: Has anyone else with an Enphase PV system seen this problem with L2 charging? If so, what is you LEAF serial number and what was the resolution (other than "charge at night")?

(Speaking of that, let's not have the "charge at night discussion in this thread. That has been and can be discussed in other threads. TIA!)

Thanks to all for any insights regarding this problem!
 
RegGuheert said:
We just received our EVSEUgraded Panasonic EVSE yesterday and the car charged for the first time ever at our house on L2 this morning between about 8:00AM an 9:00AM. During this period of time, the Envoy unit for our Enphase PV system reported 0W of production. At this point I will assume that only powerline communication was disrupted, but I cannot be sure since the production reported on Enlighten during that period is nonsensical. This afternoon I should be able to easily determine if production stops by turning on the charger and observing our power meter to see if power is flowing out of our house or in. If it is flowing in, then charging has stopped production as well as powerline communication,

My belief is that this is caused by the same problem reported in the Electrical line noise while charging at 240V thread, but I had understood that our LEAF was built after Nissan had already incorporated the fix for L2 conducted emissions.

I have a couple of questions as I begin my engagement with Nissan to get this resolved:

Q1: I ran 10/3 (plus ground) to the outlet, even though the neutral was not required. It is a long, difficult run of about 150 feet and I want to be able to repurpose it in the future, if desired. While it is clear that I should cap the neutral (white) wire at the outlet end, I'm thinking perhaps I would be better off capping the end in my main panel, as well. As it stands right now, that wire is capacitively coupled to the L1 and L2 ( black and red) wires, so any voltage noise will be coupled directly into the neutral in my main panel. There is also magnetic coupling, so any ripple currents will also induce currents into the neutral. Unfortunately, the Envoy communicates with the microinverters using the neutral line, so this is likely where the noise is coming from. Does anyone know the code requirement for this white wire in the panel? Should it be connected to the neutral bar or capped?

Q2: Does anyone know of a car later than mine (5926) that included a charger with the L2 noise problem?

Q3: Is there any law which limits the conducted emissions from the charger in the LEAF? If so, what is it and which government agency oversees it?

Q4: Is the Envoy one of those devices that we simply must accept that it doesn't work if communication is disrupted by noise?

Q5: Has anyone else with an Enphase PV system seen this problem with L2 charging? If so, what is you LEAF serial number and what was the resolution (other than "charge at night")?

(Speaking of that, let's not have the "charge at night discussion in this thread. That has been and can be discussed in other threads. TIA!)

Thanks to all for any insights regarding this problem!
Here is a basic question for you. What is the maximum capacity of your inverter? Are you sure your system can handle the additional 16A power load from the L2 charger?
 
I have LEAF #404 and a 34 panel Enphase PV system. I've had no problem whatsoever charging the LEAF and looking at the Enphase internet graphic of our system (https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/xpWw4801 ). A couple of things may help. First of all I had originally put in a 30A circuit, #10 wire, 3 wire plus ground. Then as it got closer to actual shipments of the LEAFs, I found out that the new specs. were for a 40A circuit. Fortunately I was building my garage at the time and was able to pull out the #10 wire and install #8 with a 40A breaker. At the time I did not know if the AeroVironment EVSE needed both 240V and 120V so I used 3 wire plus ground and did not use the third wire when the EVSE was installed.

The length of my run is only about 30 feet from the EVSE to the breaker panel. I notice that you are using #10 wire and a long run. I would suggest that for a 150 ft. run you might want to use #8 or perhaps even #6. You would need to look up on the internet the recommendations for the wire size given the length of the run and the amps.

The main read out for the Enphase system is supposed to be able to be plugged into a wall outlet and then with an ethernet cable plug into your internet modem. The only problem I had was that the unit was too far away from the breaker box where the PV system was connected to the house circuits. I had to install an additional sending unit that Enphase offers. Then I could connect the Enphase readout closer to the breaker box. The readout unit is plugged into the wall socket and the readout unit's ethernet cable now connects to this extra device which is plugged into the wall socket. Then, closer to my modem, the mate to the sending unit is plugged into a wall outlet and its ethernet cable is plugged into my modem.

