Proc.

of the 2014 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe 2014), Gothenburg, Sweden, September 1-4, 2014

In-Situ Measurement of High Frequency

Emission Caused by Photo Voltaic Inverters
Cees Keyer1,2, Roelof Timens2, Frits Buesink2, Frank Leferink2,3
1

Amsterdam University of Applied Science, dept. Electrical Engineering, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
c.h.a.keyer@hva.nl
2
University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands.
3
Thales Nederland, Hengelo, the Netherlands.
compared the declarations of conformity from the three
suppliers.

AbstractModern photovoltaic (PV) installations are being

installed in large numbers. Manufacturers are using different
harmonized standards to show compliance with the legislative
requirements such as the European EMC Directive. Their
selection of harmonized standards is not based on adherence to
(essential requirements of) the European EMC Directive, but
more on what is most convenient, i.e. lowest cost;
Some
manufacturers install an Ethernet interface and then claim the
PV inverter is a computer and use standards applicable for IT
(information technology) equipment. Furthermore no limits have
been published for the DC bus, which acts, due to its large length,
as an antenna. The experimentally obtained data presented in
this paper show that PV inverters are causing serious
interference, and thus do not fulfil (the essential) requirements of
the EMC Directive.

II.

Preamble 2 of the European EMC Directive [3] states:

Member States are responsible for ensuring that radiocommunications, including radio broadcast reception and
the amateur radio service operating in accordance with
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) radio
regulations, electrical supply networks and telecommunications networks, as well as equipment connected thereto,
are protected against electromagnetic disturbance.
Preamble 13 of this directive states:
Once the reference to such a standard has been published
in the Official Journal of the European Union, compliance
with it should raise a presumption of conformity with the
relevant essential requirements, although other means of
demonstrating such conformity should be permitted.

Index: EMC Directive, Solar Panels, PhotoVoltaic inverters,

interference Ham Radio.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The number of complaints [1] of unwanted emission,

causing interference in radio reception due to PV installations,
is increasing rapidly. Alternative energy sources are heavily
subsidized and growing in numbers. Grid connected inverters
have to comply with international, harmonized, standards in the
European community. From a first check it appeared that some
suppliers use a creative way to obtain the simplest
ElectroMagnetic Compatibility (EMC) requirements. These
suppliers are effectively misusing product standards for other
equipment than it should be used for.

This means that national agencies are responsible for

controlling and checking that products fulfil the essential
requirements (Article 5), and if they do not fulfil, take them of
the market.
However, the Dutch law enforcer, Agentschap Telecom, does
only focus on checking if apparatus are fulfilling harmonized
standards, and not considering violations of the essential
requirements of the Directive. Actually, in nearly all European
countries the national agencies, responsible for enforcing the
law, are not able to stop violation of the essential requirements
and immoral suppliers due to budget constraints;
A case where Article 5 (essential requirements) and Article
6 (presumption of conformity based on harmonized standards)
of the European EMC Directive have been applied in a proper
way has been published on television by the German West
Deutsches Rundfunk [7].

In the paper by Hamza et al. [2] a grid tied PV system

classified as fixed installation is investigated. The conducted
EMI measurement results show significant emissions generated
by the inverter module propagating on the DC side of the PV
system. Large PV installations are investigated in the paper
published by Areneo et al. [3]. Experimental results show that
the DC cabling is forming conductive coupling paths and may
also become an antenna. In the paper by Piazza [4] et al it is
shown that DC cabling are perfect antennas. RF interaction and
unwanted emission measurement results are shown in this
paper. In papers [2,3] high power >10 kW PV installations are
investigated, in [4] a low power < 3kW is investigated.

Problems with market surveillance are known, [8, 9] but the

differences between member states in the EU are huge.
III.

PV INSTALLATION AND MEASUREMENT SET UP

A PV installation consists of photovoltaic cells, or solar

panels, connected to a DC bus. This DC voltage is converted
to a 50 Hz sinusoidal voltage, which is fed into the grid, by
means of a PV inverter. The PV inverter thus converts solar

We performed in situ measurements to investigate

interference caused by three different inverters for low power
energy conversion, < 3kW, in residential environments, and we

