[RE-wrenches] Bypassing a broken PV module

Jason Szumlanski jason at floridasolardesigngroup.com
Fri Jul 22 04:26:18 PDT 2016


I came across shattered glass on an Evergreen PV module while doing a new
homeowner system evaluation. My inclination is to remove the panel and
bypass it, which would still leave the array well within the operating
parameters for the inverter. However, the owner wants to just leave the
panel physically in the array because it actually looks better that way,
which I agree it does. You can hardly tell it's broken from ground level.

I explained that there is a risk of a ground fault if the module is left
physically in the array, but the owner who is pretty astute, mentioned that
the fault voltage if a ground fault were to occur from that module would
only be at 22.5V potential (he didn't mention the actual voltage, but he
did correctly state that the maximum fault would be limited to the single
module, which in this case is 22.5V @ 12A). While it may trip an inverter,
it would probably not pose a safety risk.

While he may be technically right, for now I have reused to do the work,
but I told him I would think about it.

Anyone been through this scenario?

​Jason Szumlanski
​
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20160722/7b45400e/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the RE-wrenches mailing list