On Nov 15, 5:55*pm, Jim Lux wrote:
K1TTT wrote:
they may not be angelina jolie or any of those other hot, hot, hot
babes the spammer keeps posting, but these are some of the better
views you can find outside of the bedroom:
http://wiki.k1ttt.net/2010-Maintenan....ashx#fallinsp...

Those distributed inverters are becoming more popular, because they
solve a lot of problems.
a) you can size them to be some small number of panels worth, where the
sweet spot is for component costs internally. *Many smaller inverters
can be cheaper to make than one big inverter, once you get beyond, say,
where a single semiconductor device is big enough. (like solid state
power amps for RF)

b) you don't have to worry about high power DC wiring, which is a real
pain for things like fusing and grounding.

c) you've already got to have the line synchronization figured out, and
it's done in a single ASIC anyway, so there's no added complexity for
paralleling and scaling. Just rack and stack

It might also help with the firefighter problem.. they aren't wild about
big solar installations because there's no easy way to turn them off.
cut the wires and they're still live, as long as light is shining on
them. *I haven't looked in detail, but I could see distributed inverters
each having their own "disconnect" switch to short the panel out, and if
you drop the master interconnect (so there's no grid-tie), then all the
panels will isolate themselves by design, and all the AC wiring will be
dead(-ish)

there is also no big battery to be serviced or replaced, or to react
with heat or water.. another plus for firefighters. in this
installation there is a breaker box for the 4 rows of panels on the
pole at the panels, a meter box on the end of the house near the
panels, and another breaker where they tie into the main panel... any
one of them is enough to kill power from the panels... and they also
shut off automatically when the grid goes down to prevent backfeeding.