I am brand new here.

I have just done this installation myself. No batteries yet. It seems to be an over achiever so far and I am highly impressed.

Question: The last 3 nights we had serious lightning storms in our area. It seems that the system switches off and does not come back on. In the morning everything seems fine, but in the top left hand corner it says OFF. No power is generated even though the sun is shining. I then do a shutdown procedure and a startup procedure as per the manual. The system then comes back ON and performs normally. 

There are no fault codes registerred for these events.

Is this normal ?

What have I done wrong ?

Could it be an installation fault or a setting fault ?

I cannot think that it was designed this way.

Any comment or possible solution would be appreciated.

 

All the panel frames are linked and properly earthed.

 

Shooting in the dark here, it may be induced voltages that take the PV inputs or the mains input or both too high. Do you have any form of surge protection on the mains in or pv in? Also are all your pv cables protected in some metal trays or ducts?

I would tend to agree with that logic. I have surge protection on the PV but not on the AC. (In 40 years never lost anything through the AC) PC cables are running in metal trunking from right next to the panel to where it goes through the wall. It is also connected to the same earth as the panel frames and surge protectors.   

Have the logs revealed anything?

Nothing on the logs and no fault codes. The last 2 nights no lightning and no problem.

It sure then seems it’s lightning induced. You may have to rethink your earthing firstly. Make sure that the metal trunking are all bonded electrically together and earthed one end. Are the surge protection installed at the panels or at the inverter?

You will have to find this issue by elimination and by follow a methodical approach. Get some surge protection for the AC inputs as well. You may have a sensitive to electrical EMI/RFI inverter. Another place to look is at the inverter grounding. What brand and model inverter? Are the inverter housing metal and are all the covers installed?

Sunsynk 5kw super hybrid. Ight under the second panel. DC fused and surge protected, + and - seperately and two strings each seperately. All panels grounded to each other and then to metal trunking and then to earth peg. Surge protection connected to same earth.

At the invertor the house DB earth is also connected downstream of the invertor to that earth. (Three connecting points, live neutrel and earth.) Aluminium body also connected to the same earth.

Currently no battery yet and no essential load. The whole house runs off the input side to the invertor like non essentiel loads.

27 minutes ago, Eksteen said:

Sunsynk 5kw super hybrid. Ight under the second panel. DC fused and surge protected, + and - seperately and two strings each seperately. All panels grounded to each other and then to metal trunking and then to earth peg. Surge protection connected to same earth.

At the invertor the house DB earth is also connected downstream of the invertor to that earth. (Three connecting points, live neutrel and earth.) Aluminium body also connected to the same earth.

Currently no battery yet and no essential load. The whole house runs off the input side to the invertor like non essentiel loads.

My money is on this, if I were you, I would put something small but continuous on the essential load and monitor under same conditions.

Thanks, I appreciate the input. I am not electical enough to have thought of that. Easy enough to try. I will have to wait for the next lightning storm though.

2 hours ago, Eksteen said:

Sunsynk 5kw super hybrid. Ight under the second panel. DC fused and surge protected, + and - seperately and two strings each seperately. All panels grounded to each other and then to metal trunking and then to earth peg. Surge protection connected to same earth.

At the invertor the house DB earth is also connected downstream of the invertor to that earth. (Three connecting points, live neutrel and earth.) Aluminium body also connected to the same earth.

Currently no battery yet and no essential load. The whole house runs off the input side to the invertor like non essentiel loads.

If at all possible, get some batteries for your system. With lightning around I have noticed short drops and "flicks" on the incoming municipal AC supply. With no batteries to maintain inverter function, it will "die", i.e. it will be in the OFF state, and you will have to press the ON/OFF button to switch it ON again.

Scratch around for four 12V used batteries if you don't want to spend money on batteries at the moment. 👍

Most likely there is voltage drop outside the inverter tolerance values during lighting and the SunSynk sees it as no power from the grid and shuts off. Here is a video from Keith explaining "no battery" operation of the inverter:

 

9 hours ago, YellowTapemeasure said:

My money is on this, if I were you, I would put something small but continuous on the essential load and monitor under same conditions.

According to the above video, without battery, you shouldn't connect anything to the essential load.

Edited October 4, 20214 yr by PowerUser

4 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

According to the above video, without battery, you shouldn't connect anything to the essential load.

Correct. It is operating like an off-grid inverter. Lightning causing irregular grid supply outside of the inverters' grid parameters and causing it to shutdown (although I would expect some sort of error code, then again with no auxiliary power to write to the log it's a catch-22).

OP can also consider "widening" the thresholds for the quality of the grid power. But I agree, best to get some batteries, even if it's some old clapped out LAs.

 

Thank you guys. That does make a lot of sense. It does have an internal battery running on about 10V. It shows that on the display. That should be enough to show an error code I would think but obviously it does not. Seems like I will have to beg buy borrow or steal a battery. I will give feedback as to the outcome. We will have to wait and see when the next thunderstorm comes around.

When my inverter was installed, i didn't have a battery and the inverter would shutdown every night but would wake up when there was solar power in the morning. Not an answer to your issue but just something i observed during that time.

The house was connect on the grid side of the inverter.