Solar Edge Consumption Monitoring Issue

Inverters SolarEdge
#1

My array is fixed about 225 ft away from my main panel. I have two conduits between the inverter and my home. One is power and one has Cat5e. I am looking into adding the Solar Edge Consumption Meter, but my dealer says it will not work with the inverter so far from the main panel without trenching a third conduit. I believe if the meter is mounted at the main panel, there is communication wire that needs to run to the inverter.

I am wondering if this could be ran to the inverter in the same conduit as the Cat5e runs.

I have asked Solar Edge and they aren’t very helpful in answering this question.

#2

Looks like there is some concern for voltage drop going 200 plus feet to the inverter. I may need to consider other options.

#3

The data link between the inverters and meter appears to be RS485.

There shouldn’t be a problem running an RS485 circuit and an Ethernet circuit in the same conduit. They’re both low level signals although I would use shielded cable if you can.

RS485 has a maximum length of 4000 ft but the maximum data rate starts to reduce at 40 ft. You can mitigate this to some extent by using shielded cable to reduce noise. I don’t know what the required data rate is for the Solar Edge Meter, but I wouldn’t think it was too high. It just a guess, but I would think you would be OK with your meter at your main panel with the 200 ft data link back to the inverters.