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C

cjiruk

Completed a quote for PV installation on a farm, problem is there is an Automatic Back Up Generator that kicks in if the Grid fails, concern is: If the Grid fails and the Generator kicks in and is supplying the house with power at say 1kw, the PV is say Generating 4kw where does the other 3kw go?

Will it damage the Generator?

Is there any sort of protection i can put in to stop any damage?

The Grid comes into an outhouse where the Generator is situated, this feeds the farmhouse via a SWA cable to consumer unit in house. I was going to feed the PV from the Inverter into the consumer unit in the farmhouse to avoid running another SWA cable back to the outhouse. Obviously the original SWA cable shares the Grid voltage/Back Up Generator.

Any advice would be much appreciated

Thanks

Jim:confused:
 
Any inverter will synchronise with the supply, frequency and voltage. Given with the standby generator the supply is limited to 1Kw and the array is 4Kwp then there is a risk of overload.

My opinion if it was my job would be to have an interlock on the auto start of the generator to lock out the PV array in the form of a contactor on the supply cable to the inverter (AC side) The inverter will not start generating until it is synchronised to supply so if the grid supply is cut the inverter will not start. Once mains power is restored and the generator kicks out the contactor will then kick in and allow the PV to start up again. If you rely on the isolation of the PV system only you are also reliant on an operator turning it off in time before the gen set kicks in. A bit risky I think.
 

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