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Minute Solar

Top tips

The things that go wrong, from someone who has been there

Four sets of field notes on the parts of a solar and storage install that are rarely specified, rarely commissioned properly, and almost never written down — connectivity, data, metering and layout.

From our founderTim Gauntlett TMIET

  1. Top tip 01 · Connectivity

    Internet best practice

    Five ways to connect a solar or battery system to the internet, ranked worst to best by how they fail. The ranking matters more than the list: the difference between a hardwired connection and a powerline adapter is not speed, it is whether the system is still online in a year.

    • Why a splitter without a switch is not a network
    • Most green tech is 2.4 GHz only — and nobody tells you
    • The connection that passes commissioning and fails afterwards
    Read it →

  2. Top tip 02 · Protocols

    Data connections

    LAN, CAN and Modbus over RS-485 all turn up on an install, and two of them use the same RJ45 patch lead. Knowing which is which — and that the connector fitting proves nothing — is the difference between a battery that talks to its inverter and one that does not.

    • The router, the modem, and what each actually does
    • CAN uses LAN cable and is not LAN
    • Daisy-chain, never radial — and why twisted pairs win
    Read it →

  3. Top tip 03 · Metering

    Metering

    A power meter tells the system what is happening right now so it can decide what to do. An energy meter counts kilowatt-hours so somebody can be paid. Conflating them is why meters get left off the design — and why systems get commissioned that cannot see their own grid connection.

    • DC-coupled meters the grid; AC-coupled meters the grid and the PV
    • Utility, generation and net meters — and which the FIT era left behind
    • Where the meters go, in three drawings
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  4. Top tip 04 · Layout

    Planning the layout

    Add a source inside the installation and the supply fuse stops bounding the current in the board. Kirchhoff's current law says where that current goes; BS 7671 says whether the assembly is allowed to carry it. Between them they decide where the inverter connects — long before anyone looks for a spare way.

    • Why the DNO fuse stops being the limit
    • InA, Inc, and why diversity alone will not do
    • The three shapes of a compliant answer
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