question

bgo avatar image
bgo asked

Phoenix 24/5000 shows high VA value without load

I have a Phoenix 24/5000 running with almost no load (it's in the summer house, which we don't use at the moment, so the Phoenix is just supplying some little load like the alarm system and the Smart Home IoT stuff).
The Shelly measures a load of about 30 to 35W constant. The inverter showed something around 60VA the last few weeks, which is okay, given that the inverter also consumes power for itself.

But when I came to the house today, the LED of the Phoenix was red and it showed an "overload alarm" via Bluetooth. I switched the inverter off with its little switch on the bottom right side and switched it on again. The alarm was cleared but it showed something around 600VA.

To check whether there is really a load that high (I wouldn't know which one), it switched off the RCCB that is the first device connected to the 230V output line and checked again whether the power output changed - but it didn't.

So, although the 230V output line of the Phoenix is disconnected, it shows 600VA output. Why?

I also checked whether it is warm - but it's not. I also checked whether I would see a drop in the battery voltage from the inverter being switched off to switched on. No, the voltage was about 26V and there was no significant drop when switching the (unloaded) inverter on.

I also checked what would happen if I switch on a real load, so I used my vacuum cleaner for that which uses about 700W according to the Shelly. The output of the Phoenix inverter went up to ~1200VA, so it really added up.



Why is this happening? Is the system still trustworthy? I switched off the Phoenix inverter with its own little switch, but it is still connected to the batteries.

Is this safe? What should I do?


Kind regards,
Bernhard

Phoenix Inverter
2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

1 Answer
raymond avatar image
raymond answered ·

Hi,

We have three of these same units in parallel, so I just checked for you and found that, without any load at the 230V side (open circuit), the total system consumes about 300W, so your 600VA does seem high.

I suggest you just go through all the connections (to the battery and the 230V side) and make sure they are still tight and not causing resistance issues (and perhaps some insulation trapped in the 230V connector or the circuit breaker as well).


2 |3000

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.