Don't know if any of this helps, but that at least has been my experience.
 
RegGuheert said:
Does anyone know the code requirement for this white wire in the panel? Should it be connected to the neutral bar or capped?
There is certainly no requirement to land the unused white wire in your NM cable on the neutral bar, so you can try capping it off to see if that helps.

RegGuheert said:
Q5: Has anyone else with an Enphase PV system seen this problem with L2 charging? If so, what is you LEAF serial number and what was the resolution (other than "charge at night")?
Not yet, but I will be in your situation in a few weeks once PG&E allows me to turn on my newly installed solar panels. Come to think of it, I could do a brief test of this over the weekend. I definitely have some noise at my electrical panel while the LEAF is charging, and your situation is precisely what I am concerned about. What signal strength do you get on the Envoy during its communications check, when the LEAF isn't charging? And if you initiate a communications check while it is charging, what do you get then?

BTW, I spoke once with Bill Grossi about having my charger replaced (serial number 0835), but nothing has come of it. It seems like Nissan's strategy for dealing with this issue is to delay so they only have to replace the chargers for the vocal complainers. I haven't gotten around to complaining more vocally yet, but if charging interferes with the Enphase powerline communications, that will motivate me.

Cheers, Wayne
 
RegGuheert said:
We just received our EVSEUgraded Panasonic EVSE yesterday and the car charged for the first time ever at our house on L2 this morning between about 8:00AM an 9:00AM. During this period of time, the Envoy unit for our Enphase PV system reported 0W of production. At this point I will assume that only powerline communication was disrupted, but I cannot be sure since the production reported on Enlighten during that period is nonsensical. This afternoon I should be able to easily determine if production stops by turning on the charger and observing our power meter to see if power is flowing out of our house or in. If it is flowing in, then charging has stopped production as well as powerline communication,
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.

RegGuheert said:
My belief is that this is caused by the same problem reported in the Electrical line noise while charging at 240V thread, but I had understood that our LEAF was built after Nissan had already incorporated the fix for L2 conducted emissions.
Can't be so sure. Powerline communications are rather notorious for being very sensitive to any small amount of noise in the electrical system, even layout changes in the electrical system. For example, I simply got a new dishwasher - all of a sudden the Envoy would have issues communicating with some inverters some times even when the dishwasher wasn't running.

RegGuheert said:
Q1: I ran 10/3 (plus ground) to the outlet, even though the neutral was not required.
....
Does anyone know the code requirement for this white wire in the panel? Should it be connected to the neutral bar or capped?
As you mentioned since the Enphase system uses the neutral line for comms and I mentioned above that PLC can be sensitive to any change to the electrical system, I would disconnect the neutral in the main panel and cap it off with a wire nut. Not sure what code says about this, but this should be OK.

RegGuheert said:
Q2: Does anyone know of a car later than mine (5926) that included a charger with the L2 noise problem?
No, but FWIW my car (2448) doesn't induce any communications issues with my inverters charging L2 on my Blink. I don't think I've ever tried my EVSE upgrade during the day to see if also works without issue, but I wouldn't expect any difference.

RegGuheert said:
Q4: Is the Envoy one of those devices that we simply must accept that it doesn't work if communication is disrupted by noise?
I believe so.

Enphase has a bunch of recommendations to assist with PLC issues. I may have missed it in your post, but where is your Envoy located and how many communications bars do you normally get?

Best recommendataion is to install a short dedicated circuit close to your main panel dedicated for your Envoy (if your inverters tie directly into your main panel) and then run ethernet for comms. If you have a sub-panel for combining your PV circuits, then a single outlet from that sub-panel should be used. If running ethernet to the Envoy in this location is a problem, Enphase will ship you Ethernet over Power adapters to use for free, or my preference is to use a small wifi bridge (I use a ASUS WL-330gE which works well, only draws a couple watts - it does lose the connection every now and then and requires a power reset, though).

