I need some help with my Schneider System

Enable periodic transmit enable!

That setting gave me a hell of a time when I turned it off.

Trygves said:

Charge Mode

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one of my Schneider MPPT CC is set to "primary", the other two are set to "secondary"

Trygves said:

I have one MPPT as Primary and the other one as Secondary - should they be Stand-Alone or Echo.

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I've never been able to determine what this actually does. Nothing observable that I've been able to tell, and never got a real solid answer when I've asked anyone at Schnieder

PROBLEM RESOLVED I THINK.
I reloaded the MPPT firmware this morning and made sure the system was on standby. the MPPT firmware was the same as was in the system = V1.09.00BN6. As long as the SCP was showing MODE for the MPPT as () and nothing between the two parenthesis I was always wondering. By re-loading the firmware I first noticed that now it states (Operating) and that was the first clue that the previous firmware was not loaded correctly. There was no sing except that the picture shown below would never be correct and never show anything from the solar panels. Today was the first time I have seen the solar panels give me anything:

So this time I have what I have been looking for since the start of this problem = the solar panels seem to do the right thing by both charging the battery and giving some power to the house in a cloudy morning.
I would like to thank everyone for the many suggestions along the way. Now it finally seems to work the way it should. The sun comes out tomorrow and we shall see then.

You know, I thought about recommending that, but I've never actually seen Schneider firmware fail to load correctly. But, we have seen upgrades/downgrades fix issues on inverters and Insights. Sorry no one recommended that earlier.

Have you done both MPPTs and verified theu both show good DC output and populate production on the main layout?

Sounds like it's time to move on to your second issue. I think there was a second issue...

Both MPPT's work as I did the firmware for both. The other problem was that the SCP was only showing () for MPPT Mode set up and that is also fixed now by showing (Operating) and I have the choice to set (Standby) if I need to.

Note that I never have seen DC Output Voltage or Power from the MPPT's. That shows up now on a cloudy day.

My guess is it was periodic transmit enable, I think that's how the MPPT announces its output to the system including the power flow display.

Happy it's working for you now.

My system was inspected yesterday by the City where I live. Everything good but the system was missing the mandatory Surge Protector which has to be added. I ordered the MidNite Solar Surge Protector MNSPD-300-AC which will be added to the AC wiring to complete the system. Good thought for others as well as I was told that if the lightening strikes the panels they want nothing damaged.

Trygves said:

My system was inspected yesterday by the City where I live. Everything good but the system was missing the mandatory Surge Protector which has to be added. I ordered the MidNite Solar Surge Protector MNSPD-300-AC which will be added to the AC wiring to complete the system. Good thought for others as well as I was told that if the lightening strikes the panels they want nothing damaged.

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Newer NEC code requirements require an SPD in the main panel on the AC side. but, to be blunt, if your panels take a strike.. the AC SPD isn't going to do much. they make DC SPD's that go on the panel circuits. That said, if it's a direct strike, it's unlikely that even the SPD will be all that helpful. lol

I read through the 6 pages and it appears the issue is ongoing regardless of firmware levels. I gather that you were waiting on a net-metering agreement with the utility that you didn't initially have, but now do have, and can enable sell.

If your buyback rate is 1:1 then there is no incentive to prioritize self-consumption, Enhanced Grid Support can be used, and batteries can be kept full and ready to support the loads during grid failure. Unless that exact scenario exists, Enhanced Grid Support isn't useful and shouldn't be enabled. For the purpose of establishing system functionality and production, I would not be trying to get Enhanced Grid Support working yet - it's great for automatically adjusting Grid Support Voltage relative to where the charge controllers are at in stages.... "when it works".

Begin with Float Voltage. For a 48v nominal LiFePO4 battery bank it should be 54 volts. (Edit: refer to BMS or battery pack spec for exact float voltage, but 54V quoted as reference. RUiXU is 54.6V for example.) Set this in both the MPPTs and the XW+ (This voltage needs to be equal to or slightly above the voltage at which your BMS performs cell leveling - refer to BMS specifications.)
Grid Support Voltage needs to be a little less than float voltage, 0.3V is adequate, or 53.7V in this example. If Grid Support voltage is equal to or higher than Float Voltage the XW+ will not consume DC once the chargers enter Float. (Do not lower this beyond 53.7V unless Sell is disabled, otherwise your batteries will never achieve a full charge because it will all go to Grid.)
The Recharge Voltage, plus 0.5V, in the XW+ establishes the lower limit of Load Shave mode, and the upper limit of AC Pass Thru mode. Generally speaking, you don't want it going into AC Pass Through mode unless the batteries are depleted to or below the voltage you don't want them falling below during grid availability. If you don't use Load Shaving then this setpoint can be closer to Grid Support voltage but needs to be a minimum of 0.5V lower than the Grid Support Voltage. If you're prioritizing self-consumption this should be lower, but needs to be at least 1.0V above Low Battery Cut-Out Voltage.
AC Pass Thru mode's window of operations is (LBCO Voltage + 1.0V) to (Recharge Voltage +0.5V).

