Greetings Experts,

I have picked up an observation from two different inverter systems. We noticed when the inverter switch over to utility grid either based on soc or time base the system double consumption unless one mark a hard change over switch and turn off input power to the inverter before the power normalise.  We now perform and experiment using a meter logger attached to main utility input to measure load consumption as a control experiment. 

Here are the steps below with snap shot

 

Here is my dashboard with Grid Watts .. currently running on battery and solar mode meaning zero  power draw from utility . You see Grid voltage and frequency but zero Grid watt as depicted in the application. 

 

 

Currently metter logger reading from utility input meaning am not consuming power and my non-essentials appliances are off.

Now we are  going to force my inverter  change over to grid and quick reminder that  I don’t charge my battery with utility  as per my settings below.

 

 

Drop my power input to utility as you can see and grid watt is about 529W equivalent to a load of about 575W approx ..

 

Current reading from utility  input double whats reporting on ICC application 

  

My geyser is not using utility at the moment when the soft switch over was initiated just for the record. 

 

Now  doing hard  change over on my DB  back to Utility input 

 

 

 

Now am going to check logger again to see any changes in power draw which now reflect whats it consuming . 

Its unfortunately i cant upload more evidence picture.  

I am in need of a logical explanation of whats actually happening as we have tested it in two different site with Growatt and Axpert inverters and they both produce same result 

If anyone have experience this type of scenario before do share or advise on what can be done to remediate it. 

Much appreciated in Advance.

 

Newbie  

 

 

 

 

 

And please remember its not a spike the consumption remain constant for hours until we do hard change over on the DB .

On 2021/10/17 at 1:04 PM, Newbie said:

And please remember its not a spike the consumption remain constant for hours until we do hard change over on the DB .

Did you find out what the cause of this was or since this post did manage to resolve this phantom draw? I have the same issue currently, on 2 inverters not the same brand as you mentioned but both LIPO's are at 100% both inverters say they fully charged yet on the AC-IN I have about 1KW + the AC-OUT load constantly. Both inverters also say they are in bypass mode as seen on the display so using the data presented to us on the inverter screen you would think the AC-IN side would be equal to (+ I would assume a few W for the inverter) the AC-OUT. I used a amp meter on the AC In / Out cables to verify, you can also clamp both the AC in and out lines together and see the phantom draw or what would be the draw to charge.

I set one of my inverters to Battery first mode while trying to figure out if this is caused by a setting somewhere and heard a relay then saw the AC-IN drop to 0 as you would assume since then you running on battery not AC. Problem is in this mode you are cycling the LIPO's but this seems to eliminate the constant phantom draw because it charges up to the limits set in the settings and flips back to battery discharge. So you don't get the extra draw while your LIPO's are full but you cycling the cells. Its the only way I could get around the phantom 1KW draw all day. Setting the upper and lower voltage limits will avoid cycling the cells to deep while maintaining a good enough charge to make it through LS but this is not ideal.

I hope you could shed some light on your finding since this post or perhaps anyone else out there.