Hope this helps!
 
Thanks to all for your replies! (Lack of multiquote on this forum makes it a little more difficult to reply individually.)

Regarding the placement of the Envoy, it is about 20 wire feet from the main panel, but not on a dedicated circuit. I can get it closer, but this location is convenient for internet access.

That said, the plot thickens! I did another charging test about an hour before solar noon for this array (which is 2:00PM EDT) and all worked flawlessly. I could see that we were still selling power back to the grid. More significantly, the Envoy continued to communicate without incident, showing all 42 inverters connected and reporting different power levels every 5 minutes or so.

So, what changed? Do the microinverters communicate at a lower level when they first wake up in the morning? Does the LEAF's charger draw less power below 80% SOC than above? Perhaps while the inverters were ramping up they were disrupted by a drop in AC voltage and disconnected? (Personally, I think this could be it, since these things do weird stuff when I switch off or on a section of the array.)

In any case, I plan to do some more investigation before making any changes. One thing I will do is dig around the Envoy message logs and see if there are any clues there.

I do plan to cap off the neutral in the panel, but not until I get some more data on this arrangement.

Any further testing ideas would be appreciated.
 
why dont you install a high frequency choke near the EVSE?

Pass both hot leads thru the choke side by side, loop them if you have room, something like this:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103222&CAWELAID=107599340" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This particular one has an inner diameter of only 1/4" so it might not be enough.. get a bigger one or just use one of these per lead.

pRS1C-2265709w345.jpg


Here is a bigger one, 1/2" inner diameter, only $2:

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/FB-89/FERRITE-SNAP-BEAD-13MM-I.D./1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Install them as close to the car as possible.. in the car would be perfect!
 
Herm said:
why dont you install a high frequency choke near the EVSE?

Pass both hot leads thru the choke side by side, loop them if you have room...

Install them as close to the car as possible.. in the car would be perfect!


I assume you mean to put this on the feed to the EVSE from the panel - not sure how one could get them closer or not to the car in that case? Do you really mean as close to the EVSE as possible as opposed to the electrical panel?

Also, by looping, do you mean run them through the choke, then right back around and through again, then on to the destination? Are there any possible negative side effects of this seemingly fairly passive step (ie not having to disconnect any wires.)

From my panel on the outside wall, I have connectivity through the wall into the garage to both my solar inverter, and the EVSE. The circuit from the panels themselves comes down from the ceiling within the garage. They all share a gutter (~3" square), both sides of the inverter wiring come out of the top of the gutter through conduit up to/from the inverter then out to the panel, the (Blink) EVSE wiring comes out of the end of the gutter, through more conduit, up into the EVSE unit.

Are you suggesting that I could open up the gutter, identify the two live wires headed for the EVSE, and snap a choke around them, and (perhaps) this would solve the buzzing at my inverter when both the EVSE and inverter are active? For $2 I'd surely be willing to try it, since my dealer seems to have no interest in the problem without a TSB.

I'll try to edit this to attach a photo.
 
wsbca said:
I assume you mean to put this on the feed to the EVSE from the panel - not sure how one could get them closer or not to the car in that case? Do you really mean as close to the EVSE as possible as opposed to the electrical panel?

Also, by looping, do you mean run them through the choke, then right back around and through again, then on to the destination? Are there any possible negative side effects of this seemingly fairly passive step (ie not having to disconnect any wires.)
You can install the ferrite beads anywhere on the 2 hot wires to your EVSE between the main panel and your EVSE, but typically closer to the EVSE is better if possible, especially if the wires run parallel to any other wires.

Snap-on ferrite beads are easy to install, but a solid ring will typically perform better. You'll typically want to wrap each wire through the ferrite bead at least once, typically more - more loops can be more effective.

