Voltage, Overvoltage and Issues Impacting Inverters In Homes During Irish Summers ☀️⚡️
- barrybambury
- Aug 8
- 2 min read
With the summer bringing long, sunny days to Ireland, solar PV inverters often face a hidden threat: overvoltage. When abundant solar generation coincides with low daytime electricity demand, local grid voltages can rise above operating thresholds for inverters. Here's what that means for solar system owners and installers:
What happens? ⚙️
As solar panels push energy to the grid, the inverter must increase its output voltage to transfer electricity. On bright summer days, when many homes aren't drawing much power, grid voltage can rise significantly. If this voltage exceeds the safe limits, inverters will trip or shut down to protect themselves connected appliances and the grid.
Real impacts: 📉
Frequent tripping means solar owners lose valuable feed-in tariff income and system uptime, with Irish inverter users reporting multiple disconnection alerts during peak sunshine hours. Inverters are designed to auto-reset, but persistent high grid voltages can lead to prolonged shutdowns.
Why is this common in Ireland? 🇮🇪
The phenomenon is well reported across regions with growing solar adoption. Ireland's mild climate and long summer daylight hours are ideal for solar generation, which means grid voltage rise can be a recurrent issue during peak summer output.
What can be done?🛠️
Ensure your inverter is implementing IS EN 50549-1 Overvoltage Settings (post-January 28, 2022), IS EN 50549-1 introduced a two-stage overvoltage protection system with higher voltage thresholds and longer trip times. The higher thresholds allow inverters to ride through temporary voltage rises that might occur during peak solar generation periods.
Consider system design tweaks such as battery energy storage to optimize self-consumption and reduce grid export,
If you're seeing inverter shutdowns, especially on sunny summer days, you're not alone! This is a technology challenge we're all encountering as Ireland accelerates its transition to clean solar energy. Proactive monitoring and working closely with installers and grid operators will help maximize your solar system's performance.
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