As your local energy distributor, Evoenergy’s role is to supply safe and reliable power.
To ensure the quality of your power supply is at a high standard, the Australian Standards set limits for safe operation of our electricity network and any equipment customers connect to this network – such as an ‘inverter’ which allows a solar or battery system to pass energy to your home and the network.
Your solar installer must submit a Special Connection Requests (SCR) through our Evoenergy DER Portal so we can ensure the system you want to install meets Evoenergy embedded generation technical requirements.
Solar inverter settings
If the inverter for your solar system keeps switching off or reducing output, this means your system is responding to changes in voltage.
This does not always indicate a network problem, however there are possible causes you can investigate. We recommend speaking to your solar installer or an electrician to check your inverter settings comply with the mandatory settings below, note these are not the factory settings.
Mandatory inverter settings
To comply to both Australian Standards and Evoenergy requirements, your inverter must:
Have volt-watt power quality response mode enabled to linearly reduce its output from 100% to 20% as the voltage increases from 253V to 260V;
Have volt-var power quality response mode enabled; and
Disconnect itself from the network:
When the average voltage exceeds 258V for 10 minutes;
Within 1 second when the voltage exceeds 265V; and
Instantaneously when the voltage exceeds 275V.
Your solar system must meet Evoenergy embedded generation technical requirements and the Australian Standard. This will ensure your system is efficient and safe, and our network can provide reliable and safe power to your neighbours.
When set correctly, your inverter will respond to changes in voltage rather than frequently tripping.
Why inverters reduce output or switch off
The inverter will reduce output or switch off when voltage levels exceed voltage set points defined in the Evoenergy embedded generation technical requirements.
Increase in voltage levels can be due to
The voltage rise between your solar system and the service point is above 2%. This can cause excessive voltages within your installation even though the network voltages are within nominal limits.; and/or
If the voltage levels in our network increase above 253V at the point of supply. When other Canberrans in your neighbourhood are exporting a lot of solar, the voltage levels in the network may increase. If these voltage levels become too high, your solar inverter may temporarily switch off to protect your solar system and our network infrastructure.
Your system will adjust its output in response to voltage levels that vary due to several factors, including PV penetration, network conditions, weather conditions and how much energy your household is using.
You will see an error message if your inverter disconnects itself, and it will restart and return to normal operation once network voltages return to a safe range; provided your inverter settings are set according to Evoenergy embedded generation technical requirements.
Frequent inverter tripping
If you have checked with your solar installer or an electrician that your inverter settings comply with our mandatory settings, and your inverter is still frequently switching off, you can contact us.
Please complete our Solar Connection Investigation Form and email it to CustomerResolutions@evoenergy.com.au.
This form will assist us to confirm your inverter is set to our mandatory settings. Your solar installer or an electrician can help you complete the fields.
The initial investigation will take around 3 weeks* from the date of lodging an enquiry. The investigation commences with reviewing the evidence you provided to us. This may be followed by monitoring the enquiry site for 7 days, and other relevant locations like the distribution substation or transformer, to understand the network conditions in your area.
Our Customer Resolutions team will be in contact with you to discuss the investigation outcome and remedial action.
Note:* Power Quality investigations can be completed within 3-4 weeks, conditional on the detail provided in the enquiry and complexity of the issue. Some issues may take longer to resolve. If this is the case, we will update you on our progress.
If your system is identified as non-compliant
Solar systems that are not approved by Evoenergy, or programmed to Evoenergy’s mandatory requirements can have a safety and quality impact on your system, your neighbour’s quality of supply, the Evoenergy electricity network, and employees working on Evoenergy assets.
A system is considered non-compliant if:
the system has no approval from Evoenergy to connect to the network; or
the system has been altered/ augmented and the new system was not approved by Evoenergy; or
the system on site is different to details provided at the time of approval; or
the system hasn’t completed its periodic anti-islanding testing; or
the system is not configured to Evoenergy’s technical requirements.
If any of the above scenarios arise, we will contact you with steps on how to rectify the non-compliance. This will include information to share with your solar installer or electrician.