Renewables
Fachmann/Sectors/Renewables
Sector / Renewables

Keep generating
after every storm.

IEC 60364-7-712IEC 61643-31IEC 61643-11IEC 62305IEC 62561-2IEC 61400-24

A solar farm spreads thousands of DC connections across hectares of open field; a wind turbine is the highest point on the land; an industrial plant generating on its own roof adds a new system to a building that was not designed for it. In all three cases the installation is exposed to lightning and depends on a monitoring system that is often far from the control room. A poor connection, a burned inverter or a data point that does not arrive all translate into energy that is not sold. Fachmann integrates solar-side connection and protection, lightning and surge protection, earthing and control power under a single technical interlocutor, aligned to IEC 60364-7-712, IEC 61643-11, IEC 62305 and IEC 61400-24.

Typical applications

Applications
in Renewables.

Industrial rooftops · Wind turbines · Inverter and panel protection · Solar farm earthing · Monitoring and control · Strings and field boxes

PV panels on an industrial roof next to equipment and electrical enclosures
01
01 / 06

Rooftop PV on industrial buildings and distributed generation

The problem

More and more industrial plants install panels on their own roofs to generate energy under the distributed generation scheme. When the PV system is added, the building's existing lightning protection is almost never reviewed: the panels end up inside the strike zone, without respecting the separation distance from the air-termination system, and the surge enters through the DC wiring to the panel and the plant's equipment.

The Fachmann solution
OBO BETTERMANNbackbone

External lightning protection for PV: air-termination rods, supports, round and flat conductors and fixings for different roof types, in galvanised steel, copper, aluminium or stainless steel. It integrates the panels into the building's protection scheme and maintains the separation distance between air-termination and PV structure.

OBO BETTERMANNdifferentiator

PV surge protection on both sides: PV arresters for 1000 V DC, complete blocks for 1500 V DC with remote signalling and Type 2 generator connection boxes with MC4 connectors for strings. OBO BETTERMANN places them at the inverter inputs and outputs, on the DC and AC side, with one design condition: the field's maximum open-circuit voltage must never exceed the arrester's maximum continuous operating voltage.

Featured families
  • OBO BETTERMANN External lightning protection (air-termination and down-conductors)
  • OBO BETTERMANN PV DC arresters
  • OBO BETTERMANN PV generator connection boxes
Standards
IEC 62305IEC 61643-31IEC 60364-7-712
Three-blade wind turbine against a blue sky
02
02 / 06

Wind turbines: nacelle, tower and base

The problem

A wind turbine is the highest point on the land and takes direct strikes on the blades and nacelle. Lightning current travels down the tower to the foundation and on the way induces surges in control circuits, converters and SCADA communications. In addition, the cables running down the tower are under constant vibration: a fixing that loosens ends in a damaged cable, and a fire in the tower is very hard to fight at that height.

The Fachmann solution
OBO BETTERMANNbackbone

Lightning and surge protection along the whole path: air-termination and down-conductor systems and protection of the control panels in the nacelle; arresters for power and for data and IT at the base, where the grid and communications arrive; equipotential bonding in tower and base, and foundation earthing with round and flat conductors, cross connectors and fixed earthing terminals.

OBO BETTERMANNinfrastructure

Vertical cable ladders and tray systems with anti-vibration fixings and clamps for tower and nacelle cabling. BSS passive fire protection systems at the tower's cable penetrations.

Featured families
  • OBO BETTERMANN Lightning and surge protection (power and data)
  • OBO BETTERMANN Equipotential bonding and earthing
  • OBO BETTERMANN Cable tray and ladder systems
  • OBO BETTERMANN BSS passive fire protection
Standards
IEC 61400-24IEC 62305IEC 61643-11
PV inverter mounted under panel tables in a solar farm
03
03 / 06

Lightning and surge protection for inverters and panels

The problem

The metal structures and cabling of a solar farm cover a huge area and act as an antenna for lightning. The surge enters through the DC side of the strings and the AC side of the grid, and ends up in the inverter, the most expensive equipment in the plant and the slowest to replace. A general-purpose AC arrester is not designed for the DC side of a PV field.

The Fachmann solution
OBO BETTERMANNbackbone

PV surge arresters for the DC side, for 1000 V DC and as complete blocks for 1500 V DC with remote signalling, installed at the inverter inputs and in the generator junction boxes. The maximum open-circuit voltage of the field must never exceed the arrester's operating voltage.

OBO BETTERMANNinfrastructure

V50 Type 1+2 arresters in the grid interconnection panel (12.5 kA per pole and up to 50 kA total, 10/350 µs), with remote signalling on FS versions to monitor status from SCADA. VF Type 3 arresters next to sensitive electronic equipment in the control room.

CABUR

As a complement, PV surge protection for the DC side and the AC side, integrated into the same string combiner boxes.

