Solar Edge inverter lost history

[SunshineBaby]

So after 3 years my Solar Edge inverter main board fried. The board was replaced by our solar company and was working and showed past history prior to breaking but was not communicating with the bottom meter... so it showed nothing new being added to the Solar Edge dashboard. Out came the solar installer again who corrected the communication setting and all is working and the dashboard is populating our daily/weekly energy graphs again. But we lost 3 years of production history. Is there no way to have our old history show up? Or is the main board replacement like getting a new inverter where our history is lost forever? Thanks.

 

[darkskies]

Not sure, but I've seen the case where a change in S/N will not allow access to the history from the previous S/N. I saw that when I updated my inverter to a larger unit.

What I've been doing for the past several years, to avoid that problem, is capture the status and performance data I want, and store it locally. I wrote an app that queries the SolarEdge API, and grabs the information every ten minutes. I store it in a database and then I can do reports on year-over-year performance, ROI, savings, etc.

I also use that app to notify me if there is a fault, so that I can investigate immediately. In the past, I had the inverter stop producing due to an electrical storm, and it was about a week before I noticed it was not producing. I though my installer was monitoring the system, but alas, they were not, and because I had the system for years, the novelty of checking every day had worn off.

Now, I get a text message when there is a fault, so I can check it out (assuming I have internet connectivity).

The remote monitoring capability that SolarEdge has is nice, but I wish there was a way to directly poll the inverter (locally), rather than just see what was pushed up to their website (or via their API). I haven't had the time or equipment setup to sniff the communications with SolarEdge to see if I can intercept...

 

[SunshineBaby]

Not sure, but I've seen the case where a change in S/N will not allow access to the history from the previous S/N. I saw that when I updated my inverter to a larger unit.

What I've been doing for the past several years, to avoid that problem, is capture the status and performance data I want, and store it locally. I wrote an app that queries the SolarEdge API, and grabs the information every ten minutes. I store it in a database and then I can do reports on year-over-year performance, ROI, savings, etc.

I also use that app to notify me if there is a fault, so that I can investigate immediately. In the past, I had the inverter stop producing due to an electrical storm, and it was about a week before I noticed it was not producing. I though my installer was monitoring the system, but alas, they were not, and because I had the system for years, the novelty of checking every day had worn off.

Now, I get a text message when there is a fault, so I can check it out (assuming I have internet connectivity).

The remote monitoring capability that SolarEdge has is nice, but I wish there was a way to directly poll the inverter (locally), rather than just see what was pushed up to their website (or via their API). I haven't had the time or equipment setup to sniff the communications with SolarEdge to see if I can intercept...

That's probably what happened. When you say "capture locally" I assume you mean to do a screen save of the dashboard? I just got a text from Solar Edge that sounded pretty much what you just told me. They said if the installer comes out and temporarily disconnects the inverter from the production meter, I would get my old history back to allow me to save a copy. I guess that would mean a couple of saved jpg files. Not sure it's worth it to schedule the installer for three years of data. I wish that was a diy disconnect fix. Thanks.

 

[darkskies]

That's probably what happened. When you say "capture locally" I assume you mean to do a screen save of the dashboard? I just got a text from Solar Edge that sounded pretty much what you just told me. They said if the installer comes out and temporarily disconnects the inverter from the production meter, I would get my old history back to allow me to save a copy. I guess that would mean a couple of saved jpg files. Not sure it's worth it to schedule the installer for three years of data. I wish that was a diy disconnect fix. Thanks.

You can, from the dashboard, under "Power and Energy" title, on the right, there is an icon of a paper with "CSV".


From there, you can download the data from your site. You can do that when selecting day, week, month, billing cycle, and year. For example, yearly will give the month by month data.

You can do that under the "Comparative Energy" section too.

What happens with the SolarEdge inverters is that they send their data to SolarEdge (production, consumption, self consumption, battery level,...). From what I see, the resolution is about every 10 minutes. SolarEdge then stores that information for your site. When you go to the monitoring.solaredge.com site, it grabs the stored data, based on what you are viewing (daily, monthly, etc). I think they also will request info from your inverter on demand (in addition to the periodic data) - say, if you are viewing the current production data. And lastly, if you inverter has an issue, I think it pushes that data immediately to SolarEdge - based on what I see from monitoring.

Alternatively, you can use the SolarEdge Application Programming Interface. You use an API key (obtained from your installer or via the Admin screen, if you have access to it) and make requests to SolarEdge and they will provide the same data that has been collected from your inverter. There's a delay from what is actually happening on your box - about 20 mins.

