wire sizing at Higher voltages [RE-wrenches]

Ray Walters ray at solarray.com
Tue Apr 20 17:05:41 PDT 2004


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HI Joel, Ron, & all;

Seems like the terminals should go up to a #4 Ga, if SMA's recommendation 
is to size for less than 1%. The reason I asked in the first place is that 
extra splices to land an oversized wire on small lugs cost extra money and 
eats into our savings from over sizing in the first place.
Ron, I'm glad I'm not the only one sizing for power drop. I got into it 
years ago when the cost of keeping to a 2% volt drop on 12 volt systems was 
getting outrageous. (200 watt array on 2/0 cable??) I had to convince 
myself before I could convince my customers that it was worth it.( It 
wasn't) I have some arrays on non MPPT controllers and we're letting volt 
drop go as high as 10%. It just wasn't cost effective, and without MPPT you 
don't really see that extra power anyway.
Another funny thing that came out of the calculations I was doing: it 
didn't matter how short the run was. If you could save 1 watt on a 5 ft run 
by oversizing it, it was worth it. (Not of course if the lugs or conduit 
can't take it)

Sincerely,
Ray



>Ray,
>Interesting discussion. From the SMA web site:
>  SMA America recommends sizing the PV wired to keep the voltage drop
>below 1%.
>  In
>any case, the DC terminals in the Sunny Boy Inverter will only accept up to
>10 AWG wire.
>Best regards,
>Joel Davidson

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