Apex Digital I-10H Product Manual
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Apex Digital I-10H Product Manual

Generation 4 inverter
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I-10H
GENERATION 4
INVERTER
Product Manual
The I-10H inverter is designed to be a robust and
reliable hybrid energy platform. It is ideal for
applications as varied as off-grid farms
and lodges to urban houses and factories.
It provides a smart and seamless interface between
the grid, generators, renewable energy and storage.
• Stand-alone use or parallel on a single phase or in
synchronised 3 phase configurations.
• Grid synchronous for grid export and feeding power
to non-essential loads.
• Low-voltage DC (48 V).
• Designed for compliance with NRS097-2-1:2017
(Certification pending).
• Built in CAN port for communication with batteries
and other Apex products.
• Built in remote monitoring
• Single phase transformer-based topology.
• Designed for harsh environments.
• Rubicon Cloud ready for VPP and Intelligent site
optimisation services.
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  • Page 1 I-10H GENERATION 4 INVERTER Product Manual The I-10H inverter is designed to be a robust and reliable hybrid energy platform. It is ideal for applications as varied as off-grid farms and lodges to urban houses and factories. It provides a smart and seamless interface between the grid, generators, renewable energy and storage.

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Table of Contents 1. Introduction 3. Powering Up The I-10H Warnings And Cautions 4. Introduction To The Contacting Apex Inverters Inverter’s Human Machine 1.2.1 Product Support Interface (HMI) 1.2.2 Contact Details 1.2.3 Telephone Navigating The Touch Screen System Specifications Display’s Graphical User Interface...
  • Page 3 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Table of Contents 6. Configuring The Machine Glossary Setting Up The “Inverter / Charger Set” Revision Notes Setting Up The Inverter-AC Supply Interaction Appendix A: Single Line Setting Up The Battery Configuration...
  • Page 4 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Figures Figure 1. De-Rating The I-10H Inverter Output Power At High Altitude Figure 2. Identifying Parts Of The I-10H Figure 3. A Typical Layout Of A Single-Phase I-10H Installation Figure 4.

  • Page 5: Introduction

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 WARNINGS AND CAUTIONS A safety instruction (message) includes a hazard alert symbol and a signal word, WARNING or CAUTION. Each signal word has the following meaning: HIGH VOLTAGE: This symbol indicates the presence of a high voltage. It calls your attention to items or operations that could be dangerous to yourself or others operating this equipment.

  • Page 6: Contacting Apex Inverters

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 1.2 CONTACTING APEX INVERTERS 1.2.1 PRODUCT SUPPORT When contacting Product Support via telephone or email please provide the following information for the fastest possible service: • Type Of Inverter • Serial Number • Battery Type •...

  • Page 7: Mppt Parameters

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 1.3.2 MPPT PARAMETERS Number Of Independent Mppts Number Of String Inputs Mppt Voltage Range 65-300V Absolute Maximum String Voltage 350V Maximum String Current Maximum Power Conversion 4 MPPTs x 2kW Maximum Pv String Power 125% Of Rated Power Per MPPT 1.3.3 BATTERY PARAMETERS...

  • Page 8: Altitude Derating

    The I-10H inverter (see Figure 2) offers a high quality and reliable solution to the home, light commercial business or farm owner faced with unreliable or no grid electrical supply. Each I-10H inverter in a system can deliver 10 kW for half-an-hour and 8 kW continuously, subject to the environmental temperature supporting it.

  • Page 9: Typical Off-Grid Or

    1.4.1 TYPICAL OFF-GRID OR SELF-CONSUMPTION APPLICATION The I-10H inverter is ideal for off-grid installations where the renewable source of power is fed directly into the batteries, via the inverter’s MPPTs. The I-10H converts the MPPT and battery power into clean AC power that the load can use.

  • Page 10: Typical Grid-Tied Application

    1.4.2 TYPICAL GRID-TIED APPLICATION The I-10H inverter will act as a back-up supply to provide power from the batteries in the event of a grid failure. Installing a solar PV inverter on the load side will allow efficient use of solar energy and any excess generated power will automatically be used to charge the batteries or be exported to local loads.

  • Page 11: Installation

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 2. INSTALLATION Figure 3. A Typical Layout Of A Single-Phase I-10H Installation A typical installation will include the inverter / charger (7), a battery bank (10), a battery cable fuse box (9), and an AC Bypass Box (3). The installation often also includes either some directly coupled solar strings or ac-coupled solar grid-tied inverters.

