String combiner boxes for photovoltaic systems
Surge protection for photovoltaic systems
Photovoltaic systems, whether large ground-mounted systems or rooftop systems on a residential building, are at risk of lightning surge voltage due to the coupling surfaces and installation locations. With our string combiner boxes and surge protective devices for photovoltaic systems, you not only ensure availability and high performance. At the same time, you also keep the amortization time of the system as short as possible. Use our lightning and surge protection for photovoltaic systems to ensure availability and your yield.
Product categories
Your advantages
- Fast installation and startup with preassembled string combiner boxes
- Standard-compliant switchgear and controlgear assembly due to the use of DIN EN 61439
- High-performance components for specific application requirements
- Pluggable components and application-specific connection technology enable easy maintenance
The right installation location
Ideally, the surge protection is installed in the vicinity of the inverter. Integrate protection using our surge protective devices for the AC and DC side of the inverter. Alternatively, you can also use our preassembled solutions for string combiner boxes.
For the installation locations and installation conditions, please refer to the table below.
Our product recommendations for the installation locations can be found here:
Installation locations and installation conditions
| AC voltage 1 | AC voltage 2 | DC voltage 1 | DC voltage 2 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Installation location | Main distribution | AC side of the inverter (cable length to the main distribution ≥10 m) | DC side of the inverter (cable length to the PV panels ≥10 m) | Near the PV panels or the entrance to the building |
| Without external lightning protection | Type 2 SPD | Type 2 SPD | Type 2 SPD | Type 2 SPD |
| With external lightning protection, separation distance is observed | Type 1 SPD | Type 2 SPD | Type 2 SPD | Type 2 SPD |
| With external lightning protection, separation distance is not observed | Type 1 SPD | Type 1 SPD | Type 1 SPD | Type 1 SPD |
Surge protective devices for interfaces
In addition to the four installation locations of surge protective devices for PV systems that have been highlighted so far, there is another area that you shouldn’t forget:
The protection of communication interfaces is not necessarily required by standards, but is nevertheless highly recommended. The inverter electronics can actually be damaged by overvoltages via a network cable or a thin control line, thus disrupting the operation of the photovoltaic system.
Digital inputs for power regulation, a weather station, Ethernet, RS-485: all of these are examples of common interfaces that need to be protected.