In your scenario I'd disable the XW+ charger completely. Bare in mind that even with the Charger disabled, the charger Recharge Voltage (+0.5V) setpoint still determines the voltage at and below which AC Pass Thru mode activates, all the way down to LBCO+1.0V

Once all that is working you try re-enabling the XW+ charger with limits to its parameters and operating block to prevent unwanted grid consumption. Then, move on to getting Enhanced Grid Support operational and tested for functionality.

(Edited to clarify FLOAT VOLTAGE setpoint specifics)

After thinking about this some more, I have questions about your panels.

I understand that you have 2 parallel strings of 5 series panels per MPPT, quoted 3000 watts each MPPT, so probably 300W panels.
In one of the screenshots I see a voltage of 331.5V with no load, which is equivalent to "open-circuit" PV array voltage, or 66.3V per panel.

I can't find a 300W panel spec with a Voc that high, so am hoping we can get a link to the specsheet.
We need to look at the panels' Maximum Power Voltage (Vmp) to ensure you're getting a minimum of 230V and a maximum of 550V with the combined Vmp of the panels into the MPPT. With only 5 panels in series that would equal 46 volts required per panel, and that is way too high for most panels.

Once we see the panel specs we'll be able to tell you if it makes more sense to put more panels in series. Open circuit voltage is the upper limit for series wiring, your panels are making 66.3V each, so let's call that 70V to be safe, and that means you can safely put 8 maximum of those in series into one of these MPPTs and still be well under the 600V limit. But, need to see panel specs.

I am thinking:
MPPT1: 2 strings of 6 series panels
MPPT2: 1 string of 8 series panels

I am not sure yet if even 6 in series will be enough; that's 38.33V and is pretty ambitious for a single panel's Vmp. 7 probably would be but it would mean you'd need to buy one more panel. Really need those specs.

MPPT 80/100 600 Specs:

The Inverter does not seem to qualify incoming power = I do not have any green LED light on the Inverter any longer saying that I have qualified incoming power. I have a picture of the Inverter and wonder if anyone reading this would be so nice to give a copy of their working set-up:

I also give you the picture of the solar power but no incoming power:


Any help would be much appreciated.

@Trygves I have a handful of questions to ask, but it'd probably be better to move this to it's own thread IMO.

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n2aws - how is that done?

Please note that the system was working with 0 Amp sale when the power company came to do their final test. I had power from the grid and everything was working fine. They installed the sell meter and I was asked to program that I was selling. It rained so the inside of the meters were becoming wet when they added the sell meter. When we then went inside the system was running on batteries - the green LED saying I had good grid power was not lit up!
I reloaded the firmware for the Inverter 2.07.00 BN4 (XW+ 6848) but that did not help. This due to the firmware for the MPPT which was bad earlier and the system started to work when the MPPT's got a new firmware 1.09.00 BN6 - same as before....

Need to confirm that:
- Grid Support is Enabled
- Sell Enable/Disable is Enabled

Once AC is qualified it should stop inverting, go into Pass-Through, and then begin a 240 second countdown until the XW syncs to the grid waveform and Grid Support activates. Does it ever switch to Pass-Through?

What happens when you cut the breakers to AC1 and then turn them back on?
What region settings are you using?

Your AC1 Voltage and frequency do look fine.
You can alter the qualification criteria within "Grid Codes" heading when selecting the inverter in Insight. Use care and judgement in there because we can wreck stuff, that's why it's password gated.

So, I should mention there is an ugly side to firmware upgrades and especially downgrades on any XW. There are problems with the programming PIDs between versions. It has been the experience of many people with XW+ and XW Pros that do firmware changes only to then experience erratic and unpredictable behavior. In every case, wiping the configuration to default and preprogramming it from scratch resolves the errata. It's pretty easy with a single XW to document the preferred settings and then reapply, kind of time-consuming when there are two of them just due to how long it takes to get them back to matching voltage and Master/Slave aka Primary/Secondary. The key with wiping and redoing settings is to rebuild the settings manually, don't try to use a backup and restore or it will just restore the issues.

Reviewing your screenshot...
I don't see the "Grid Codes" option for your version of Insight. It would be right there on the screen you captured as the last item on the Right.
I also see that Sell Enable/Disable is Enabled.

Would like to see some load on it to see what happens.

Grid Support is Enabled
Sell is Enabled
AC from the grid is there but the LED saying it is is not on therefore the grid not qualified at all it is telling me.

My be I should go into stand-by and reprogram all parameters again

Trygves said:

...My be I should go into stand-by and reprogram all parameters again

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Under Configuration / Reset / and then "Reset All Settings to Factory" is what I was referring to with starting from a clean slate.



Might be worth the time to take notes on your settings before it's wiped.