Featured families
  • OBO BETTERMANN PV DC arresters
  • OBO BETTERMANN V50 Type 1+2 arresters
  • OBO BETTERMANN VF Type 3 arresters
  • CABUR PV surge protection (AC and DC)
Standards
IEC 61643-31IEC 61643-11IEC 62305
Solar panel mounting structure seen from below
04
04 / 06

Earthing and equipotential bonding of the solar farm

The problem

In a solar farm, the metal structures of thousands of tables must be at the same potential and connected to an earthing system that lasts as long as the plant. A galvanised conductor buried next to reinforced concrete foundations forms a galvanic couple and corrodes within a few years. Earth resistance rises, equipotential bonding is lost and the lightning protection is left without a discharge path, with no alarm to signal it.

The Fachmann solution
OBO BETTERMANNbackbone

Earthing systems for PV: ring and strip earth electrodes, stainless steel earth rods of 20 or 25 mm diameter, round and flat conductors, earthing connectors and terminals. High-alloy stainless steel with at least 2 % molybdenum behaves neutrally towards other metals and prevents galvanic corrosion with reinforced concrete. Bonding cross-sections are sized according to whether there is external lightning protection and whether the separation distance is respected, and with lightning protection the earth resistance is brought below 10 Ω per IEC 62305.

Featured families
  • OBO BETTERMANN Stainless steel earthing systems
  • OBO BETTERMANN Earthing connectors and terminals
Standards
IEC 62305IEC 62561-2
Technicians in hard hats monitoring solar farm screens in a control room
05
05 / 06

Monitoring, control and communications of the plant

The problem

SCADA, dataloggers, solar tracker controllers and the weather station receive signals that travel hundreds of metres across the field. A grid outage reboots the controllers and records are lost right at the event that needed to be analysed. Analogue irradiance and temperature signals on long cables arrive with ground loops and interference that distort the measurement and the plant's performance calculation.

The Fachmann solution
CABURbackbone

XCSU DC-UPS: 24 Vdc DIN-rail uninterruptible supply with integrated battery charging, 10 to 40 A depending on model. It keeps SCADA and controllers running during an outage without a separate external UPS. XCSE 24 Vdc power supplies with 85 to 264 Vac input for control panels. CON galvanic isolators and temperature converters: isolate 0-10 V and 4-20 mA signals and convert PT100 or thermocouple to 4-20 mA, eliminating the ground loops that distort measurement.

OBO BETTERMANN

24 V VF Type 3 arresters on the signal and control lines coming in from the field, as the last line of defence for the controllers.

Featured families
  • CABUR XCSU DC-UPS
  • CABUR XCSE power supplies
  • CABUR CON galvanic isolators and converters
  • OBO BETTERMANN VF Type 3 arresters
Standards
IEC 61724-1IEC 61643-11
Technician connecting PV string cables to a combiner box
06
06 / 06

Strings, connectors and combiner boxes

The problem

Each panel string adds dozens of DC connections working outdoors for years. A connector from another brand or a poorly crimped one increases contact resistance, raises temperature and can end in a DC arc, which does not self-extinguish. Strings reaching a field box without protection or monitoring can fail for weeks without anyone noticing, until the production drop shows up in the monthly balance.

The Fachmann solution
CABURbackbone

LINE 4 solar connectors: panel and cable connectors for 4-6 mm² and 10 mm² cross-sections, Y connectors and fuse holders, compatible with the most common inverters, panels and strings on the market. ISL, ISB, ISA and ISM string combiner boxes: combine the strings and protect the DC and AC side, in versions without shunt trip, with shunt trip for remote disconnection and with a monitoring circuit to detect the string that stopped generating.

Featured families
  • CABUR LINE 4 solar connectors
  • CABUR PV string boxes
Standards
IEC 60364-7-712IEC 62852
Reference regulatory framework

Referenced
standards.

The safety design rests on the international ISO/IEC framework, which in Argentina is articulated with AEA 90364-7-712 Regulation for PV installations, Law 27.191 promoting renewable energy, Law 27.424 on distributed generation and Law 19.587 on Occupational Health and Safety (Decree 351/79).

IEC 60364-7-712
Electrical installations: requirements for solar photovoltaic power supply systems.
IEC 62852
Connectors for DC applications in photovoltaic systems.
IEC 61643-31
Surge protective devices for the DC side of photovoltaic installations.
IEC 61643-11
Low-voltage surge protective devices: requirements and tests (Type 1, 2 and 3).
IEC 62305
Lightning protection: risk assessment, structures and installations.
IEC 62561-2
Lightning protection components: requirements for conductors and earth electrodes.
IEC 61400-24
Wind turbines: lightning protection.
IEC 61724-1
Photovoltaic system performance: monitoring and measurement requirements.

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