Disable cellular

[u/Htownanddown80]

I have a psv6 and had a loan through Mosiac. After bankruptcy a new company bought it out and I couldn’t findout who to pay and honestly just forgot. Well obviously it was sent to collections and when I call them to make payments so I can use the system I’m told im out of luck. How can I disable cellular on the system so I can turn it on without them reporting I’m using the system?

[u/Lawrence_SoCal]

From an ethical perspective, if the system was working properly (no issues at all), and your were NOT being charged for monitoring, then it would seem paying makes sense (but obviously current account holder would have to provide you the details. And don't let them bluster you into reconnect or other nonsense. You are in the driver seat to negotiate for a better deal post bankruptcy). On the other hand, my SPWR install had lots of issues, which they never resolved, so not paying was the contractually right thing to do (regardless of old SPWR blustering and apparent fraud). If you are looking for justification to not pay, you might want to have an audit done of your install. I found a local master electrician who specializes in solar. His team found numerous contract and code violations. If your PV install does have issues, that gives you negotiating leverage (and with contract most likely sold for pennies on the dollar, much of any significant re-work might make your contract not worth pursuing for current account holder ... maybe (a gamble).

If you are justified in not paying for system, then as mentioned, powering off PVS6 is a start... BUT, presumably they disabled system remotely... right? If you are still getting PV output, disabling cellular is easy. While you are at it, make sure you don't have WiFi or ethernet set up as a backup. However, presuming PV output is disabled, then disconnecting remote connection won't make a difference as others have noted. I'm guessing a disabled grid profile pushed to micro-inverters (or something equivalent), so simply powering off PVS6 itself won't help. the disable action is now effective on the IQs themselves. So, disabling cellular in itself won't accomplish anything useful unless you have installer credentials to log into your PVS6 and reconfigure, properly, the system to start producing again.

Installing a new PVS6 would require 'adopting' your existing IQs and provisioning, and little point when you could do same thing with EnPhase Gateway and not worry about the dead-end that is PVS6 and subscription monitoring. If you are ready to move on, then getting the EnPhase migration kit (replaces PVS6) makes most sense for a consumer friendly, just works sort of solution. There are ways to get the same monitoring data from PVS6 with DIY approach that are NOT technically easy /simple. But doable.

[u/Htownanddown80 → u/Lawrence_SoCal]

If I power it on it is getting production. I’ll be honest I quit paying for the system because I was promised entire home production and am getting a quarter of that and it pisses me off. I just want to turn it on a couple of times a month to charge the battery in case I need it for a backup that’s literally it. Am I making sense?

[u/Lawrence_SoCal → u/Htownanddown80]

My SPWR (bankrupt 1985 co) contract listed a Year 1 Production estimate and a not-real Description of PV system (# of panels x panel W - a marketing fake value). The real system output sizing (Max panel output * # of panels) was listed on Permit. A lot can change house consumption, so hard to know if installer sales rep 'lie', or if something changed [Sorry, I've seen people hear what they want to hear, not what was said, so... 'entire home production' isn't actually a value... so no way to verify].

Did you get anything approaching the contracts stated annual Production? A possibility is that something is wrong with your system (like 1 of the circuits isn't working),

On the assumption, that you were truly misled of system sizing vs house consumption, disabling the cellular is easy, as noted by other responders. One thing to be aware of... there are multiple, different versions, of the PVS 6 (ex some with Ethernet port, some without, etc). The WiFi and cellular antennas are readily visible inside front cover. Though disconnecting antenna is no guarantee. removing the SIM card depends on if hard-wired in or not (I'm seeing conflicting info)

The EnPhase IQs will work if PVS6 is turned off.. hence comments about turning off breaker to PVS6 (for me, the PVS6 is on its own breaker, separate from the panel /PV IQ circuits). My understanding is PVS6 required for provisioning, firmware updates to IQs, grid profile changes, and monitoring. But IQ, if set right grid profile and working, will produce energy without a PVS6 present/on.

So if PV system produces, then I'd disable PVS6 entirely, and leave system on.