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inverter causing BAD radio interference

sunspot
Hi Folks,

I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. I was hoping someone might
be able to offer my wife and I information concerning a situation with our
recently installed solar system.

We had a solar photovoltaic system installed on our home about 4 months
ago. It seems to be functioning fine in terms of energy generation, but has had
an unexpected problem from day one. The inverter is generating very bad AM radio
interference out to a distance of about 80 yards in all directions. Even driving
past our house the car radio gets severely messed up. I'm in contact with both
the company that did the installation and the inverter manufacturer, both of
whom agree that everything is properly set up (grounding and whatever) and that
the inverter is the cause of the problem. They assure me that they are "working
on it". Has anyone had this type of problem with their installation, or perhaps
heard of such a case?

Thanks for any help you can offer.
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Submitted by sunspot on Sun, 06/01/2008 - 15:50.

ctyankee
Re: inverter causing BAD radio interference

Does the inverter have certifications? e.g. UL, TUV, CSA, etc...

While some noise is to be expected on a cheap 110V AC radio powered from the inverter, the magnitude of what you're describing is totally unacceptable.

Contact the installer and inquire about getting another brand of inverter... BTW what brand is it? I doubt it's a major recognized quality brand...

Look at http://www.solarbuzz.com/Inverterprices.htm for current & historical prices. See if you paid a fair price and demand a swap or pay the difference for a decent inverter.

This is the type of situation that gives the industry a black eye. The installer is possibly incompetent, because unless you're the 1st customer they should'a known about the RF problem... But I suppose high markups are worth more to them than your satisfaction!

The inverter mfg is *certainly* at fault for pawning off improperly designed & tested equipment. Any 1st year EE student can design a basic inverter, but it takes skills to produce a quality inverter!

Without knowing how much you spent, the last part of the advice is difficult, but if you spent >$10k (in all likelihood) call a lawyer. I don't know if you got your rebates & incentives yet, but if they could compromise so badly on quality, who knows what they did with the permits & regulations...

Good luck, please keep us all apprised on your situation.


Mon, 06/02/2008 - 07:36

sunspot
Re: inverter causing BAD radio interference

The inverter is a SPR5200 G3 designed to work with our SunPower panels and rated at 5200 watts.
My understanding is that SunPower uses inverters from one of several different
suppliers, and that these inverters are first “tweaked” a bit before being
relabeled with the SPR stamp. In our case, the supplier is PVPowered, with whom
we have been in contact. We were told by a PVPowered representative that a
“long term” fix for the problem would be in by the end of June. We’ll see. One
of the reasons we went for this particular installation was that we were told
SunPower is a top notch outfit with state of the art panels. We assumed the inverter
would be of equal quality. I'm not sure what to believe any more.

PVPowered 5200

http://www.pvpowered.com/inverter_pvp5200.php


Mon, 06/02/2008 - 19:43

ctyankee
Re: inverter causing BAD radio interference

"Tweaked" that's funny...  They are going to add the components that should have been there in the
first place, but instead of being designed in the will be an
afterthought.

The Company seems to be proud of the low components count.  IGBT's are great technology (20 years ago), but that's the difference between knowledge and experience.

 

Sure the modules are bullet-proof, but they still need to be 'finessed'.  If I had to guess they got the schematic out of the International Rectifier Applications Handbook -- The equivalent of the CAI getting their secret-decoder rings from the Cracker Jack box ;^)  (sorry)

I'm sure the company doesn't wan the bad press, try mentioning the issue on the ClarkHoward.com message board, that's another consumer advocate site with a significantly larger audience.

 Start taking some temperature readings near and around the inverter today, record them in a logboo.  If/when they fix it, please keep taking those temperatire readings.  This way when the unit overheats & fails you'll have proof of not abusing the inverter.


Tue, 06/03/2008 - 07:53

athena
Re: inverter causing BAD radio interference

What's an AM radio?


Fri, 06/06/2008 - 15:19