Note that ferrite beads are different and absorb noise best at different frequencies - it may take a couple different beads to find the right one.
 
RegGuheert said:
Q2: Does anyone know of a car later than mine (5926) that included a charger with the L2 noise problem?
I have a newer car and charging totally disrupts all PLC, UPB & X-10, on the panel with the EVSE in my house. I have two panels in my house and most PLC is mostly done on one panel, the other panel all the noisy appliances like the EVSE, Fridge, TVs, etc. The noisy panel has mostly UPB devices for PLC which worked fine until I started using my EVSE. None of those devices nor the X-10s on that panel get any commands whenever the EVSE is running. I also couldn't get a TED to work at all on that panel for the same reason (and returned it).

I've been meaning to by an in-line filter for the EVSE outlet (I'm using an upgraded Panasonic), but haven't gotten to it. I just changed my timer so that charging would be done before any critical communication from my whole house automation controller (a HAI OmniPro II). The side-effect was that some X-10 lights off commands at 2am don't work so I need to push the All lights Off in the morning if my kids were up late (they never turn all the lights off ARRGH).
 
Presumably, one would want these as close to
the Source of the noise as possible.

So, near the AC input to the EVSE would seem good,
even inside the EVSE, if there is room. Perhaps on
the AC output (to the LEAF, inside the EVSE) if the
problem is not from the EVSE.

If from the LEAF, is there a place to put a pair of these
near the rear of the L1/L2 socket in the car?

Do these have any impact on the 60-cycle AC, I do not
really know. However, you might try non-looping first.

Let us know what happens, please.
 
garygid said:
Do these have any impact on the 60-cycle AC, I do not really know. However, you might try non-looping first.

60Hz is too low a frequency for these, it wont be affected.. loop it as many times as you can. The modified Panasonic EVSE has a small switching power supply, it could be the source of the noise.
 
Herm said:
The modified Panasonic EVSE has a small switching power supply, it could be the source of the noise.
I wondered about that, but I didn't comment since there are known issues with the LEAF charger on L2 that do not exist on L1. Also, The switching supply on the EVSEUpgrade is *extremely* low power. I measure 0 VA and 0 VAR when plugged into 120 VAC and no car. (Of course that does not mean it will be quiet under load, but I will take it as a good sign, anyway!)

I have not used the EVSEUpgrade for L1 charging, yet, but I could try it. Many, many things change when you move that thing from 120 VAC to 240 VAC, but I guess the results of such a test could be meaningful if it caused the same problem on 120 VAC.
 
I HAD a similar issue with my Enphase Envoy. Enphase has the most sensative PLC system I have ever delt with. I have an electrical engineering degree and measured the signal strength from the inverteres to the Envoy. They have a very low signal strength to begin with. After trial and error, the only way I could get the Envoy-Inverter communication to work reliably was to install an outlet off my solar array sub panel and connect the Envoy directly to it, I had to run a CAT5 (internet) cable to the Envoy. There was no way I could get it to commuincte to the inverters through any outlet on the Main Power Distribution panel.
I complained to Enphase that they have a horrible PLC system. Maybe bad chips or implimentation. NOT surprised a little noise from an L2 charger created issues for you. Its the Envoy unit not the charger.

My $0.02 worth.

I'm assuming that the inverters did not trip off. (green LED's were all on right?)

FYI - although I don't have my Leaf yet I have provided multiple charges to a friend's Leaf via my Schnider Level 2 charger, no Envoy issues so far.

Try moving the location of the Envoy.
When I installed my sisters system, the Envoy didn't work either unless I plugged it into an outlet off the Sub-Panel.
 
Here is what I did. Everything has been beautifully clean since with no interference to either my TED or Insteon systems.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3988&p=181549&hilit=Blink+metal+junction+box#p181549" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
 
TomT said:
Here is what I did. Everything has been beautifully clean since with no interference to either my TED or Insteon systems.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=3988&p=181549&hilit=Blink+metal+junction+box#p181549" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So you essentially created your own in-line noise filter and isolated your EVSE from the rest of the panel.

