[RE-wrenches] Off-grid French fried

[Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar]

Many of these fires in the last 5 years! In fact more in the last 5 than
20 years before. 

I would not claim this on insurance if you want to keep
it. We are in a spell now of losing insurance and self insuring in the
west. 

By self insuring, I mean hardening to avoid this ever happening
from wildfire. Use of sprinklers, high pressure pumps, and triple
redundancy for everything. You can get this with a yacht mentality of
keeping the systems going no matter what. Two battery banks each with their
own inverter and a spare inverter. Gensets ! Tell the local fire people you
have this and they are welcome to stay. Make them breakfast, whatever it
takes. The owner has to want this ! He was lucky this time! 

Good Luck !
The worst month is here for wildfire!  

Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar
"we go
where powerlines don't"
http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/ [1]
e-mail
offgridsolar at sti.net [2]
text 209 813 0060

On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 21:59:37
-0600, Dan Fink  wrote:   Bill; I've dealt with a couple of these after
wildfires here in Colorado, in remote mountain areas with high proportions
of off-grid systems. I totally get the insurance aspect, I'd say a majority
of folks don't even really realize that even with insurance, the actual
settlement will often be far less than they expected.   I'd be most
concerned about the wiring you _can't _see -- in conduit, through walls,
transitioning from side of building to underground, etc. I would just
replace all such wire runs with new wire, using the old, possibly
compromised wire to pull with.    Then I would isolate and test each
component of the system separately, culminating in a system-wide check.  
You didn't mention the PV array, if it's ground or roof mount etc...PV
modules are also sneaky at concealing fire and heat damage, and can still
be operating within normal parameters, only to fail in the very near
future--often into an arc fault situation within the array, where the
Classic's AFCI protection won't help at all. If the fire was anywhere near
the array, I'd pull each module, inspect and test individually, then
reconnect into strings and test each string, etc.   Best of luck! 
        
   Dan Fink  Executive Director, Buckville Energy Consulting NABCEP
Certified PV System Inspector IREC Certified Instructor(tm) for:  ~ PV
Installation Professional ~ Small Wind Installer NABCEP Registered
Continuing Education Providers d [3]anbob88 at gmail.com [4] 970-672-4342  

 
On Tue, Jul 28, 2020 at 9:23 PM frenergy  wrote: 
 Hey Folks,
 Here in the
Boonies of NE California one of my customers just had a fire 
 (the Hog
Fire) go through his property. It spared his house but roasted 
 the power
shed. I'll try to summarize: 2003 Outback FP2 (AC enclosure, 
 2 FXs,DC
enclosure with related equipment), Classic 150 and 24V HUP 
 Solar1
battery. Roasted meaning the outside siding is ashes, the roof 
 burned
down to the charred rafters and some remaining drywall, the 
 drywall that
the FP2 was mounted to is all there. The batteries are in 
 an insulated
plywood box all of which is 90% OK...Hydrocaps not melted, 
 cables look
fine, battery tops appear unaffected and took a charge from 
 the
GennyDeeCee. Water was being applied to the outside of this 
 structure
during the event to reduce the damage and heat.

 Removing both AC and DC
enclosure covers and the FX valve 
 covers revealed nothing melted or even
warped, if it wasn't a little 
 darkened inside from smoke, you might not
know what had happened, the 
 lexan covers on the inverter's AC output
landings are in perfect 
 condition. The HUB and Classic, were closest to
the greatest heat and 
 we're considering them cooked.

 Any experience
with this before and what was discovered 
 when firing the system back up?
Yes, naturally it's easy to say it 
 should all be tossed and customer has
to come up with $13,000+? for new 
 equipment. However this conclusion
becomes more difficult in the face 
 of not being covered by insurance, but
we're listening to all comments.

 Thanks,

 Bill

 Feather River Solar
Electric
 Bill Battagin, Owner
 4291 Nelson St.
 Taylorsville, CA 95983

530.284.7849
 CA Lic 874049
 www.frenergy.net [6]

   

Links:
------
[1]
http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/
[2] mailto:offgridsolar at sti.net
[3]
mailto:dan.fink at greendustrialtraining.com
[4] mailto:anbob88 at gmail.com
[5]
mailto:frenergy at psln.com
[6] http://www.frenergy.net
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