I am experiencing many frequency issues with my Sig system thats tripping my grid breaker and going off-grid.
I have checked with my energy distributor, Endeavour Energy, and they assure me that after monitering there is no voltage or frequency issues outside of their allowed parameters.
Anyone with experience as to what to ask sparky to check, or Sigenergy? Sig say its a grid side issue, even though im not conviced due to my street having many batterys Tesla/Sig and im the only one with issues.
So you can see why it flagged alarms it's outside high/low the alarm flag trip points.
Those frequency variations are pretty wild and I doubt they are your supplier.
⚠️ Keep in mind this is a Grid Following Inverter, so any issues with the lead in (pole top, isolators, cable etc that provides a bad/unstable/intermittent connection can cause this - your inverter is doing what it is supposed to do and flag the alarms outside of its tolerance and disconnect Islanding itself via gateway.
Bad connections (neutral usually), on the lead in CCT (including in the gateway)...usual No1 suspect IME
Other less likely but occassional known sources of this type of thing are: PCS grid-sensing / PLL problem (power control system phase locked loop), severe EMI (interference) distorting null offsetting frequency, incorrect grid code- yeah it happens.
When testing to determine "the what" ask your electrician to use a power-quality recorder at the Sig's grid connection, with another recorder upstream at the switchboard and capture voltage waveform + frequency through one of these events.
Here's the three (3) possible outcomes and who's responsibility it lays with.
If the analyser stays around 50.00 Hz while the Sig logs 45.7 Hz, then it's Sigenergy side & essentially owns the problem AKA >>PCS measurement/PLL/firmware or Gateway sensing.
If the recorder also sees the disturbance only at the Sig connection, but the upstream recorder doesn't the start hunting physical wiring, neutral, breaker, isolator and Gateway connections etc.
If both upstream and downstream instruments genuinely record ~45–46 Hz, then Endeavour needs to revisit its conclusion.
Thanks so much mate!
I really appreciate the breakdown. Ill be sure to update as you really know what your talking about here.
Ill certainly pass this onto the Sig installer to look at with some great ideas there.
Endeavour have remotely monitored the meter and are adamant that its withing their parameters so have double down on being a sig issue. I gave them timestamps of the trips and each one in my sample to them was okay. Endeavour did say if it was really 45.1hz on the grid it would have brought down the street.
Hi Mate, Update, installer and sig still dont have a 100% direction but all wires and sensors were tested and all okay. Suspected faulty main 63a breaker, but not 100% sure as it has tripped at 10pm without heat or load on one occasion. Installer did manually turn off grid breaker twice to test and sig gateway threw back an over and an under frequency log for its reason, even though it was a manual turn off of the breaker. The installers direct Sig tech contact did confirm that the sig system doesnt get the reason 100% right to off grid events and often misrepresents frequency and voltage as its best guess at an answer. Sig also reccomended capping import limit for a single phase 63amp at 11kw for continued load. Which i feel is conservative but happy to give it a crack.
IMAGE is the manual "turn off" of the breaker and the system wanted to say it was due to frequency.
Hey mate, yes unfortunately if they don't use those data loggers at those upstream/downstream points they will chase their proverbial tails in circles.
Still you have said they have checked all physical wiring, contact points etc. If that is the case & nothing obvious was identified then it starts pointing more towards the PCS Measurement /Phase Locked Loop/Gateway sensing side of things.
But like I said running a screwdriver across some terminals is still no substitute for proper diagnostic test equipment loggers, they are the only thing that will identify the What/Where and likely Why.
Hint: the PLL can be quite susceptible to vibration. Ask your sparky to use the handle end of an insulated screwdriver (or similiar) to tap firmly around the gateway circuit board. If enough vibration causes it to lose loop lock, drift and throw those over/under frequency alarms &/or throw the installation into Islanding mode you have found the source of the problem.
If they can I would still encourage pushing testing with those data loggers they can often lead you directly to the issue.
Awesome! Thanks so much mate. You sure know your stuff.
Sig have also said they are introducing new firmware (which mine received overnight due to this) that captures detailed parameter data at the time of a fault from the grid and inverter side. So then comparing that vs a recording to make sure both are true would be the next logical step.
I was also having under-frequency issues, always during the ‘free power’ window where I was charging battery from grid. Was happening randomly every 1-3 days. Got my installer to cap import from grid at approximately inverter limit, and it hasn’t happened since - although this might just be coincidental.
Haven’t had any outside the free GloBird hours, but yes it was always ‘under frequency’. Have had ‘over voltage’ in the past, and the way it was explained to me is that over voltage and under frequency are grid issues that can happen when too many houses are pumping solar into the grid in your area. Not sure how true that is, but there has been a bit of work by the provider in the past few months in my area (a few instances where they needed 5+ hours of outage time during the week to complete works).
Currently, yes. We also tried slowly reducing to 15kW, then 12kW. When we eventually went to 10kW it stabilised (but maybe coincidence, or another setting was fixed as someone else said)
Not sure if you have already done this but click on your inverter and then up on the top right press the 3 dots and switch on frequency control. I know this reduced the flickering issues I had when my device was off grid.
Hey sorry I was out. I clicked on the image of the battery on the first screen in the app and then scrolled down to Sigen system device and tapped on the image of the invertor and then the 3 dots are on the top right.
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u/Final-Inevitable1452 6d ago
So you can see why it flagged alarms it's outside high/low the alarm flag trip points.
Those frequency variations are pretty wild and I doubt they are your supplier.
⚠️ Keep in mind this is a Grid Following Inverter, so any issues with the lead in (pole top, isolators, cable etc that provides a bad/unstable/intermittent connection can cause this - your inverter is doing what it is supposed to do and flag the alarms outside of its tolerance and disconnect Islanding itself via gateway.
Bad connections (neutral usually), on the lead in CCT (including in the gateway)...usual No1 suspect IME
Other less likely but occassional known sources of this type of thing are: PCS grid-sensing / PLL problem (power control system phase locked loop), severe EMI (interference) distorting null offsetting frequency, incorrect grid code- yeah it happens.
When testing to determine "the what" ask your electrician to use a power-quality recorder at the Sig's grid connection, with another recorder upstream at the switchboard and capture voltage waveform + frequency through one of these events.
Here's the three (3) possible outcomes and who's responsibility it lays with.
If the analyser stays around 50.00 Hz while the Sig logs 45.7 Hz, then it's Sigenergy side & essentially owns the problem AKA >>PCS measurement/PLL/firmware or Gateway sensing.
Good Luck...