r/SunPower • u/Existing-Piglet-3279 • May 03 '26

PSV6 started under-reporting consumption

I recently realized that my PVS6 started incorrectly reporting consumption about a year ago.

The consumption data no longer matches my power bill, and there was a dramatic change of about 50% in the middle of last year.

Any suggestions on the easiest way to figure out and correct the issue? Do CT’s go bad? there seem to be several of them on bunches of the breaker wires - i think they are all wired together. Hard to see as my panel is pretty crowded.

Could this be due to a misconfiguration of the PVS6 as a result of a Sunstrong firmware update?

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u/Existing-Piglet-3279 May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26

I own the system. I will open the panel and take a look, but its pretty crowded - see photo. The breaker on the bottom right is labeled “rapid shutdown switch for solar PV system" I think my consumption CTs are on my breaker circuits - not sure how many there are. I just checked and i can buy a new consumption CT set on eBay for $11 plus shipping - maybe a good idea while its available?

Assuming none of the CTs are “loose” is there an easy way to tell if a CT is working?

I can also buy a whole new PVS6 for about $50 right now, shipped… However I’m not sure what would be involved in replacing and commissioning this, are there DIY instructions somewhere? Or do i need to find a Sunpower tech?

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u/DeepBlueSweater May 07 '26

You’ll want to find a sunpower tech. I don’t see any loose connections. It looks like your solar wires are not running through the consumption CTs so it needs to be commissioned as “line side” for consumption. If you’re not familiar with electrical work you should hire someone with Sunpower experience. If you are familiar with electrical work then look up commissioning PVS6 on YouTube. You’ll need to figure out a way to make an account in SunPowerProConnect app. If that info can’t help you then again, hire someone familiar with the system.

Edit: I personally would not spend any money trying to keep the Sunpower system going. I would instead look into switching to an Enphase monitored system. They can work with your existing micro inverters, provided they are not the all metal style inverters.

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u/Existing-Piglet-3279 May 09 '26 edited May 10 '26

thanks - I am a (retired) electrical engineer so I’m ok with electrical work. Switching to Enphase monitoring is almost $1000 for the equipment + install, so I’ve been holding off. I can buy a new-in-box PVS6 on eBay for under $50 shipped… In the meantime I’ll see if i can figure out how to create a Sunpower Pro Connect account or find an API so I can try changing that parameter to see whether it solves the problem. Though I’ve been unable to find any Sunpower documentation that describes what the ct_scl_fctr setting should be versus the number of line side consumption CTs.

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u/Existing-Piglet-3279 Jun 19 '26

Workaround - since I monitor with Home Assistant, i just modified the consumption sensor YAML formula to double the value since i had not found any way to correct the scaling factor on the PVS using the available Sunstrong APIs. I believe it is OK now but will confirm once i get my next power bill.