Arc-Flash Technical Papers

A Valuable Detection Solution for Photovoltaic Systems


Photovoltaic (PV) systems are being installed in the field at an increasingly fast pace, and the size of each installation project is growing quickly as well. Large-scale utility projects have crossed the 2- and 3-gigawatt mark, which often require several million solar panels. These impressive power levels are obtained by combining solar modules in a series to a target system voltage to form a string. These strings are then connected in parallel in a combiner box.

This dc power is converted to ac using an inverter and fed into the grid. The more solar modules, combiner boxes, and inverters that are paralleled together, the larger the system’s power generation capability. When these systems expand from one megawatt to a couple thousand megawatts, the number of cable/wiring connections (and failure points) increases substantially.

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