SOLAR PUMPING Guidelines - Electrical design and installation of solar pumps
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POWER GENERATORS – BACKUP OR SEASONAL SUPPLEMENT Solar pumping is generally designed to be fully autonomous, however, as soon as the water supply is critical for agriculture
or vital for the population, it is essential to provide a connection for an external energy source, usually a generator.
This external energy source can be used either in case solar power is unavailable (breakdown, troubleshooting, or
maintenance), or in addition to solar during certain seasons or weather events: heavy rain, cloud cover, snow covering
the panels... This energy source may not be permanently connected but the possibility of connecting it must be provided.
There are currently 3 different generator connection options shown in table 6 below.
TABLE 6: POWER GENERATOR POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS
With a special cabinet to be ordered from the pump supplier, that converts the source (changeover solar to generator) Through an input provided for this purpose inside the pump controller or the solar pump inverter With a pending MCB (motor type) in a box. The box is itself connected to the input provided for this purpose inside the pump controller or the solar inverter (Example - IO101 cabinet
Grundfos brand)
(Example
PP2200 Power pack
Lorentz brand)
This system is installed when the generator
is located far away from the inverter. In
this case we install a kind of permanent
extension that ends on a box on which we
will connect the temporary or permanent
generator.
Under no circumstances you may install an extension cord terminating with a male plug, permanently connected to the installation, and ready to connect to a generator. The connection to a generator must be made by an isolated
