Importance of combiner boxes in photovoltaic power generation systems
As a technician who has been working as a combiner box for ten years, I have witnessed the process of the combiner box industry in my country from the beginning to the prosperity. Combiner Box Products.
Today, let's talk about the importance of combiner boxes first.
Many people who don't pay much attention to combiner boxes may think that combiner boxes, which only account for one or two cents in the cost of power station construction, account for a small proportion of power station investment, and they only need to switch and assemble lightning protection fuses. important. But in fact, it may be this little thing. If it is not treated well, it will cause a big headache for the power station, causing a lot of shortage work, affecting power generation, and even affecting the personal safety of operation and maintenance personnel.
First of all, although the combiner box is small, 100% of the power generation of the power station must go from the combiner box.
The investment of the combiner box in the entire power station accounts for less than 1%, but 100% of the power generation of the power station must go from the combiner box. Any failure of the combiner box will directly affect the power generation.
We know that the efficiency of inverters and modules has been developed to the extreme, and it is difficult to increase the power generation by 1%. But as long as a combiner box fails, trips by mistake, or burns out, 16% of the power generation of a phalanx is lost.
It can be seen that the importance of the combiner box in affecting the power generation is high.
Second, there are so many combiner boxes that any small problem may be enlarged hundreds or thousands of times.
Taking a 100MW power station as an example, the number of standard DC1000V 16-channel combiner boxes is about 1,200, and the number of standard DC1500V 24-channel combiner boxes is about 460.
With such a large number of equipment, if there is a little defect in the design or process technology, such as poor selection of components, such as rust or water leakage in the chassis, such as insufficient safety distance, too many connection points, screws are not tightened, etc. These problems will expand hundreds or thousands of times and are difficult to deal with.
Third, the distribution of equipment is scattered, and maintenance is not easy.
The combiner boxes are distributed in all corners of the photovoltaic area, it may be on a steep hillside, and it may be one or two meters deep in water. Especially for fish ponds or water surface projects that use pipe piles, two people are required to punt the boat to stabilize the hull during maintenance, and one person can climb a ladder to operate, which is very difficult to operate.
Fourth, the manufacturers are uneven and the quality is different
When the combiner box market is growing on a large scale, many manufacturers have begun to make combiner boxes. Maybe switch factories are doing them, maybe lightning arrester factories are doing them, and maybe even sheet metal factories are doing them, and the quality is uneven. Today, although only a small number of manufacturers have settled down to continue production after industry elimination and screening, professional combiner box manufacturers with big brands should still be selected. The pain they have experienced can help the users of the combiner box to avoid many detours and buy safer and more reliable combiner box products.
Therefore, although the combiner box is only a product of one or two cents in the power station, its importance cannot be ignored. Choosing a good product plays a very important role in later maintenance and improving power generation.
