Enphase M190 Microinverters

[Hv&Lv]

I have a customer at our utility that purchased a house with solar panels. They are the enphase M190 microinvertors.
Out of three arrays she has maybe one panel producing, but small amounts. I’m talking about 13 kWh in a year.

The invertors are blinking red on the roof, under the panels. Is there a way to reset them? And the envoy(?) app. How do the microinvertors communicate to the app?
No combiners?

I've looked all over this house and all I see are the three array wires going straight into a panel, and feeding breakers backwards.

Any advice or information?

 

[jaggedben]

Blinking red means they have DC power from the modules but no grid connection. You may need to look twice to make sure that you're not seeing blinking orange, which means producing power but not communicating with the Envoy.

The Envoy (now called the Gateway in the app) on this generation of Enphase inverter plugged into any 120V receptacle in the home: comms was PLC on either line to neutral. A percentage of homeowners would unplug the thing and throw it in the garage. Relatives or estate agent may have junked it when the house was sold.

M190s also had a design flaw in the internal AC cabling connection that caused a lot of them to fail shorted or open. (Newer designs don't have this issue.) Enphase had and may still have an upgrade program to replace them with special-firmware IQ7s at very reasonable cost. Homeowner should look into it, although Enphase will likely make it easier if they can find the Envoy and plug it into the wall and internet.

 

[Hv&Lv]

Blinking red means they have DC power from the modules but no grid connection. You may need to look twice to make sure that you're not seeing blinking orange, which means producing power but not communicating with the Envoy.

The Envoy (now called the Gateway in the app) on this generation of Enphase inverter plugged into any 120V receptacle in the home: comms was PLC on either line to neutral. A percentage of homeowners would unplug the thing and throw it in the garage. Relatives or estate agent may have junked it when the house was sold.

M190s also had a design flaw in the internal AC cabling connection that caused a lot of them to fail shorted or open. (Newer designs don't have this issue.) Enphase had and may still have an upgrade program to replace them with special-firmware IQ7s at very reasonable cost. Homeowner should look into it, although Enphase will likely make it easier if they can find the Envoy and plug it into the wall and internet.

What would the envoy look like?
When I check amps on the Electric panel from the solar I see export at 180°, but 1.1-.8 amps

13 kWh for a year is bad

 

[wwhitney]

What would the envoy look like?

 

[Zee]

The early micros, like these, often had high falure rates. The new IQ series stuff is the opposite: some of the most reliable solar inverters ever.

 

[Zee]

You really need the Envoy. That makes the system so much more intelligible.

 

[Zee]

Your system is from about 2009....so you may even have this ancient ENVOY: (on right)
metal box like a chunky iPAD

 

[jaggedben]

When I check amps on the Electric panel from the solar I see export at 180°, but 1.1-.8 amps

Well output depends upon sun of course, but M190s had a max output of 0.8amps each so yeah, in any decent amount of sun that would be only a couple panels.

 

[Hv&Lv]

Well output depends upon sun of course, but M190s had a max output of 0.8amps each so yeah, in any decent amount of sun that would be only a couple panels.

That helps! My output was .8 amps with occasional bounces to 1.1A.
Confirms my suspicion that only one inverter
Is working.