Solar panel problems
When you start getting emails from your solar panels, something strange is going on
Back in March last year I discovered that the company that originally installed our solar panels back in 2011 had gone out of business. It was only in 2022 that they’d replaced a faulty inverter, so that was quite a surprise. I thought that they were a stayer, but like so many other solar companies, they didn’t last.
When the inverter was installed, they configured it so that supposedly they would be monitoring it, and I was given “guest” access to view the daily statistics. I realised that obviously they wouldn’t be monitoring it now they no longer existed. I got in touch with Fronius (the inverter manufacturer) and they were able to give me ‘administrator’ access. In doing that I updated the email it was using to send any notifications.
With my admin access, I now discovered that the firmware for the inverter and data sensor were both really outdated. Probably the same version it came with when it was installed. Something I assumed the installer would have been taking care of, but apparently not. Needless to say I fixed that.
And all was good until around November when I started getting some emails from the inverter saying “Code 475 Isolation Error”. Not the most helpful of error messages! And we’re heading into Summer when you want those panels working hard.
I contacted a few local solar companies - some just wanted to replace everything with a brand new, larger system, without even coming to take a look. LAMM Solar and Electrical were a bit more helpful.
One reason I tried them in the first place was that I remember seeing them at a local community fete. I was in favour of using a local company if possible.
One of their guys came out, discovered that one of my panels had actually cracked. It could have been a branch blown in the wind, or a bird dropping something on it.
As a short-term fix they disconnected the group of panels it was in. Our inverter was happier, though we now had slightly less generating capacity. Unfortunately, due to the age of the panel, it would be really unlikely to be able to replace it with another of the same capacity.
Our panels were back up and running, and if we ever needed someone to do more work on them then I now know a good company to deal with (and more about that soon).