Ground Wire For Solar Panels

Regardless of system voltage equipment grounding is required on all pv systems.

Ground wire for solar panels.

If lightning were to strike the solar panels outside the electric current may go into the panel grounding system if you are lucky or it may travel along the positive and negative wires going back to the inverter inside your house. Connect or bond all ground rods together via bare copper wire 6 or larger see the nec and bury the wire. Use twisted pair cable for any communication or control cables for example a float switch cable for full tank shutoff of a solar water pump. Use only approved clamps to connect wire to rods.

Drive a grounding rod at least 8 feet deep into the earth near the system. Simply stated the higher the voltage the smaller the wire size that is needed to carry the current. Besides this solar cable gauge calculator is designed to provide estimates for wire gauge size to determine your need for cables. Leave around 6 above ground to properly attach your copper wire to the grounding rod.

If your photovoltaic array is some distance from the house drive ground rod s near it and bury bare wire in the trench with the power lines. The additional earth contact will improve the grounding of the system. If you use conduit run the ground wire outside the conduit. There are two basic types of ground mounted solar panel systems.

For burial runs use bare copper wire. Here s how we ground our solar water pump systems. Appropriate bonding and equipment grounding limits the voltage imposed on a system by lightning line surges and unintentional contact with higher voltage lines. The one strand conductor type wire is most commonly used in domestic wiring and should be okay for your solar system however if your area is prone to consistent and extremely high winds you may want to consider wire types with a multi stranded conductor as it is more flexible thus more durable.

For outdoor grounding you need to use thick bare copper wire that can handle large electrical currents like lightening. Standard ground mounts use metal framing driven into the ground to hold your solar panels up at a fixed angle. Some standard ground mounted solar panel systems can be manually adjusted a few times a year to account for seasonal shifts of the sun. The formula p e i says that the wattage power p is equal to the voltage e times the current i in a circuit.