978-1-4799-3226-9/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

EUROPEAN EMC DIRECTIVE

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Proc. of the 2014 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe 2014), Gothenburg, Sweden, September 1-4, 2014

power into grid power. Local Dutch rules, NEN 1010, for grid
connected installations in the Netherlands allow a low power
600 VA, to be connected straight in to a socket without
special measures. PV inverters which can supply more power >
600 VA should be connected on a separate feeder line with
fuse. No other equipment is allowed to connect on that feeder
line. Dutch standard (NEN 1010) on low voltage (230 V) grid
systems requires this due to the fact that if you deliver power
back into the grid the current flows through the fuse. When
equipment is connected on the same fused line, for example,
16 A fuse, and the PV installation is delivering 10 A from your
PV inverter, the equipment should use a fault current of 26 A,
to blow the fuse out, which is undesirable.
A current probe clamp, Fischer Custom Communications
F-35 and a Rigol DSA 815 spectrum analyzer, as shown in
Figure 1, were used for the measurements. Although different
measurement methods are described for CM mode current
measurements [2, 5] on the DC bus, in this case there was no
possibility to open up the DC bus for connecting a Line
Impedance Stabilization network.

Figure 2: Soladin 600 emissions with 30 mtr cable

The measurement setup for all three inverters was the same.
The DC bus is clamped with both wires to prohibit DC
saturation of the clamp, and to measure the high-frequency
common mode (CM) current. The measurements on the DC
bus are done with the inverter switch on and switched off. This
is done to check if the inverter causes the CM current, or not.
The CM current loop is created by the actual installation so
measurements have to be performed in-situ.
The first measurement was performed on Friday January
31st at 08:00 UTC, in Schagen, the Netherlands.
Figure 3: PV cells with Ham Radio antennas

A ham radio operator complained about a raised noise floor

and interference on the reception of other hams.
The PV installation, shown in Figure 3, used approximately
30 meters of DC cable, which behaved like a perfect tuned
antenna for the HF (High Frequency) band. The emissions on
both the DC as the AC grid connection were measured more
than a year ago to diagnose the interference problems from this
installation. The results, which is a snapshot of that situation,
are shown in Figure 2. We tried to find the source of the
disturbance the ham operator complaint about. The cables were
shortened to a few meters to reduce the efficiency of the
unwanted antenna (the DC cable). This action reduced the
interference drastically but not enough.

Figure 1: Measurement set up.

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Proc. of the 2014 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe 2014), Gothenburg, Sweden, September 1-4, 2014

Figure 4: SMA sunnyboy (red) and Soladin 600 (blue one)

Figure 5: Low sun power measurement Soladin.

IV.

INTERFERENCE

ON HF BAND DUE TO DC BUS

CONDUCTED EMISSIONS.

Emission measurements on the DC cables were performed.

The ham radio operator uses two different inverters, two from
SMA (type: Sunny Boy), and one from Mastervolt, (type
Soladin 600), as shown in Figure 4. Measurements have been
performed just after sunrise, so the power delivered to the grid
was quite low. The results of both inverters are shown in
Figure 5 and Figure 6.
Up to 5 MHz the emission from the SMA inverter is 10 to
20 dB lower than that from the Soladin inverter. Above 5 MHz
the emission from the SMA inverter is of the same order as that
from the Soladin inverter. For some frequencies in this range,
for example 10 MHz and 50 MHz, the emission from Soladin
is significantly higher. When listening to the 10 MHz ham
radio band, the noise divergence is quite huge.The SMA Sunny
boy is approximately 10 to 20 dB quieter.
Another Soladin 600 was measured at another location. The
measurement was performed on a bright sunny morning, and
the power delivered to the grid was increased in comparison to
the previous one. The inverter was mounted on a mobile rack
and was directed to the sun as shown in Figure 7. A picture of
the measurement results is shown in Figure 8, scale is in dBV.
The length of the length DC cables is 2 meters. The
measurements did show an increase in higher frequency
emissions on the DC cable compared to the first measurement
that morning.

Figure 6: Soladin (blue) SMA (red) spectrum measurements

The third inverter measured is an Omnik inverter mounted in

an average family house with 12 PV panels on the roof, as
shown in Figure 9. Two DC bus connections where present so
6 panels per bus.
The Omnik inverter was mounted in the attic. The house is not
occupied, just used for storing equipment and furniture. So any
background interference from other grid connected equipment
is minimized on the local grid.

Figure 7: Movable PV array, Soladin mounted on the back

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Proc. of the 2014 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe 2014), Gothenburg, Sweden, September 1-4, 2014

Figure 11: Spectrum of the Omnik inverter.

V.

COMPARISON OF THE DECLARATION OF CONFORMITY

Figure 8: Measurement with more sun illumination.

