[RFI] Solar Panel RFI Case In Kings Park, N.Y. : Update #3

[Tony]

All:

Some of you may recall that I've been dealing with RFI generated by a 
neighbors solar panel installation since the day it was installed in 
August of 2016. I promptly notified Solar Edge, the manufacturer, about 
the noise and they acknowledged (eventually) that their components were 
the cause of the RFI.

Solar Edge: https://www.solaredge.com/us/home

Update:

Last week, on June 21st, Solar Edge sent a contractor (Solar City) to 
install RFI suppression to eliminate the RFI. The engineers from Solar 
Edge told me that they guaranteed it would work and that they've 
installed this type of RFI suppression many times before.

Unfortunately, it had little to no effect. They used small clamp-on 
ferrite cores at the optimizers (noise generators) with one turn of 
cable around each core. The reason they gave for not using a large 
ferrite with multiple turns was that multiple turns could damage the 
cables -- go figure.

They apologized for not solving the problem and are now flying their 
engineers in from the west coast to New York to inspect the work done by 
the installer. Once again, they assured me that problem will be solved.

In my case, my neighbors installation is 150 feet from my antennas yet 
the RFI is strong at that distance. It's heard on 30 through 10 meters 
so HF is essentially unusable during the day while the system is active.

My advise to my fellow hams is this: take a good look around your 
neighborhood and notice the number of solar panel systems popping up 
everywhere. Imagine trying to figure out which system among them is 
causing RFI and the task of knocking on doors to find out who 
manufactured the system or who the responsible party is.

Solar panel systems are not going away so the potential for RFI issues 
are likely to become widespread. In fact, California plans on making 
solar panels mandatory on new homes beginning in 2020.

I think most would agree that it's time for the ARRL and other advocates 
to make a serious effort to let the FCC know how serious a problem this 
is. Signed petitions by the 160,000 members of the ARRL sent to local 
congressmen might be a good place to start.

Or, we can sit on our asses and say goodbye to HF.

Tony -K2MO