  • Page 12: Tools Required

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual The following sections go through each of these installations steps as they apply to the I-10H. The I-10H is a wall mounted unit with an ingress protection rating of IP20. The unit should be installed such that: •...

  • Page 13: Essential Accessories

    Current Transformers (CTs) for monitoring and controlling power flow at the customer’s metering point and of AC coupled Grid Tied solar inverters (if installed). NOTE: If the CT’s signal is monitored by the I-10H then the CT must have a nominal a secondary current of 5A and be rated for 2.8 VA or more.

  • Page 14: Mounting The Inverter

    Please take note of the following before mounting the inverter: • The I-10H is designed to be wall mounted. A solid support surface capable of bearing at least 100kg per in- verter must be available for mounting, e.g. concrete, masonry, or a steel frame.

  • Page 15: Electrical Connections

    2.6 ELECTRICAL CONNECTIONS Once your I-10H has been mounted on the wall, you can begin making the electrical connections. The AC and DC cables enter the machine through M40 cable glands on the underside of the inverter as shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8.

  • Page 16: Making The Dc Electrical

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual WARNING: In order to use the I-10H safely, batteries of sufficient capacity and battery cables with the sufficient cross-sectional area should be used. Please refer to your local wiring code for guidance on cable sizing, given the installation method you are using.

  • Page 17: Making The Ac Electrical

    CAUTION: Installing any of the DC cables the wrong way round will damage the inverter! 2.6.1.2 DISCONNECTING THE BATTERY AND PV LEADS If it is necessary to turn off and disconnect your I-10H for any reason, follow these simple steps: Turn off the inverter.

  • Page 18: Communication Wiring

    In addition, please note the following regarding earthing the inverter and the backed-up loads: • The Protective Earth (PE) terminal inside the I-10H must be grounded to reduce the risk of electrical shock and to ensure that external earth-leakage protection devices can operate correctly.

  • Page 19: The Apex Bus Rj45 Socket

    (ie. First and last machine on the bus). Similarly, the CAN bus must be terminated only at either end. However, for the CAN bus this might not be an I-10H. For example, the BMS or a solar charger might be at one end of the bus.

  • Page 20: The Ethernet Port

    2.7.2 THE ETHERNET PORT The I-10H includes an ethernet port which can be used to connect it to a LAN and the internet. The inverter’s ethernet port can be found on the control card as shown in 8. Use a “straight” cable between the inverter and the router.

  • Page 21: Communication Between I-10H's

    2.7.5 COMMUNICATION BETWEEN I-10H’S When multiple I-10H’s are installed at a site, they can be setup to run as a system. For the machines to run as a system, the machines communicate with each other over a set of communication busses collectively referred to here to as the APEX Bus.

  • Page 22: Digital Input/Output Signals

    The I-10H has two auxiliary relays that can be used as digital outputs to shed loads or start/stop a generator. The I-10H also has a set of inputs which can be used for an external power switch, an emergency stop (Estop)/ fireman’s switch and a SRC disconnect request.

  • Page 23: Introduction To The Inverter's Human Machine Interface (Hmi)

    4.1 NAVIGATING THE TOUCH SCREEN DISPLAY’S GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE As shown in Error! Reference source not found., the I-10H has a touch screen display on its front. The touch screen display is often referred to as the Human Machine Interface (HMI) in Apex documents, as it is the primary way the user will interact with the machine.

  • Page 24: The Dashboard

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual a) Dashboard Screen b) Control Screen c) Charts/Info Screen d) Settings Screen Figure 10. The HMI’s Four Main Screens. Namely the dashboard, control, charts/info and settings. The navigation bar is shown on the right side of the screen.

  • Page 25: The Control Screen

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 4.1.2 THE CONTROL SCREEN The control screen allows the user to start/stop the inverter, to reset the inverter if it has detected a fault and to access the battery and relay control functions. An example of how the control screen might look is shown in Figure 10b.

  • Page 26: The Settings Screen

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Icon Name Data Shown Source Power Chart A plot of the power measured at the inverter’s source port over the last 24 hours. Load Power Chart A plot of the power measured at the inverter’s load port over the last 24 hours.

  • Page 27: Screen Summary

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual To get advanced access for editing settings enter the default passcode of 1918 before selecting either the user settings checkbox or the advanced selection checkbox. (To simply view most settings no passcode is needed.) Once on the advanced setup menu, tapping the all user settings checkbox will bring up a screen, as shown in Figure 13c, that allows one to scroll through all the available user settings.

