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Leakage current on installations with solar

JohnE

I have been looking at a domestic installation that has solar and batteries

The solar and battery (Solar edge and Fox ESS ) are on their own sub board via henleys
The main house circuits on a split load board.
 
The leakage current is very high on the tails of the main board, round 350mA up to 700mA
With everything isolated, no leakage.

With solar all off and isolated, and the main switch of the house CU on, but no circuits energised,
I get a bump in leakage of about 15mA
When I switch on individual MCBs, I get a leap of about 100mA on some circuits and 40mA on others
with all house circuits on, but no real current draw,(nothing switch on)
I'm up past 700/ 800mA and it fluctuates up and down rapidly.
 
I thought about disconnecting the isolated solar boards main earth, but as I know little about solar
I do not want to start disconnecting anything really.
 
With isolated solar, can you still get leakage from it, which can find its way onto
the rest of the installation, and as circuits are closed, the leakage increases.
More parallel paths?

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
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  • 0

    Yes the IR test between L and E were with everything connected, (board isolated)
    I have not yet disconnected any neutrals to test between N & E
    This amount of leakage is new to me and I wanted to be cautious about any harmful current appearing on disconnected conductors.

    There is a issue with the RCD tripping intermittently, I was just trying to see if I could narrow down the circuit with earth leakage tests by
    switching on the MCBs one by one, but everything is masked by such high leakage, every circuit increases the amount of mA considerably.

    With everything isolated including solar I do get 0V

    I think what I need to do is isolate the main board including earthing conductor, and split the neutrals and do some proper IR tests
    so basically ignoring the solar side for now. I'm comfortable with that. I have zero experience of solar, so that would need someone else.
    There seems to be a gap in training for working around solar installs, and possible impacts on the installation.
    Also safe isolation around solar.  Plenty of courses showing you how to throw it in. 

  • 0 in reply to JohnE

    I think what I need to do is isolate the main board including earthing conductor, and split the neutrals and do some proper IR tests

    Generally you leave the c.p.c.s connected to the means of earthing - otherwise you're more likely to miss damaged cables that are in contact with the general environment (e.g. damp masonry or structural steel) but not the c.p.c..

       - Andy.

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  • 0 in reply to JohnE

    I think what I need to do is isolate the main board including earthing conductor, and split the neutrals and do some proper IR tests

    Generally you leave the c.p.c.s connected to the means of earthing - otherwise you're more likely to miss damaged cables that are in contact with the general environment (e.g. damp masonry or structural steel) but not the c.p.c..

       - Andy.

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