Senior Member
Joined: 11/11/2021
Location: United StatesPosts: 203
| Posted: 05:26pm 01 May 2026 |
Your understanding is correct. Here in the US, the smart meters have a measurement period as short as ~200ms. This is one reason why it's important to have an interconnection agreement that allows transient export events up to 2 seconds and still be qualified as zero export and not get charged/penalized. The only way to avoid getting detected by the smart meters is to guarantee no net export per measurement period. AFAIK, no consumer grade zero export hybrid inverters can respond to transient exports that fast. Typically, the response time is >1s but <2s to meet the interconnection agreement requirement for zero export. Also, it seems many of the cheap hybrid inverters don't even have accurate enough current sensing to reliably detect small (<100W) transient exports. Some people have resorted to running small constant loads but it's far from a perfect solution as sudden PV input power jumps (e.g. clouds edging) or sudden big load shutoffs (e.g. central A/C thermostat cycle off) can still cause transient exports. The only practical way for most to guarantee no detection appears to be galvanic isolation.
Edited 2026-05-02 03:30 by analog8484