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Is it possible to protect your Solar System against EMP?

MurphyGuy said:
There has been some testing done with artificial EMP generators that indicate a solar panel that isn't being used should survive, but solar panels that are in use my lose up to 1/2 of their output.

Your charge controller will be toast, your inverter will be toast, but your battery won't care unless it's a lithium battery and has a BMS, in which case, while the battery will probably be fine, the BMS is likely toast.

Nuclear power plants will probably not explode, it is more likely they will melt down. Any explosion will be relatively small and the radioactive elements they spew out will usually be limited to a small geographical area of 30 to 50 miles. Chernobyl was a special case, the Japan reactor is more typical of what would happen.

Unless you live next to a nuclear power plant, your biggest worry will be your neighbor down the street who has 4 hungry young children and no way to feed them.
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These are word of wisdom and great info, thanks!
 
Maitake said:
MurhpyGuy has it right.......although the hungry neighbor thing hasn't played out over time. Hungry people don't go from decent people to "Ima kill you for food". For the most part history shows they start walking until they find food or die. Yes expect property crime for a while until they walk along or fall over.
NEMP and CME are as different electronically speaking as you can get.
CME wont affect any of your solar stuff even iff it's on line during the event.
NEMP, well let's hope that's not gonna happen, no good answers unless your goung full groundhog prep.
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Interesting, I was under the impression that something like the Carrington event would be the exact same effect as NEMP.
 
Hauls Assington said:
That is what I am saying, if there is a huge EMP, the nuclear power plants will eventually all fukushima, and there would be a hideous amout of radiation everywhere. Their cooling systems would fail.
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So the designers of Nuclear power plants didn’t take into account an EMP attack?

No Shielding or faraday cage around emergency equipment?

Seems pretty short sighted.
 
Not so much the required shielding as it is running a nuclear plant off-grid. An EMP event would impact all supply chains. That means no fuel for generators that provide electricity for water pumps. The military would prioritize fuel if available, but it could be a problem after the initial fuel runs out.

I left the utility industry in 2016 and nuclear in 2014. There were several Fukushima mandates going on at the time. I don't have the details but can report back on what I find. These may or may not address an EMP event.
 
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Maitake said:
MurhpyGuy has it right.......although the hungry neighbor thing hasn't played out over time. Hungry people don't go from decent people to "Ima kill you for food". For the most part history shows they start walking until they find food or die. Yes expect property crime for a while until they walk along or fall over.
NEMP and CME are as different electronically speaking as you can get.
CME wont affect any of your solar stuff even iff it's on line during the event.
NEMP, well let's hope that's not gonna happen, no good answers unless your goung full groundhog prep.
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I read a blog from an American who traveled to Venezuela to visit his brother and brother's family. This was during the food shortage a couple years ago.
While he was there, an old lady's cat was seen in a window by someone walking down the street. A couple hours later, a gang showed up and dragged the old lady out of her house and ransacked the place.

They thought that she had food, because if she still had a cat and hadn't eaten it yet, there must be food in the house.

I can't verify the story but the blog was just about the guy's travels.
 
T-486 Ashepoo said:
I prep by properly storing all of my old system components. I have several midnite classics and inverters from my pre-AIO system days.
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That's smart. Put them behind two layers of Faraday cage to be sure.

I keep an entire 5kW system behind three layers of steel, aluminum, aluminum, for a total attenuation of about -110db. We bought an OutBack Radian 8048, Outback charge controller, Mate3 programmer, and an extra 20 solar panels. All wrapped up along with a bunch of other stuff.

Its an insurance policy.
 
Biasjo said:
So the designers of Nuclear power plants didn’t take into account an EMP attack?

No Shielding or faraday cage around emergency equipment?

Seems pretty short sighted.
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They claim they can get the reactors cooled down enough with the on-site emergency fuel. I believe they prevent problems if the grid problem is a short lived event lasting a week or two. Beyond that though, even the cooling pools for spent rods would start to boil off.

We keep a supply of IoStat pills as well as a military grade radiological meter and a civilian version made in the USA.

I have a nuclear power plant about 80 miles down wind of me, and one on the other side of Michigan (upwind) 175+ miles away. I don't think we would be affected by any severe fallout even in a worst case scenario.
 
