One leg out

Yesterday I got a call from my solar installer.  He said he got a notification that there was an issue with my system, he was seeing 16 panels offline.  He asked me if anything happened recently, I told him no.  The news came as a surprise to me.

I normally check the panel output a few times a week but I hadn’t in the last few days.  When I jumped on the site I saw there was a problem since Sunday.  The company said they would be sending someone out today to look at the system.  The good news was the array was still making power, just a third less than normal.

Of course when I got home I wasted little time before I headed out to the solar panels to take a look.  I saw no physical damage so I opened up the electrical connection box.  I saw the controller indicating an inverter fault which was expected.  I tried rescanning the inverters which did nothing.  I then decided to throw the breakers for the panels and the controller.  As I examined the box I noticed there was one breaker for the controller and three for the panels.

So doing simple math, I have 48 panels, there are three breakers which made it obvious that 16 panels are tied to each leg.  I am guessing that 16 panels are wired in series and then those are tied in parallel to the other sets of 16.  If so my theory is one inverter in that series failed which in turn killed the entire leg, which seems like a less than ideal design.  It will be interesting to see what sort of diagnosis the system gets.  I am hoping it’s an easy fix as I am losing out on free electrons by the hour.

Today is my last day of work before my extra long weekend.  I do not have any large projects lined up in my head but there are tons of smaller things that will occupy my time without doubt.  The amount of heat and humidity for the last week has been awful, literally the same as July.  I am hoping for at least a slight reversal.

I was so happy to read this morning that Trump insisted his name be on the stimulus checks being sent out to the American public, resulting in a slight delay in the process.  Never before has a president wanted their name on IRS checks.  Of course never before have we had such an ignorant, ego maniacal human being with what he believes is “total authority” sitting in the Oval Office.  I can only hope that after November, we will never have such an ill equipped and dysfunctional individual in that chair again.