The declarations of conformity [10, 11, 12] lists the standards

used for testing. The emission standards are listed in Table 1.
TABLE I: LIST OF EMISSION STANDARDS.

Soladin 600
IEC 55022
IEC 61000-3-2

Omnik 3K
IEC 61000-6-3
IEC 61000-6-4
IEC 61000-3-12
IEC 61000-3-11

SMA Sunny Boy

IEC 61000-6-3
IEC 61000-6-4
IEC 55022

Both the SMA Sunny Boy and Omnik inverters are tested
against the generic emission standards, IEC 61000-6-3 and
IEC61000-6-4. Hence the DC bus is tested as well. The
Soladin 600, however, is tested against the IEC 61000-3-2 and
IEC 55022 standards.
The IEC 61000-3-2 is for harmonic distortion on the grid, for
apparatus with a rated current up to 16A. IEC 61000-3-12 is
for harmonic distortion on the grid for apparatus with a rated
current between 16 and 75 A. IEC 61000-3-11 is for voltage
fluctuations flicker and voltage changes. Comparison of the
Declarations of conformity [10,11,12] shows that the Soladin
600, and SMA Sunny Boy are tested against EN55022
(CISPR 22). This is the product standard for information
technology (IT) equipment the SMA inverter contains a wifi
adapter hence CISPR 22. In IEC 61000-6-3 limits are
described for a DC power bus. In the definitions of this
standard it is stated: 3.5 power port port at which a
conductor or cable carrying the primary electrical power
needed for the operation (functioning) of an apparatus or
associated apparatus is connected to the apparatus.
Hereinafter in the standard is stated: 3.8 d.c. power network
local electricity supply network in the infrastructure of a
certain site or building intended for flexible use by one or
more different types of equipment and guaranteeing
continuous power supply independently from the conditions of
the public mains network[13]. Hence a DC bus of a PV
installation is not a DC bus within the scope of this standard.

Figure 9: 12 panels on a roof with the Omnik inverter.

On the bottom, Figure 10, of this inverter are two black/red

cables for the DC bus, one 230 Vac cable (greyish) and an
antenna for WIFI.
The length of the DC cables is unknown. The spectrum
measured is shown in Figure 11, and is considerably,
approximately 10-20 dB, lower than the Soladin 600.

VI.

MIS-USE OF ARTICLE 6

All apparatus being put on the European market shall fulfil the
requirements of the EMC Directive. A common approach is
to follow Article 6 stating that presumption of conformity is
raised when harmonized standards have been used. These

Figure 10: Omnik inverter.

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Proc. of the 2014 International Symposium on Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC Europe 2014), Gothenburg, Sweden, September 1-4, 2014

harmonized standards are used for testing the equipment. If

the equipment passes the test the manufacturer has a
presumption of complying to the EMC Directive as stated in
Article 6 of the directive 2004/108/EC [6].
The manufacturer of the apparatus can select the applicable
harmonized standards. Due to the fact an Ethernet port has
been integrated in this inverter the manufacturer of the Soladin
inverter states that it is a computer with some special features.
No limits on conducted emission from the DC bus are defined
for IT equipment. If the reader looks in the other 2
Declarations of Conformity there is no reference towards any
standard regarding the DC bus. The SMA and Omnik use the
generic standards from the 61000-6 series to test their
equipment so the DC side is tested as well. The Soladin 600 is
only tested on the AC side (230 V) due to the fact that
standard IEC 55022 does not mention a DC bus. This shows a
large caveat in the standards which can be used for PV
inverters, because the measurement results shows that the ham
radio operators are seriously interfered. This can be a nice
court case where the suppliers of (all?) PV inverters are
summoned because of violating the essential requirements of
the EMC Directive. But who will start this court case?

Figure 12: The "shack"of PA5KK

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]

VII. CONCLUSION
DC bus emissions of PV installations are not described in
international harmonized standards. So the manufacturer is
free to do what is best for his wallet. Even the general
standards do not apply if the PV inverter is equipped with an
Ethernet port, as then the manufacturer can state it is a
computer with special functions. Manufacturers search for
creative ways to get their product on the market with
disregarding the rights of the radio spectrum users. The
currents can cause high radiated interference levels. Actually,
the suppliers are violating the essential requirements of the
European EMC Directive. Due to budget constraints of the
national authorities the PV inverter suppliers can continue
their illegal activities.

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]
[8]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank the ham radio operator PA5KK for
leading us in to these measurements.

[9]

[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]

78

Dutch Ham Radio society VERON, EMC-EMF Committee, 1st author is

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