Ground Wire For Solar Panels

There are two basic types of ground mounted solar panel systems.

Ground wire for solar panels.

Use only approved clamps to connect wire to rods. Drive a grounding rod at least 8 feet deep into the earth near the system. 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.

Solar sizing calculator allows you to calculate your energy consumption and requirements to help you decide on your solar panel requirements. The additional earth contact will improve the grounding of the system. Here s how we ground our solar water pump systems. Regardless of system voltage equipment grounding is required on all pv systems.

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. Simply stated the higher the voltage the smaller the wire size that is needed to carry the current. The main issue is the wire size needed for the usually fairly long run to the solar panels. The formula p e i says that the wattage power p is equal to the voltage e times the current i in a circuit.

If you use conduit run the ground wire outside the conduit. For burial runs use bare copper wire. For outdoor grounding you need to use thick bare copper wire that can handle large electrical currents like lightening. Once there it could arc again to the house wiring and use its grounding system instead.

Standard ground mounts use metal framing driven into the ground to hold your solar panels up at a fixed angle. Appropriate bonding and equipment grounding limits the voltage imposed on a system by lightning line surges and unintentional contact with higher voltage lines. 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. Connect or bond all ground rods together via bare copper wire 6 or larger see the nec and bury the wire.