Advanced techniques for troubleshooting solar arrays and generator connections

This paper describes some of the issues that have been encountered by network companies, and associated parties, when connecting solar and other renewable generation or storage systems to the `grid'. In many cases, these problems are sporadic or obscure, and can result in seemingly random disconnection (tripping) of the generator, or other problems such as harmonic distortion, overheating, or even safety issues such as shock or fire. This paper describes techniques that have successfully been used to pinpoint the root cause and to prevent recurrence.The techniques used include harmonic / power quality measurement, residual / stray current measurements and earthing tests. Thermal imaging, fault-level measurement, magnetic field / EMC measurements and radio frequency detection can also be used to augment these results.