We have 6 panels and inverter and battery. The installation was done back in March and has mostly behaved as expected, but this evening when I checked the graph I could see a mystery power consumption. The battery has gone from 80%down to 60% and is still dropping. We tried switching off the breakers in the house one by one to see if we had an in house electrical problem but the inverter still showed the spike and drop, spike and drop, spike and drop. It sounded like the inverter was breathing when I went out to check in real time (since the app has the delay) This happened once before a few weeks ago but I hadn’t noticed it at the time.
We have an OHME car charger but our car is not currently connected.
We do have a separate, unconnected, array on the roof that we installed back when the FIT was good (2011) .
Any ideas?
TIA
- Today’s graph showing the mystery spikes
It looks to be working correctly in that it is measuring a load and discharging the battery to meet that load, as you say the mystery is what the load is.
It would be appear to be a real load as you are seeing battery discharge, load and occasional export which is what you see when a large appliance switches on and off from time to time - the noise you hear is transformer whine as the inverter reacts to the load turning on and off.
From that your inverter appears to be working normally in response to an external load - can you see any stats from your other inverter to see what it was doing at the time ?.
The load appears to be transient a reasonable size (~2kW) like a water heater cycling, a large fridge/freezer or air conditioner.
It would be appear to be a real load as you are seeing battery discharge, load and occasional export which is what you see when a large appliance switches on and off from time to time - the noise you hear is transformer whine as the inverter reacts to the load turning on and off.
From that your inverter appears to be working normally in response to an external load - can you see any stats from your other inverter to see what it was doing at the time ?.
The load appears to be transient a reasonable size (~2kW) like a water heater cycling, a large fridge/freezer or air conditioner.
Thanks for the reply. We don’t have AC or an electric water heater and when we switched off our fridges and freezer the cycling remained. Our other inverter is in the loft and I didn’t think to check it. Could it possibly have been a response to the heat by the other inverter? It was installed in 2011 so may be nearing end of life. When I’ve seen this behaviour in the past it has been in the evening starting around 8pm.
We literally switched off each breaker in turn on the main board to see if there was a dodgy circuit, leaving only the breakers for our PV systems.
Maybe I need to ask a sparky to take a look next time it happens.
We literally switched off each breaker in turn on the main board to see if there was a dodgy circuit, leaving only the breakers for our PV systems.
Maybe I need to ask a sparky to take a look next time it happens.
I should also have said that our originalPV system has a retro fitted battery (2kw) in the loft, near the inverter.
Hmmm ok thanks, i’m wondering if your older system is attempting to charge the battery and there maybe a problem with that process.
From what you have said I think getting that other system checked would be a very good idea, if all the breakers are off its the only thing left in the house that can be drawing a load (can you isolate the old system from the AC to eliminate it?)
From what you have said I think getting that other system checked would be a very good idea, if all the breakers are off its the only thing left in the house that can be drawing a load (can you isolate the old system from the AC to eliminate it?)
Thank you. The mystery power consumption hasn’t happened this evening so I’ve not had a chance to test. I opened the roof lights to ventilate the loft so it didn’t get so hot this evening.
I do however have a question…how do I find someone to check the system? The original installer went bust many years ago, and the company who installed our new Fox ESS system in March this year was wound up in June this year so I can’t use them either. No one seems to stay long in this industry. I am located in Scotland.
I do however have a question…how do I find someone to check the system? The original installer went bust many years ago, and the company who installed our new Fox ESS system in March this year was wound up in June this year so I can’t use them either. No one seems to stay long in this industry. I am located in Scotland.
Ok see how it goes - if you have a Facebook account can I suggest you join the community group here https://www.facebook.com/groups/foxessownersgroup as there are a considerable number of users and installers on there and i’m sure someone will be able to help.
Let me know if you don’t have Facebook and i’ll post a link on this thread and ask any installers to post here.
As an alternative William Eccles (the founder of this site and the Facebook group) offers a service to check and update systems remotely where people have lost their installers - in my view this is really excellent value https://ecclessolar.com/digital-services/ feel free to contact him.
Let me know if you don’t have Facebook and i’ll post a link on this thread and ask any installers to post here.
As an alternative William Eccles (the founder of this site and the Facebook group) offers a service to check and update systems remotely where people have lost their installers - in my view this is really excellent value https://ecclessolar.com/digital-services/ feel free to contact him.
Thank you very much! Yes, I am on Facebook and will check out the group.
I think I have found the ‘cause’, but this has raised another question. I checked the 2kw battery in the loft in the evening and it had very little charge in it. In the morning it was fully charged and we had the discharge spike on the FoxESS app. So now I know the spike is caused by the 2kw loft battery being charged from the 9kw Fox battery. I can now stop wondering if something sinister is going on.
However, I have no idea what is triggering the 2kw battery to charge from the 9kw (or from the grid if the 9kw is at minimum charge). I had no idea it had this capability! I used to use an app (SolarMan) to view the system stats, but when our router died and was replaced I could not find a way in the app to connect to the new router so have lived without stats for a few years.
Thanks for all the input.
However, I have no idea what is triggering the 2kw battery to charge from the 9kw (or from the grid if the 9kw is at minimum charge). I had no idea it had this capability! I used to use an app (SolarMan) to view the system stats, but when our router died and was replaced I could not find a way in the app to connect to the new router so have lived without stats for a few years.
Thanks for all the input.