Voltronic Inverters (Axpert, EASUN, Powland, etc)- Power consumption from Grid

[sethmad]

Hello Green power enthusiasts.

I have a Voltronic type inverter (Infinisolar V2) and I noticed that there is a high power consumption (3 Amps AC) from Grid, when in bypass mode. I tried for example with no battery  connected and just turned on the Output of inverter - I got 3.6 Amps (AC) from the Outlet. However, it seems that is not Active Power as I measured with a device the power consumption and Active power is only 60W, Rest seems to be reactive power (300 VAr). Displayed Power factor (on the device which was used to measure power consumption) is 0.06 . For now the reactive power is not payed in my country... but still.. I find it odd that this kind of inverters use so much reactive power from the grid in bypass mode. Has anybody encountered this issue? Could it be a problem in the Firmware? i checked with multiple units and it is the same...

Edited April 10, 2023 by sethmad
corrected mistakes

[Scorp007]

14 minutes ago, sethmad said:

Hello Gren power enthusiasts.

I have a Voltronic type inverter (Infinisolar V2) and I noticed that there is a high power consumption (3 Amps AC) from Grid, when in bypass mode. I tried for example with no battery  connected and just turned on the Output of inverter - I got 3.6 Amps (AC) from the Outlet. However, it seems that is not Active Power as I measured with a device the power consumption and Active power is only 60W, Rest seems to be reactive power (300 VAr). Displayed Power factor is 0.016 or 0.16 (i have to check again). For now the reactive power is not payed in my country... but still.. I find it odd that this kind of inverters use so much reactive power from the grid in bypass mode. Has anybody encountered this issue? Could it be a problem in the Firmware? i checked with multiple units and it is the same...

I have never tested when in bypass but what I can confirm with no load connected to the inverter and switched off my Axpert would draw about 530W from the grid yet only 415W goes to the battery. 

[Coulomb]

13 hours ago, sethmad said:

I find it odd that this kind of inverters use so much reactive power from the grid in bypass mode.

This is completely normal. All it does is partially correct the typical power factor of a house, which is almost always strongly inductive, due to motors and until recently fluorescent light ballasts.

13 hours ago, sethmad said:

Could it be a problem in the Firmware?

No.

[sethmad]

For me it is still strange., with no battery, NO LOAD connected, the inverter takes from AC IN ~300VAr (reactive power) + 60W Active Power. Why so much Reactive Power (~3 Amps @220V AC). This is why I asked If anybody could measure the power consumption from grid in similar inverters...

[Scorp007]

1 hour ago, sethmad said:

For me it is still strange., with no battery, NO LOAD connected, the inverter takes from AC IN ~300VAr (reactive power) + 60W Active Power. Why so much Reactive Power (~3 Amps @220V AC). This is why I asked If anybody could measure the power consumption from grid in similar inverters...

How did you get to the reactive power and active power when the VA=660?

[Coulomb]

On 2023/04/11 at 12:10 AM, sethmad said:

For me it is still strange., with no battery, NO LOAD connected, the inverter takes from AC IN ~300VAr (reactive power)

Presumably the inverter is in line mode, where AC-in, AC-out, and the inverter output (AC side of the DC-AC converter) are all connected together: 

In this mode, both "switches" (actually relay contacts) are on. Even though the DC-AC converter may be doing nothing, the LC filter is still connected, and the C (Capacitor) part of the filter is basically across the utility. So around one zero crossing, when dV/dt is highest, power flows into the capacitor; during the other zero crossing, power flows from the capacitor back to the AC-in port. Apart from very small losses, there is no net use of power, that's why the utility company can't charge you for it.

The 60 W of real power is for the electronics.

[sethmad]

On 2023/04/10 at 6:22 PM, Scorp007 said:

How did you get to the reactive power and active power when the VA=660?

I use a smart plug meter and it displays the current, active power and cos (fi) - powerfactor

[Scorp007]

8 hours ago, sethmad said:

I use a smart plug meter and it displays the current, active power and cos (fi) - powerfactor

Based on your initial values I doubt that the smart plug meter is correct getting a PF=0.06 or a VA of 660 and only a 60W active power. 

Perhaps @BritishRacingGreen

could share his measurements when doing repairs. 

I think my measurements is in line with what most inverters would show for an input and output. 

Edited June 20, 2023 by Scorp007

[BritishRacingGreen]

1 hour ago, Scorp007 said:

Based on your initial values I doubt that the smart plug meter is correct getting a PF=0.06 or a VA of 660 and only a 60W active power. 

Perhaps @BritishRacingGreen

could share his measurements when doing repairs. 

I think my measurements is in line with what most inverters would show for an input and output. 

I have measured this about 2 yrs ago last time, and I seem to recall a big 4Amps but with a nasty phase angle, so about 800VA, but not much active power. 

[sethmad]

I recently repaired an offgrid inverter (Isolar SML 5K-Parallel, probably EASUN) - equivalent to  Axpert Offgrid as it had already a patched FW loaded (LC1 72.70C with AussieView. I was curious about consumption from Grid in bypass mode and no Load connected - same values as for Infinisolar V2 - 2 Amps but only 50W Active power. So a lot of reactive Power. I wonder if Growatt inverters are the same issue.

[Coulomb]

19 hours ago, sethmad said:

probably EASUN) - equivalent to  Axpert Offgrid as it had already a patched FW loaded (LC1 72.70C with AussieView.

If these came from the factory with patched firmware, then these would have been back in the days when EASuns were clones. Weber and I (authors of the patches) are amused by this, and faintly annoyed. These clone makers seem to be using our good-faith efforts to work around the defences Voltronic have to protect their intellectual property. Often, those clones have no boot loader, and as a result their firmware can never be updated.

19 hours ago, sethmad said:

2 Amps but only 50W Active power.

This is normal. It's caused by the C (capacitor) part of the LC (inductor - capacitor)  filter at the output of the DC-AC converter. Its only effect is to change the power factor of the premises slightly, usually in a good direction (most premises' power factor is lagging (inductive), and the capacitor pulls the current to be more in phase with the voltage, which has several benefits. So it's not an "issue".

The 50 W of real power is the "idle" consumption, running the electronics, display, switching losses, etc.

 

Edited October 17, 2023 by Coulomb

[sethmad]

@Coulomb

I am not sure if this particular inverter was reflashed by the owner or not. It is an older inverter, 3 or 4 years old as far as i can tell. This is how I received it for repairs - it had short circuit on PV input. ZVS diodes were defective. Probably someone connected it to a 400V DC PV string and max supported is 145V DC. 

I tried connecting to it via Solar Assistant and the SN read is 55355535...., so probably a clone.

This is how the label looks like. Housing is of Gray color

 

[Coulomb]

On 2023/10/18 at 5:39 PM, sethmad said:

so probably a clone.

Definitely a clone from the label. At least the patched firmware will prevent fault code 90.