Grounding question

joe22hannagmailcom · August 2023

I’ll helping a neighbour set set up solar system and I’m unsure of the proper grounding. His solar array is 250 feet from his pump house. The pump house is 210 feet from the mobile home. The inverters (2) are in the pump house. I was considering grounding all 3 (solar array, pump house, mobile home) independently, but was advised that may be a bad idea. Any thoughts please.

SumPower · August 2023

joe22hannagmailcom said:

I’ll helping a neighbour set set up solar system and I’m unsure of the proper grounding. His solar array is 250 feet from his pump house. The pump house is 210 feet from the mobile home. The inverters (2) are in the pump house. I was considering grounding all 3 (solar array, pump house, mobile home) independently, but was advised that may be a bad idea. Any thoughts please.

In general it is not acceptable to have individual grounds at each location. Really not enough information here to give you a complete defintive answer. Grid tied ? Off-Grid? Stacked inverters? Transfer swtich ? Inverter brand? Battery based Inverter?

But, any building or structure that has electrical conductors entering or leaving it must be bonded to the Grounding Electrode System of that building or structure.. Either at the source or where the conductors enter the building or structure.

Assumming the pump house has a main breaker panel fed from the 2 inverters, it is considered a service and needs two ground rods at the pump house. A #6 cu. solid ground wire from the grounding bus in the panel to the ground rods, with out any splices in it.

At the mobile home the ground from the pump house needs to be bonded to the mobile home Grounding Electrode System.

If the panels are ground mount on steel supports, bond the steel supports the junction box/combiner box what ever is there.

Is this a grid tied system?

If not, then there is probably a Critical Loads Panel at the mobile home? I see no one jumped in, probable becasue there is not enough information to give a quick concise answer.

All the best,

SumPower

SumPower · August 2023

joe22hannagmailcom said:

I’ll helping a neighbour set set up solar system and I’m unsure of the proper grounding. His solar array is 250 feet from his pump house. The pump house is 210 feet from the mobile home. The inverters (2) are in the pump house. I was considering grounding all 3 (solar array, pump house, mobile home) independently, but was advised that may be a bad idea. Any thoughts please.

In general it is not acceptable to have individual grounds at each location. Really not enough information here to give you a complete defintive answer. Grid tied ? Off-Grid? Stacked inverters? Transfer swtich ? Inverter brand? Battery based Inverter?

But, any building or structure that has electrical conductors entering it must be bonded to the Grounding Electrode System of that building or structure.. Either at the source or where the conductors enter the building or structure.

So in your question, assumming the pump house has a main breaker panel fed from the 2 inverters it is considered a service and needs two ground rods at the pump house. A #6 cu. solid ground wire from the grounding bus in the panel to the ground rods, with out any splices in it.