Disaster, almost

 

Lightning hits the solar station.

   Saturday afternoon, September 9 (2023), lightning struck my solar station.

   I happened to be looking at the indoor power panel, when the bolt struck. There was a flash of light, the clap of thunder quickly followed by a popping noise at the panel and a small flash.

   I waited till the storm abated and disconnected everything. The inverter, which converts battery power to household power, began to whine. The internal alarm had been set off by the strike.

   I reconnected everything to a smaller backup inverter and examined the main inverter. There appeared to be no other damage other than the overload light which was continuously on. I think the light was also affected by the strike. 

   This morning, I reconnected the unit after a thorough examination. I disconnected the alarm during the examination and am going to give the unit a real world test. My theory is the unit will function as before, excepting the protection circuitry.

   The reason the damage was not greater, I believe,  is due to the nature of my station construction.

   The panels are bolted to a steel pipe which leans against a 2"x6"x8' piece of lumber. The lumber is attached to an aluminum ladder. The only part of the panels made of metal, are the frames. The cable running to the house is supported by steel aircraft cable attached on one end to a pvc pipe and on the other to a bracket bolted to the side of my house.

   I think the bolt struck the steel cable and jumped to the ladder and ground as well as my indoor power panel. That would explain the minimal damage.

   I need to ground the cable by making the circuit from cable to ladder, to earth ground, continuous by connecting the cable to the ladder and the ladder to a rod driven into the ground.

Everything's back to normal after I disconnected the inverter alarm. I examined the outdoor part of the station and found nothing. The line from the array to the house was sagging so I tightened the supporting cable while I was at it.

BOOM!!!