This allows you to collect the data - versus downloading a spreadsheet and save it away. It is very detailed as well, providing all sorts of info.

There are some shortcomings with this. First, you are limited by the number of requests you can do per day (300). I find that I can do requests every 10 minutes, along with some other requests and not run over the limit. I would rather be able to make API requests directly to my inverter, so that I can collect data faster, if desired in some cases.

Second, you're just getting data that they collected. If your internet service is down, no info is collected by SolarEdge and hence not collected by you, even though you may be able access your inverter from your home network. I'm guessing the inverter holds the data for some time (no idea how long), and then uploads it to SolarEdge later, when back on line. I do know, that I have a failed communication board on my inverter for about a week, and, once that was replaced, I did not have access to any of the data that week. Not sure if it was because the inverter was powered off to replace the board, or if it just didn't retain data that long.

So I would love to be able to directly access my inverter. I'm thinking they probably use the same API that is published for users' to get data from SolarEdge on thier sites. Someday, I'll have to snoop the traffic coming out of my inverter to see if I can figure out how to access it.

You can serach for the API... it is titled "SolarEdge Monitoring Server API".

 

[SunshineBaby]

You can, from the dashboard, under "Power and Energy" title, on the right, there is an icon of a paper with "CSV".
View attachment 211388

From there, you can download the data from your site. You can do that when selecting day, week, month, billing cycle, and year. For example, yearly will give the month by month data.

You can do that under the "Comparative Energy" section too.

What happens with the SolarEdge inverters is that they send their data to SolarEdge (production, consumption, self consumption, battery level,...). From what I see, the resolution is about every 10 minutes. SolarEdge then stores that information for your site. When you go to the monitoring.solaredge.com site, it grabs the stored data, based on what you are viewing (daily, monthly, etc). I think they also will request info from your inverter on demand (in addition to the periodic data) - say, if you are viewing the current production data. And lastly, if you inverter has an issue, I think it pushes that data immediately to SolarEdge - based on what I see from monitoring.

Alternatively, you can use the SolarEdge Application Programming Interface. You use an API key (obtained from your installer or via the Admin screen, if you have access to it) and make requests to SolarEdge and they will provide the same data that has been collected from your inverter. There's a delay from what is actually happening on your box - about 20 mins.

This allows you to collect the data - versus downloading a spreadsheet and save it away. It is very detailed as well, providing all sorts of info.

There are some shortcomings with this. First, you are limited by the number of requests you can do per day (300). I find that I can do requests every 10 minutes, along with some other requests and not run over the limit. I would rather be able to make API requests directly to my inverter, so that I can collect data faster, if desired in some cases.

Second, you're just getting data that they collected. If your internet service is down, no info is collected by SolarEdge and hence not collected by you, even though you may be able access your inverter from your home network. I'm guessing the inverter holds the data for some time (no idea how long), and then uploads it to SolarEdge later, when back on line. I do know, that I have a failed communication board on my inverter for about a week, and, once that was replaced, I did not have access to any of the data that week. Not sure if it was because the inverter was powered off to replace the board, or if it just didn't retain data that long.

So I would love to be able to directly access my inverter. I'm thinking they probably use the same API that is published for users' to get data from SolarEdge on thier sites. Someday, I'll have to snoop the traffic coming out of my inverter to see if I can figure out how to access it.

You can serach for the API... it is titled "SolarEdge Monitoring Server API".

When I do that, all I get is zeros because the inverter is not disconnected form the meter. I can download the info but there is nothing on the spreadsheet for any time period except April 2024. I would need to know how to disconnect the meter.

 

[darkskies]

Yeah, probably won't help you for your current situation. Once you change inverter S/N, you can only get data from SolarEdge for that new inverter, AFAIK. Just mentioning that, in the future, you can download the information vs doing screen shots.

You could always ask SolarEdge support to see if there is a way to get data from your old inverter. Maybe they can access it?

 

[SunshineBaby]

Yeah, probably won't help you for your current situation. Once you change inverter S/N, you can only get data from SolarEdge for that new inverter, AFAIK. Just mentioning that, in the future, you can download the information vs doing screen shots.

You could always ask SolarEdge support to see if there is a way to get data from your old inverter. Maybe they can access it?

They got back to me and said that if the installer disconnects the inverter from the meter, my old history would be back temporarily. No idea why that would work. I could then download or screenshot the info. But I'd have to get my installer out here and have him stand around while I do the downloading and then have him reconnect things. I don't see it being worth it but I'll remember about the icon download for any future repairs. Thanks.