I was figuring I'd just buy a 220v rated UPB/X-10 in-line filter and do the same. Now I at least know what the parts are ;-)
 
Thanks TomT for that link, it shows whats under the lump in the rear cargo area.. and it does not look too hard to access the charger and snap the filters around the AC input close to the charger... just remove the plastic lump cover.
 
Thanks again to all for the comments and details on your experiences! It is very helpful!

Here is some additional data:

- I looked at the Envoy logs from yesterday morning and the error shown was "Powerline device failed to report" just as many here suspected. This message was recorded for all 42 inverters.

- There were NO Envoy log entries during my 1:00 PM charging test yesterday!

- Since I failed to duplicate the problem yesterday at 1:00 PM, I decided to try again this morning at 8:00 AM, which is the same time charging started yesterday. Just like yesterday morning, when the LEAF started charging, communication with the Envoy ceased and the Envoy logged "Powerline device failed to report" for all 42 inverters. This ability to repeat the failure this morning eliminates the possibility that the problem was somehow related to the lower SOC yesterday morning (it was higher toady since I didn't drive the car) and instead points toward some difference in sensitivity of the Enphase communications at lower PV powers (~25W).
wwhitney said:
There is certainly no requirement to land the unused white wire in your NM cable on the neutral bar, so you can try capping it off to see if that helps.
- After confirming that I could duplicate the problem this morning, I capped off the neutral wire in the breaker panel and repeated the charging test. No change. Enphase communication still failed with the neutral capped off. I have decided to leave it capped off for now.
wwhitney said:
What signal strength do you get on the Envoy during its communications check, when the LEAF isn't charging? And if you initiate a communications check while it is charging, what do you get then?
- This morning I ran this test and I see 2 of 5 bars during the communications check, regardless of whether or not the LEAF was charging, even when the inverters were not communicating successfully.

So these results lead to the following question:
- Why does the Enphase system have difficulty communicating in the morning with the LEAF charging, but not in the middle of the day? It seems that below some PV power level, the Enphase microinverter communications are degraded. I will run the communcations test at different times today to see if the signal levels change and at what PV power that occurs.

I guess at this point I will begin discussions with both Nissan and Enphase. While I appreciate the details on how to implement a filter to surpress the noise from the LEAF, I feel it is in everyone's best interest for both Nissan and Enphase to have the feedback they need to improve their product offerings. If I don't get any satisfaction from them, I can always try these things later.
 
RegGuheert said:
wwhitney said:
What signal strength do you get on the Envoy during its communications check, when the LEAF isn't charging? And if you initiate a communications check while it is charging, what do you get then?
- This morning I ran this test and I see 2 of 5 bars during the communications check, regardless of whether or not the LEAF was charging, even when the inverters were not communicating successfully.
2 bars is low. Enphase recommends that you install the Envoy in a location where you receive 3 bars or higher. I initially had my Envoy installed in a location with 2 bars. Worked fine for months. But then started randomly dropping out. Relocated to where it gets 5 bars and have only had one instance where comms dropped out - coincidentally it was around 8am-10am one morning.

RegGuheert said:
So these results lead to the following question:
- Why does the Enphase system have difficulty communicating in the morning with the LEAF charging, but not in the middle of the day? It seems that below some PV power level, the Enphase microinverter communications are degraded. I will run the communcations test at different times today to see if the signal levels change and at what PV power that occurs.
I really doubt it's related to the amount of power the PV system is generating. In residential areas, the grid will be noisiest in the mornings and evenings when everyone is home and running their appliances. I think it's more likely that the additional noise generated by charging simply puts your system over the edge.

If it were me, I'd do these 2 things:

1. Relocate the Envoy where it gets at least 3 bars during a comm check.
2. Install a ferrite bead on each line for the EVSE - the ones Herm linked to earlier cost $5 from Radio Shack.
 
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