What is the logic for solar sub boards avoiding overload of main board bus bar

Just looking at an installation now where there's a single phase 100 amp supply, high load and solar.

Initially I thought guidance says if I put solar on a seperate board I avoid going over 100 amps for the main switch and busbar.
But then thinking about it if I put the solar on a sperate board and it's feeding the house rather than the grid all I achieve is focusing the extra current flow on the main switch and one end of the bus bar. I guess whoever came up with guidance assumed the solar would be feeding the grid or there was more than one board taking the load, seems like a poor assumption.
It makes more sense if the limitation is heat dissipated by devices, 15W or so per RCBO or MCB at full load, which from memory at least is different to the guidance i have watched or seen in the past. I can also put the solar at the far end of the bus bar and distribute the devices running closer to max load.

If it's to do with heat dissipation I am down to working out how many devices are running at a significant proportion of max load, heat dissipated and max thermal load on the enclosure, data that's probably not available. 


To me it's more important to distribute the load over more than one board. 

I know there are a few boards that are rated at 125A, so far from what I have looked at a cheap make I don't trust or an expensive makes that tend to over inflate costs of doing things like upgrading to type A RCD's and I avoid in principle because of this.My hope is that Fusebox say it's ok with their 125A main switch,they don't have any instructions or data sheet available online

Parents
  • I agree the point of having a separate CU is to allow for overload protection for the original CU - I reckon you don't necessarily need a fuse for every CU though - just the ones liable to overload (e.g. where the sum of the outgoing devices exceeds the overall rating) - so a dedicated PV CU with say a 16A device in it (or a PV & EV one with say a 16A and 32A or two 32A) can't draw (or supply) excess of that CUs rating, so the fuse can be omitted,

       - Andy.

Reply
  • I agree the point of having a separate CU is to allow for overload protection for the original CU - I reckon you don't necessarily need a fuse for every CU though - just the ones liable to overload (e.g. where the sum of the outgoing devices exceeds the overall rating) - so a dedicated PV CU with say a 16A device in it (or a PV & EV one with say a 16A and 32A or two 32A) can't draw (or supply) excess of that CUs rating, so the fuse can be omitted,

       - Andy.

Children
  • I was going to add that the Irish seem to have a policy of using a DP MCB as their incomer - which does nicely provide overload protection without needing a separate switchfuse ... I'm not sure if does anything for discrimination (selectivity) through ... it would be a bit of poor result to have the "main switch" trip out for almost any fault in the installation (as discrimination between MCBs is almost non-existant, regardless of rating).

       - Andy.