PV system installation: installation guide

Pri­vate­ly used pho­to­volta­ic sys­tems (PV sys­tems) are becom­ing increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar. Afford­able prices for mod­ules and sys­tem acces­sories, gov­ern­ment sub­si­dies and the prospect of low­er elec­tric­i­ty costs are encour­ag­ing more and more peo­ple to join the ener­gy tran­si­tion. It is par­tic­u­lar­ly easy to do this by gen­er­at­ing cli­mate-friend­ly elec­tric­i­ty with your own PV sys­tem. The job of installing a PV sys­tem involves a num­ber of tasks for you as an installer: First, the pho­to­volta­ic sys­tem must be planned togeth­er with the client. The plan­ning of a PV sys­tem is the cor­ner­stone for the sub­se­quent instal­la­tion of the solar mod­ules and the con­nec­tion of the PV sys­tem to the house grid. Because only with pre­cise plan­ning can the instal­la­tion run smoothly.

Table of contents:

1. Sys­tem and instal­la­tion mate­r­i­al: select PV sys­tem and pre­pare instal­la­tionys­tem und Montagematerial
2. Installing solar mod­ules: on the roof
3. After instal­la­tion on the roof: check the func­tion and safe­ty of the PV system
4. Con­nect­ing the PV sys­tem: from the roof to the home grid

First of all, you should select the sys­tem for the PV plant. It is pos­si­ble to install a sys­tem with string invert­ers or with micro invert­ers. Solar­na­tive offers the lat­ter: a safe AC sys­tem that is quick and easy to install and in which the com­po­nents are per­fect­ly matched. The Plug & Play sys­tem saves you time and effort when installing the solar sys­tem. The advan­tages range from the flex­i­ble attach­ment of the micro-invert­ers to the sub­struc­ture, the roof struc­ture or the mod­ule frame to the com­pact size of all parts, which saves you stor­age space and there­fore costs.

Next, check the com­pat­i­bil­i­ty of the solar mod­ules to be installed with the Solar­na­tive Pow­er­Stick micro-invert­er. Don’t wor­ry: our micro-invert­ers are suit­able for almost all com­mer­cial­ly avail­able PV modules.

To fur­ther pre­pare the PV sys­tem instal­la­tion, down­load the smart Solar­na­tive app and cre­ate a new user pro­file. After instal­la­tion, the app pro­vides you with an overview of all mod­ules, micro-invert­ers and Intel­li­Gates.

You will need the fol­low­ing com­po­nents from Solar­na­tive as mount­ing mate­r­i­al for the PV system:

• One Solar­na­tive Pow­er­Stick micro-invert­er per PV module
• One Solar­na­tive Intel­li­Gate per AC string
• Con­nec­tion cables from Solar­na­tive (the num­ber and length of the cables depends on the planned con­nec­tions between the indi­vid­ual micro-invert­ers and the con­nec­tion from the first invert­er of an AC string to the IntelliGate)
• One Solar­na­tive end cap per AC string

Fur­ther PV sys­tem mount­ing mate­r­i­al includes:

• Suit­able screws or adapters for attach­ing the micro-invert­ers to the substructure
• UV-resis­tant cable ties
• An AC cable suit­able for out­door use to con­nect to the dis­tri­b­u­tion box

Once you have the instal­la­tion mate­ri­als and tools you need to install the PV sys­tem ready, you can get started!

In our instal­la­tion video, we clear­ly explain the indi­vid­ual steps of solar sys­tem installation:

The Solar­na­tive sys­tem makes installing solar plants on the roof eas­i­er than ever before. Cre­ate a new sys­tem in the Solar­na­tive app and scan the QR code of the Intel­li­Gate. For sys­tems with mul­ti­ple Intel­li­Gates, scan them too. First mount the sub­struc­ture secure­ly on the roof and then mark all the places where a micro-invert­er is to be mount­ed. The opti­mum posi­tion is in the mid­dle under the solar mod­ule. Then you have var­i­ous mount­ing options avail­able for the Pow­er­Stick micro-inverter:

1. With an open rail pro­file on the sub­struc­ture of the PV sys­tem, sim­ply place the hous­ing body in the rail and secure the micro-invert­er with cable ties. With this vari­ant, the con­nect­ing cables between the invert­ers can also be laid in the rail. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly space-saving.
2. For all oth­er mount­ing sys­tems, use the screws or adapters belong­ing to the respec­tive sys­tem to mount the micro-invert­ers. The Solar­na­tive Pow­er­Stick has the appro­pri­ate holes for this and for fas­ten­ing to a sub­struc­ture or roof structure.
3. Anoth­er option is to attach the micro invert­er direct­ly to the mod­ule frame. Make sure that the holes required for mount­ing the solar mod­ules remain free and that the hous­ing body does not come into con­tact with the back of the module.

Close the last Pow­er­Stick micro-invert­er of the AC string with a Solar­na­tive end cap. Now you can con­nect the micro-invert­ers to each oth­er with Solar­na­tive con­nec­tion cables of the appro­pri­ate length. The solar mod­ules can then be installed and con­nect­ed to the Pow­er­Stick micro-invert­er pro­vid­ed for this pur­pose. Thanks to the pre-assem­bled cables and plug con­nec­tions of the indi­vid­ual com­po­nents, this is very easy. Con­nect the first Pow­er­Stick micro-invert­er of each AC string to an Intel­li­Gate using a Solar­na­tive con­nec­tion cable.

Once you have fin­ished installing the string, the next step follows.

You can check whether all com­po­nents have been installed cor­rect­ly on the roof. To do this, con­nect the Intel­li­Gate to a pow­er bank. If all micro-invert­ers are rec­og­nized and dis­played in the app, it is ensured that all com­po­nents have been con­nect­ed cor­rect­ly. If errors occur, such as the fail­ure of a mod­ule or con­nec­tion prob­lems, this will be dis­played in the app. Even after the PV sys­tem has been installed and con­nect­ed to the home grid, the func­tion of the sys­tem can be checked in the app at any time.

Now it’s time to feed the solar pow­er into the house. To do this, open the hous­ing of the Intel­li­Gate. Con­nect the AC cable to the ter­mi­nal inside the device. Close the Intel­li­Gate again and attach it to the sub­struc­ture to pro­tect it from the weath­er. Now all that remains is to lay and con­nect the AC cable to the dis­tri­b­u­tion cabinet.

With con­ven­tion­al sys­tems, con­nect­ing pho­to­voltaics to the domes­tic grid can be life-threat­en­ing due to the use of DC high-volt­age cables, which car­ry up to 1000 volts con­tact volt­age. The Solar­na­tive AC sys­tem only car­ries 230 volts AC volt­age — any dan­gers asso­ci­at­ed with high DC volt­age are there­fore eliminated.

Repeat all instal­la­tion steps for each addi­tion­al AC string of the pho­to­volta­ic system.

For fur­ther mon­i­tor­ing, you can con­fig­ure the set­tings in the Solar­na­tive app — at any time and from anywhere.

Solar­na­tive wish­es you suc­cess with your PV sys­tem installation!