Solar Panel Isolation / Short Protection

J

JameZZ

Joined
21 Apr 2011
Messages
40
Reaction score
6
Location
North West
Country
United Kingdom
In a typical solar panel installation, where would you expect find the first instance of short circuit protection for the panel?

Is there normally something on the panels themselves or would the first point be at/near the inverter?
 
I believe some setups have fuses for the individual panels to protect against catastrophic failure of the panels themselves.

AIUI overload or short circuit protection for the DC feed wiring from panels to inverter is pointless because the short circuit current is barely more than the normal operating current.
 
Interesting, so if you were to short out the live/neutral directly from a panel nothing too exciting would happen?

I know very little about solar installations, or what voltage/current they produce typically.

Not sure if it makes a difference but I'm talking about one that might be installed on a commercial building.
 
There's no live or neutral - from the panels comes DC, which will be floating as well, so just + & -.

But if you look online for panel characteristics you'll find that they present almost a constant current output proportional to light level. So if you short the oitput, you won't get a high fault current.

As an aside, this is true up to a certain voltage after which the current drops off dramatically. That's why some manufacturers include a MPPT (maximum power point transfer) to control the panel voltage yo maximise extracted power.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top