We got a phone call from the tiler saying the power had tripped. Went down to investigate – no breakers tripped, but the system in fault.
After quite a bit of fiddling (didn’t get any decent instructions from the installers on start up and shutdown) and some googling manuals, finally managed to fully shut it down and restart it. Loud bang, and one of the Sunny Boy solar inverters is dead.
But the strategy of 2 x 50% really pays off – the solar system is back up and running, even if only half the panels can feed into the system. The builders have power back and we don’t need to use the generator.
Had to call the providers in business hours and took a couple of days to get someone to look at it (bad luck if it happens on Friday after 4pm). Warranty claim on SMA – took a week for the replacement, and then another week to install. Repair might have happened faster if we’d been dead in the water (although not the notification) and in the house – we told them no rush.
And to add to the woe, when we did start the generator, just to turn it over, we got a fault – low coolant level. Looks like a sensor error, since it’s all full of coolant and when it runs nothing heats up. In an emergency, we were told to run it, but obviously we haven’t.
Blue Diamond are sending the part, hopefully I can figure out how to install it, otherwise they need to come and do a warranty repair as well.
But, with a 2 x 50% configuration, instead of several weeks with no power, we’ve been at 50%.
Living in the house, that’s manageable, no real issue in summer (and not a disaster in winter either particularly if we didn’t have the fish). With no power, what a nightmare – dead fish, rotten food, no water except directly from the tank, no septic….
So glad we went this way.
Off Grid Living - Building the Dream 