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Roosh
Lv 6
Roosh asked in Science & MathematicsEngineering · 4 years ago

What tests are made on the electric citrcuits prior to a roof solar panel installation?

I assume that a house electric circuits would have some sort of testing before a roof solar panels are installed. Can anybody confirm this

Update:

On a UK installation

3 Answers

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  • 4 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Hey Roosh, no, normally there is no need for this. The reason is that a roof mounted solar array does not really connect to the homes existing wiring, if it is a grid tie system, it connects directly to the homes existing fuse box, or breaker panel. The power coming from the array goes to the mains panel and then into the homes wiring the same way the power company's power goes into the mains panel and then into the home. Power coming from your array in this case goes into a grid tie inverter which first matches the power companies frequency and voltage, so no additional power is "forced" through any existing wiring. If your home is using less power than your array is generating, the excess simply flows out into the grid and then into the neighbors house. If your home is using more than the array is generating, it eats all the solar power coming into the mains panel, then gets the rest from the power company. Our home has been working this way for years.

    Think of a pool that is being filled slowly with a garden hose. If you left it run too long, excess water would spill over the side and into the garden and grass. If instead you filled it with two hoses, it would fill twice as fast, and then spill over into the garden and grass, but there would be no need to "inspect" the pool walls or plumbing before turning on the second hose. The pool won't care either way, neither does the homes wiring. The only possible exception to this is if you started buying stand alone panels with micro inverters attached to the panel and used household cords to "plug in" the inverters. In theory if you had enough inverters with cords and plugged them all into an outlet in the bedroom, then ran the kitchen appliances, it might be possible to overload the bedroom outlet. But you would have 27 cords going into the outlet, which should give anyone cause for concern. This type of install is not legal in most places for permanently mounted panels anyway, most codes require them to be wired directly to a dedicated mains breaker of appropriate size. Take care Roosh, Rudydoo.

  • 4 years ago

    This is the dumbest question I've ever read. There is no hope for you, my friend.

  • Anonymous
    4 years ago

    Well, there is an assumption that there are not FUSES in use...but CIRCUIT BREAKERS. There is not much to be "inspected" from a circuit breaker box. The building OUTLETS and SWITCHES and FIXTURES are not typically inspected. The funny thing is...outlets and switches should be REPLACED after maybe 20 years and have nothing to do with solar system installs. The solar system is a separate system until it gets GRID TIED. If you don't care about tying it to the grid...fine. You might want BATTERIES too...too many choices to definitely say.

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