US versus DE installation costs [RE-wrenches]

[William Miller]

At 10:29 AM 4/21/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>William:
>
>
>Lastly, Joel started discussing installed system costs in Germany versus
>the US. Having been there many times I would not say Germany is a third
>world country.  Given that they have one third our population and five
>times the installed PV that we have I think we should look at what they
>do objectively and see what changes we can make that will help us
>increase the amount of renewable energy in the US.  
>


Friends:

Apparently I was not clear on one point:  I was not saying Germany is third
world.  Think, rather, of your last trip to a third world country.  I
imagine you took note of the electrical infrastructure.   Not good, right?
Installing a PV system in this environment, matching the standards and
practices in use there, could be done rather cheaply, but is that what we
want?

What I read here on this forum is in contradiction:  One post says:  here
is a completely unsafe installation with incorrect ground reference and
many other problems.  Gosh, why didn't the installer follow the standards
(code).  Next post:  Gee, the standards are looser in Germany, therefore
the installation costs are less, therefore the standards are bad.  Question
authority!

My view of questioning authority includes:  be prepared to admit it when
the authority makes sense.  Let's not get our knees a jerking here and
lynch the entire code.  The code makes sense in 99% of the cases.

I'll admit that I lead the discussion to eliminate the requirement to bond
each module individually.  This was based on looking at the code only.
Bill Brooks reminded us (me) that the code does not operate in a vacuum.
UL testing indicates relying on frame to rack contact for a ground is not
reliable.  I sure don't have a laboratory where I can test and dispute
this.  I sure as heck want to do all I can to make sure I dont leave a
system out there that could cause my client or future electricians a safety
or reliability problem, so I'm relying on Bill Brooks advice, knowing that
it is backed up by lab testing.

I have my doubts about bonding negative leads.  We now remove the GFI fuse
from Sunny Boys when servicing an array.  This is contrary to posted
labels, but I don't want the rack and modules referenced to negative while
working on the positive leads.



William Miller 



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