Guest Blog

Engineering Recommendation G83/1-1 is a key document for the solar PV industry, as it sets the requirements for the connection of PV systems (of up to 16A per phase), to the distribution network. G83/1 addresses all technical aspects of the connection process from system functionality to site commissioning and was first published in 2002, with a revised version issued in 2008. Last week, the Distribution Code Review Panel (DCRP) approved the draft of ER G83/2 for public consultation.

Arc Faults are once again on the agenda at the IEC PV meeting this week. Arc faults in a PV system have the potential to cause a fire – and, sadly, there are a number of documented cases around the world where this has occurred. In considering the issue, three categories of arcs need to be addressed…

Having spent the last few weeks on roofs installing, I am now swapping screwdriver for laptop and heading to an IEC PV standards meeting in Switzerland.

Any ideas of properly determining how quick the TrinaMount system really is has been dashed by the weather this week. Thanks to very high winds, it’s been a real stop-start operation … just too dangerous to handle the PV modules at times.

Thanks to the December 12th FIT deadline its all hands to the pump here – and I am back on the tools for a few weeks. This week’s project is a 50kWp installation on the metal roof of a local auction mart.

Now we have all got over the shock announcement of potential changes to the FiT some people in the industry are saying we should just get on and make the 21p work.

Greg Barker is misunderstood. He has come under heavy criticism from those within and without the solar industry in the UK and I can see why. It is never easy to be the hatchet man when there is a tight budget in the offing and it is even more difficult to know deep down that the system (political and economic) you are forced to work with is far from ideal and constantly places you between a rock and a hard place.

The announcement this week from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on solar feed-in tariffs (FiT) came as shock to the solar industry. But this shock wasn’t just from the FiT reduction, as Government had widely flagged its intention to reduce the subsidy designed to make solar panel installations economically viable – even if the size of the cut was larger than had been hoped.

Last week the Solar Power UK conference was held in Birmingham and the keynote speaker was Greg Barker, Minister for Energy and Climate Change. It was rumoured that he would make a ‘big’ announcement but, in the end, this did not happen. The announcement was leaked in the following days and was finally released by DECC on Monday  October 31. The result: a large cut in feed-in tariff rates from the end of this year.

At the opening of SMA’s UK HQ, Marko Werner Chief Sales and Marketing Officer & Board Member of PV inverter market leader SMA Solar Technology AG and Henry Dziuba, the Managing Director of SMA Solar UK Limited, spoke about the ramifications of the impending FiT cuts.