About the PVGFP [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar]

William,

Sorry no answers, just a rant. I really think that the PVGFP is some sort of
joke.  I don't do roof mounts on dwellings because of that product.  Note
that is required on a dwelling and a dwelling is defined as where someone
sleeps.

>From what I understand it is supposed to protect the array from "faulting"
and burning your house down.  It is not to protect people from shocks as the
1 amp threshold is well beyond what is considered to potentially fatal to
people.

Here my gripe.

Lets say the array faults (will someone tell me how this happens) and the
PVGFP does its job and opens the circuit.  Obviously, the fault is upstream
of the PVGFP so the fault is still up on the roof or your attic busily
burning your house down!

Maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture (I never do).  In industrial
applications services of 1200 amps or greater are required to have GFP on
the mains.  The closer you are to the utilities transformer (especially
paralleled banks) the greater potential you have for short circuit disasters
Pretty impressive equipment by the way.  Field adjustable to whatever amp
and time limits you desire.  I understand the need for that equipment as I
have seen what happens when a 100 hp motor faults and the overloads were
oversized.  Regular circuit breakers aren't fast enough to catch the fault
and before they trip everything melts down and the where to motor was is now
a smoking black hole.  Everyday breakers have max current interrupting
ratings of 10,000 amps but the these GFP devices are rated at 100,000 amps
and higher.


Travis Creswell
Ozark Solar

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