[RFI] Testing The Effectiveness Of RF Chokes On Solar Panel Installations

[Tony]

All:

When the Solar Edge contractor installed RF chokes on my neighbors solar 
panel installation, I expected them to start by measuring the level of 
RFI to establish a benchmark. I also expected that they would test the 
level of RFI on each of the cables coming off each panel to see how 
effective the suppression was and to determine which chokes on which 
cables needed tweaking.

However, the crews supervisor told me they don't use test equipment: 
they just install the suppression as per SolarEdge guidelines and hope 
for the best. That was a bit frustrating to hear because it took more 
than a year to schedule the crew to do the job.

In the end, there was a slight change in the level of RFI on some HF 
bands and that led me to believe that if they had the proper test 
equipment, they could have tweaked the number of turns or added more 
chokes to get a better result. That seems logical especially since each 
installation is different.

Isn't that how a professional engineer would approach this?

Tony -K2MO