• Mark Hendricks - Vice President Technical Director, DEHN, Inc.

Many solar farms have been constructed that suffer from a fundamental flaw in the earthing system. Although the earthing is safe for DC power generation and 60Hz power transmission, these plants do not endure the transient environment. The symptoms appear as unrelated inverter tripping or similar faults that cause disruptions or reduction of generation capacity. But the actual problem is not in the inverter at all, it is a fundamental flaw in the earthing connections that directs all fault and transient energy directly into the inverter. XGS Software is used to simulate the problem and design the solution to meet IEEE 80 requirements. Actual field installations have shown 80 to 90% reduction as per design goals.