Solar Panel with inverter - will it interfere?

I am thinking about adding a solar panel and an inverter and be tied to the grid. Does anyone have any experience with an inverter connected to the house wiring. Will it generate enough noise to interefere with X10 signals?

Steve Q

We are running a Trace Inverter SW2024 series inverter at our house and it DOES interfere with UPB....Not sure about X10. I have tried to use phase couplers to let the signal go around the inverter but it did not work. My best guess is that the output of the inverter is just far enough from a pure sine wave that it is the problem. The only way I have been able to get around it is to put the inverter on circuits that are not UPB....Which defeated the purpose as it was the power backup for most of the systems that we contol.

BTW, We are using the HAI Omni-pro with the UPB protocol.

Chris

SteveQ said:

I am thinking about adding a solar panel and an inverter and be tied to the grid. Does anyone have any experience with an inverter connected to the house wiring. Will it generate enough noise to interefere with X10 signals?

Steve Q

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Thanks for the info. I'm sure that if it interferes with UPB it will also interfere with X10. I am concerned about the inverter. If it interferes it will defeat all the energy savings automation I already have in place! Going to solar as a supplemental power source is really going to be a challenge for me. I will have to think about how to isolate the solar system from the rest of my house. Any ideas?

Steve Q

SteveQ said:

Thanks for the info. I'm sure that if it interferes with UPB it will also interfere with X10. I am concerned about the inverter. If it interferes it will defeat all the energy savings automation I already have in place! Going to solar as a supplemental power source is really going to be a challenge for me. I will have to think about how to isolate the solar system from the rest of my house. Any ideas?

Steve Q

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My next step it to try a newer Generation Inverter as they are supposed to be much cleaner outputs. Right now my inverter system is so limited due to the lack of sources that are not effected by the UPB that it does not do much good. Hope to try and new unit and "wish" for better results.

Chris

I've got a solar system on my house now and have been planning to install UPB devices.

My system is a 2.5 Kw system.

I have no idea if it will interfere with the UPB signals on my house wiring. Does anyone else have experience with UPB and solar?

Should I use a different technology than UPB? I had settled on it previously, but now may need to rethink that..

thx

I finally got a reply back from Trace/Xantrex. They suggested I add some motor Capacitors to the Output of my inverter to cut down on the noice level. I did try this and it did not work. Using a small UPB Monitor I can see the noise is really high when the inverter is in the circuit. Without it the noise is non-existent. Only alternative now is to upgrade to a new model that is more of a true sine wave instead of the Sudo-sine wave that I have now and hope it works.

ChrisS said:

I finally got a reply back from Trace/Xantrex. They suggested I add some motor Capacitors to the Output of my inverter to cut down on the noice level. I did try this and it did not work. Using a small UPB Monitor I can see the noise is really high when the inverter is in the circuit. Without it the noise is non-existent. Only alternative now is to upgrade to a new model that is more of a true sine wave instead of the Sudo-sine wave that I have now and hope it works.

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ChrisS,

Not exactly sure what they told you and what you tried... I would add these "motor caps" usually around 10uF one from each output lead to ground. this will give you a local short path for the interference to return to the source.

I'm still exploring various options for a supplemental solar panel. Right now, I think I will wait for another year or two to see what improvements come along. I have a strong feeling that the cost of solar panels will come down significantly as more and more companies compete for this huge market. I think I will turn my focus toward solar water heating instead.

Steve Q

I have heard/read that Outback Power Systems Inverters put out a much cleaner 'pure sine wave' than other inverters. Could be an option.

I've read somewhere (wish I could find the link) that the Outback have some issues with UPB.

Of course, it could have been just the model the guy had...

--Dan

thought i'd bump this thread to see if anybody has new information as i'm considering adding a solar system

I had been going back and forth with Eric Larson from Enphase. According to him, his engineers believe that their inverters will NOT interfere with UPB, but MIGHT with X10.

They were putting together some white papers, never did hear back from them on that. Eric told me that they were trying to get out a new unit (which did get out for sales), so, maybe I should follow up with him.

The main issue with their stuff, is you can have their base unit, which talks to each inverter to get statistics. I thought that might interfere with my UPB. The big suggestion there is to just not use the base unit, which then the other units (which are polled) will not talk. The thing with that is, you loose out on being able to see the efficiencies of each panel and track power use for each panel over time. Neat idea.

I also liked their units as they can be installed piecemeal. One per panel. I was also considering using one of their units as a power inverter from a battery rack. Seemed a bit more cost effective to use those.

Price per watt looked decent (not HUGE savings, but you did not have to put in DC carrying cables from the panels on the roof, nor did you have to buy HUGE units just to have enough watt-conversion capability for the future. With these, you just keep adding them in parallel to get the wattage that you need (i.e. one per panel).

--Dan

I have a SunnyBoy inverter for my system and I don't see any interference with Insteon.

Bulkhead said:

I've got a solar system on my house now and have been planning to install UPB devices.

My system is a 2.5 Kw system.

I have no idea if it will interfere with the UPB signals on my house wiring. Does anyone else have experience with UPB and solar?

Should I use a different technology than UPB? I had settled on it previously, but now may need to rethink that..

thx

Click to expand...

Well the guaranteed fix is to simply stay away from any powerline control systems. Some of the new wireless systems that use Z-wave or Zigbee are pretty impressive. I haven't installed a lighting system yet myself, but at this point I think I am leaning towards the Centralite Jetstream system. It uses Zigbee wireless for reliable control, the design interface is easy to use (done all from a computer - no walking around to each device), and the price isn't horrible (around $75-85 for a dimmer switch, $65-75 for a relay switch, $55-65 for a plug in lamp module).

I don't have any data to add, but I will soon:

I have ~30 UPB switches (Gen2, mostly HAI w/ some PCS) with a PCS and I now have a 4.7kW (DC) solar system w/ a SMA SunnyBoy 4000 inverter. Unfortunately I'm waiting on PG&E to replace my meter and give the final go-ahead to allow me to turn the system on. That should happen in the next 2 weeks or so.

At that point I should know whether I've got any significant noise issues or not. This was not on my radar at all, so I'll be annoyed if I have to replace all my switches, and my rain8upb.. but I guess it would be a good excuse to look into Centralite JetStream or something..