  • Page 28: Figure 13. An Overview Of The Screens And Menus Available On The Touch Screen Display

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Control Settings Dashboard Charts/Logs/Info Screen Screen Screen Screen Start/Stop Source Power Alarms Button Chart Reset Load Power Date & Time Button Chart Battery Battery Control Battery Setup Status Chart Sub-Menu Relay Control Event Logs Relay Setup...

  • Page 29: Testing The Communication And Signal Wiring

    If a recognized BMS is detected, its manufacturer name will be shown on the screen. If a valid BMS is detected that does not broadcast its name, or has not been tested with the I-10H the BMS type will be displayed as Default .

  • Page 30: Communication Between The

    Once on the System Info screen select the communication filter button and then scroll down until you see I-10H Count and Nomad Count as shown in Figure 17a. These two counts must match the number of I-10H and Nomads connected up to the CAN bus. Confirm that the I-10H Count datapoint shown on the System Info screen of EVERY inverter matches the number of I-10H inverters installed together.

  • Page 31: Confirm The Can Communication

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual To confirm that the I-10H CAN messages are being sent and received correctly, use the left and right arrows on the Inverter Set screen to check that the master machine has correctly read all the serial numbers of the slave machines.

  • Page 32: Testing That The External Current

    If installed, the external Current Transformer (CT) must be wired in with the correct polarity! If the source port of the I-10H is powered (i.e. it measures an in-spec AC voltage) and the Ext CT used setting is set to Yes, an addition- al icon will appear on the I-10H’s HMI’s dashboard screen.

  • Page 33: Configuring The Machine

    6. CONFIGURING THE MACHINE On first power up, the I-10H will have default factory settings. However, as the I-10H can be installed and used in a variety of configurations it is necessary to configure the machine (or machines) to match the requirement of the particular installation.

  • Page 34: Figure 18. Screenshots Showing How To Access And Edit User Settings

    Solar Inverters should throttle back their production as the grid frequency Shift climbs. The I-10H master inverter will use this to throttle AC coupled solar if the system is running in “Stand Alone” mode. If there are no AC coupled inverters on the output of the inverters then one can disable frequency shifting.

  • Page 35: Setting Up The Inverter-Ac Supply

    6.2 SETTING UP THE INVERTER-AC SUPPLY INTERACTION The I-10H can be setup as an Energy Management and Storage System where it dynamically adjusts how much power it draws from or exports to the AC supply. Some of the settings that relate to this will be set while set- ting up the battery control, i.e.

  • Page 36: Setting The Battery Type

    BMS is interrupted, the master inverter will take over the role as the charge coordinator for the I-10H inverters. The relevant settings are described in Table 7, Table 8, and Table If the inverter detects a known battery type (ie. Apex) it will automatically load default fallback values for the battery manufacturer, though it is up to the installer to verify these settings.
  • Page 37 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Description Variable Unit Batt Capacity Battery Capacity The installed battery banks nominal capacity in amp hours (Ah) (C5) Batt Bulk Chg Battery Bulk Charge Amps Amps The recommended amount of the combined renewable and inverter(s) charging current into the batteries as a percentage of the C5 capacity rating of the battery bank.
  • Page 38 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Description Variable Unit Pb: Absorp Chg Absorption Charge Voltage Target The charge voltage target (per cell) for the absorption charge stage (i.e. the constant voltage stage). The battery charge cycle starts with a bulk (constant current) stage.
  • Page 39 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Description Variable Unit Reset Li Reset Lithium-Ion Defaults If set to Yes and a known BMS is identified, the lithium charge voltage limits will Defaults be set to the pre-saved defaults for the particular BMS. This setting will automatically reset back to No once the default settings have been adopted.
  • Page 40 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Description Variable Unit Li: Charge Ena Charge Enable SoC If the battery SoC is below this threshold, any charge inhibit and peak load shaving limits will be ignored and the inverter will attempt to charge within the limits specified by the ‘Inverter Maximum Import’...

  • Page 41: Setting Up Alarms And The

    6.4 SETTING UP ALARMS AND THE AUXILIARY RELAYS The I-10H can be setup to play an alarm and/or engage one of its auxiliary relays under user-selected conditions. These conditions are described in Table 12. The alarm sound and the interval at which it is repeated is shown in Table...
  • Page 42 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Description Condition Loss of Mains This alarm will trigger if the machine is running in Stand-Alone mode, i.e. due to the loss of (or unavailability of) the mains AC supply. (alarm only) Battery The alarm and/or relay will trigger when: •...

