SW-series inverters hazard? [RE-wrenches]

[Chris Daum]

Dear Wrenches:

Shortly before the Trace/Xantrex-UL fiasco, I sold a nice grid-tie system 
to a fella in California; thought you might like to see his response (by 
the way, he's an electrical engineer and will be doing his own 
installation):

11/28/01

Chris:

Thanks for bringing the Trace SW series UL controversy to my attention.
How often does a seller keep the customer informed?  I will continue
to follow the saga on the Trace Engineering website.

Fortunately, in Palo Alto, it appears to be a non-issue.  I just
received the building permit yesterday for my PV installation. The hard
work is over, now the fun begins ... installation.

Palo Alto owns and operates its own utility system. As part to the
building permit application process I met with the city utility engineer
that has monitored and inspected numerous PV installations. He knows the
Trace SW series well and has never had a problem with them, even from a
utility perspective in grid tie mode.  There are probably over a dozen
currently installed in Palo Alto at this time.  He mentioned that the
only islanding condition he has heard of is with older models on very
lightly loaded utility circuits like might occur in a rural setting.
There are no lightly loaded circuits in Palo Alto.  As a result, my
installation is not impacted and he dismissed it as a non-problem.

If Trace does make their "fix" available at no charge to current owners,
I would like to obtain it and make it part of my system.  Since the
inverter was sold as being UL certified it seems like they would have to
make good on that under the warranty.  I have registered my serial
number so I "should" hear from the factory when the dust settles.

Have a great day!

Bill
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>------------------------------------  
---------------

--personally I think this is going to have to be a "non-issue" -- or are 
the electrical inspectors going to "disapprove" the thousands of grid tie 
systems that they inspected & approved and that are working just fine, in a 
non-hazardous, non-islanding fashion?  I think not.

I do think that Trace ought to offer its GTI fix free to those of us who 
have sold/installed grid-tie systems utilizing the Trace/Xantrex sine wave 
inverters.  What do you think, Trace/Xantrex?

Chris Daum
Oasis Montana Inc.
406-777-4321 or 4309
406-777-2632  fax
http://www.oasismontana.com.PV_index.html

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