Over the past few days we’ve had too much gorgeous sunshine for me to let our power station go idle. I had the inverter on all day Saturday and banked about 18 kWh for the day. Sunday morning had me wishing I had shut down the inverter the night before, though, as its antics woke me up.
I was snoozing in bed around 6:52 AM when I awoke to a loud popping sound from my clock radio. Since this was about the same time the other inverter issues took place, I suspected the inverter had gone offline again.
Before I went outside, I checked the eGauge power graph. It showed power was being generated but, more than that, it showed a very strange anomaly at the time I heard my clock radio pop. All power to the house had been interrupted at that moment: it seems the inverter had malfunctioned yet again.
I let it run the full day yesterday as it seems fine once the sun gets going. I did, however, shut it down overnight last night, and noted no power anomalies.
I’m thinking now that the problem is with the inverter, specifically when the panels produce enough energy for the first time of the day to cause the inverter to resync with the grid. I wondered if the inverter isn’t syncing properly, sending a power surge through the wiring instead. At the time of Sunday’s blip, the panels were up to a mere 100 watts, which is basically nothing.
I’ll leave the inverter shut off until the Southern Energy techs can give it a good going-over. My electronics are at stake here, you know.