  • Page 43: Setting Up The Alarms

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 6.4.1 SETTING UP THE ALARMS On the master inverter’s touch screen display, click on the settings icon (bottom right) and then click on the alarms button. Then select which alarms you would like to enable.

  • Page 44: Configuring Through The Portal

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Variable Unit Description Relay1 Control Relay 1 Control Selector Bitfield This setting is used to specify under conditions the auxiliary relay will engage. Relay1 Min Relay 1 Minimum On-Time The minimum time the relay will stay engaged once it has been turned on.

  • Page 45: Back-Up Power System

    6.6.1 BACK-UP POWER SYSTEM If your I-10H is being used as a back-up inverter, then you will want to keep the batteries fully charged at all times. Therefore, Partial Charge Enable, Charge Inhibit Enable, and Peak Load Shave Enable should all be set to No. The...

  • Page 46: Energy Management With Ac

    Enabling inhibited charging limits charging from the mains while your battery level is ok. With peak-load shaving enabled the I-10H will use the energy stored in the battery to assist in powering your loads, while the battery level is ok, and thus reduce how much power you draw from the grid. Setting up time-based load-lopping outside of sunlight hours allows you to set aggressive load-lopping limits (that would otherwise interfere with solar production) for the early morning and evening load peaks.
  • Page 47 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Notes Variable Value Li: Charge Ena Charge Enable SoC To promote self-consumption the batteries must be allowed to cycle deeply every day. Set this value to the daily discharge limit recommended by your battery supplier.

  • Page 48: Planned Load-Shedding

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 6.6.4 PLANNED LOAD-SHEDDING/ROLLING BLACK-OUTS If you know in advance that your suburb will experience planned load-shedding or rolling black-outs you might want to charge up your batteries and keep them charged so that you have sufficient stored energy to ride-out the load shedding.

  • Page 49: Three Phase Specific Instructions

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Assuming that the machine is ready to startup, i.e. it is in Standby mode, navigate to the control screen by clicking on the controls symbol (second icon from the top right). Once on the control panel, click on the start/stop icon (see Figure 10b).

  • Page 50: Forcing An Auxiliary Relay To Turn On

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual a) Manual Charge Start b) Manual Relay Control Figure 22. The battery control and relay control screens. Variable Unit Notes Battery Battery Manual Functions Functions Use this setting to manually start a bulk charge, equalization charge, etc.

  • Page 51: Example Settings For Various Scenarios

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 9. EXAMPLE SETTINGS FOR VARIOUS SCENARIOS. These are some typical scenarios and the basic settings to use. Please note that only the critical settings for each scenario is provided, the balance of settings need to be checked for the site / client use profile.

  • Page 52: System With A Small Amount Of Ac

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 9.4 SYSTEM WITH A SMALL AMOUNT OF AC COUPLED SOLAR A small amount of AC coupled solar will seldom have excess generation to the load, so we need to always allow power from the grid to charge the battery.

  • Page 53: Three Phase / Parallel Setup

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual 9.7 THREE PHASE / PARALLEL SETUP 3 phase and parallel systems can be one or multiple machines per phase, the only difference in settings is that for parallel configuration the machines are on the same phase, for multi phase configurations the machines are on different phases.

  • Page 54: Glossary

    South Africa is described as 230V AC 50Hz meaning 230V RMS that is alternating between a positive voltage and a negative voltage 50 times a second. Direct current. Batteries, solar panels (PV) and some wind turbines provide DC. The I-10H can take DC from batteries and output 230V AC to supply homes and businesses.

  • Page 55: Appendix A: Single Line Wiring Diagram

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual APPENDIX A: SINGLE LINE WIRING DIAGRAM...

  • Page 56: Appendix B: Template Commissioning Form

    I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual APPENDIX B: TEMPLATE COMMISSIONING FORM It is recommended to record the parameters of the system at the time of installation, this could be useful if service or support might be needed in future. It also serves as a convenient check list to confirm that important settings have been made.
  • Page 57 I-10H Gen4 Inverter Product Manual Setpoint# Setpoint Name Value Set Comments Partial Chg Ena Chg Inhibit Enable Chg Inhibit Limit PLS Ena Inv Max Imp Amps Load Lop Start Time Load Lop Duration Load Lop Limit...

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