Solar Panels And Lightning Strikes

Damaged pv panels lightning strike it was a direct hit to the chimney stack and the inverter was in an outbuilding near below the stack also the property was grounded in 2 locations one near the house and one near the generator shed 70 ft away which is also a bad design.

Solar panels and lightning strikes.

Since a photovoltaic installation does not increase the probability of lightning strikes the solar modules themselves are no more at risk than the inverter or other loads connected to the grid. Obviously if you install a lightning rod on your roof you need to avoid shading the solar panels with it. The panels are not usually the biggest victim of lightning strikes as frames and mounts on panels are usually grounded. Lightning strikes whether direct or indirect can result in both down time and expenses in identifying and replacing damaged parts.

The inverters and controllers are. Proper grounding is essential for protecting your solar energy system against lightning strikes and damage. Many people do not understand the costs due to the fact that the sunshine that ultimately is used as a fuel source to produce the power is free. They re almost asking for a lightning strike which can damage or destroy solar panels inverters and other critical equipment.

Lightning can cause devastating damage to solar panels and protection needs to be considered during the design stages. So it s no surprise that lightning activity and surge related over voltage abnormalities are identified as leading causes of solar project downtime. Solar farms are just big fields covered with conductive material. Lightning rods protect you from direct strikes.

The grounding system of a solar panel system is intended to handle arc faults in the system due to damaged insulation for example which might involve a few dozen amps of current at a few hundred volts but a lightning strike can carry around 30 000 amps of current at millions of volts. A damaging surge can occur from lightning that strikes a long distance from the system or even between clouds. They provide an alternative low resistance direct route to earth so that the lightning is much less likely to go through the solar power system.