SO GUYS I FOUND THIS thread before posting a new one. if it's a hijack let me know but i don't think so.
Here we are 2-11-23. forget the media, those balloons are likely doing surface contour measurements or collecting low level tech signals that don't go far. Pretty sure everything else can be done from satellites.
So that increases the likelihood of EMP (the surface contour stuff is for that, can't remember the technical term).
An EMP may be a long shot, but it's certainly not a c-theory in view of the globe right now. So like one would for lightening or wind, I would like to at least try and protect what I can.
So in that crazy world would keeping extra diodes in a 'safe" place be adequate for the panels? I can't find info (yet) anywhere that clarifies how hot the (super short) pulse is, regarding over voltaging a chip or resistor, or erasing eproms, or simply physical "overcurrent bloom" for lack of the correct term.
Here is a "thoughts" list any solutions or additions? thanks in advance.
panels- not effected except for maybe diodes?
inverters and or charge controllers- faraday cages- the lines in and out are still a problem
batteries- can we jump the internal BMS components?
microinverters- spares/, shielding?

this is a real can of worms ya know?
It depends who you are but it almost is like you need to start with a big shielded room. years ago i was in one of those to effect some repairs-they really do look like in that mel gibson will smith gene hackman movie
 
MurphyGuy said:
That's smart. Put them behind two layers of Faraday cage to be sure.

I keep an entire 5kW system behind three layers of steel, aluminum, aluminum, for a total attenuation of about -110db. We bought an OutBack Radian 8048, Outback charge controller, Mate3 programmer, and an extra 20 solar panels. All wrapped up along with a bunch of other stuff.

Its an insurance policy.
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Did you build a big metal box or wrap equipment in foil? Looking for ideas on how to achieve this.
 
If you know there is a blast coming even a lightning storm then you should disconnect all wires from your equipment and if you're super worried, short the input output data terminals etc to reduce or eliminate voltage spikes on your equipment. Obviously don't try this with your batteries and your solar panels cuz that's going to get really interesting.
 
schmism said:
The other way to say this is No. You can not have a functioning solar system and expect it to survive an EMP.
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Why not?

Up close EMP, like the Doomsday plane experiencing a near miss, delivers high frequency energy. So it is shielded (things like ITO on windows) and tested with an EMP generator.

Any self-respecting prepper will be far from ground zero, won't be exposed to much of that high frequency. What he will see is the extremely low frequency, < 60 Hz, < 1 Hz that blankets the U.S.

Very low frequencies induce low frequency current in power lines, near DC so they saturate power transformers, which blow up if they don't have fused primaries.

Your PV array won't pick up so much energy, not being miles long. And they don't go to a transformer. Only if the energy overwhelms surge arrestors will you have a problem.

Power lines are "twisted"; as you drive down the road you'll notice the 3 wires periodically changing places. That will reduce differential mode (but not common mode.) You could do the same to your PV array, by selecting order of panel connections to balance area on left and right hand side, loop of wire/panels crossing back an forth.
 
bones1 said:
Did you build a big metal box or wrap equipment in foil? Looking for ideas on how to achieve this.
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Both.
I have three metal Faraday cages.. Most items fit into those three, but a 5kW pallet of spare solar panels is obviously too big, so they are first wrapped in plastic, then foil.

Aluminum foils makes for an excellent Faraday cage if you are neat about wrapping it and if you make sure you generously overlap the foil and tape all seams smoothly.

My friend wanted to protect his generator so we made him a foam box for it. We used that 3/4 inch foam board insulation stuff, glued the panels together, then wrapped it up in foil.
 
Excellent ideas, thanks. Do you think those aluminized-looking emergency blankets would work, maybe they are mylar instead of aluminum.
 
This is hilarious.
Its like asking how can I make myself completely explosion proof ?

Well first you need to ask what kind of explosion, something a mile away, fifty feet away, or a fire cracker going off in your shorts.

Anything can be blown up. And anything can be totally destroyed by EMP.
Its just a matter of scale.
Most people have absolutely no idea how powerful an EMP can be, as with explosives there is no maximum.
Any protection can be defeated if the released energy is high enough.
 
bones1 said:
Excellent ideas, thanks. Do you think those aluminized-looking emergency blankets would work, maybe they are mylar instead of aluminum.
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Mylar, while it looks like aluminum, will not stop an EMP. Won't even slow it down.

I do not know what the blankets are made of, but I would strongly suggest sticking with what we know works. Steel, copper and aluminum. Even better is when you can alternate materials like I did. My large Faraday boxes are made of steel, then each item that is placed inside is first put into a DriShield 3400 bag. Items of critical importance, like HAM Radios, laptops, and solar charger/inverter equipment, are all behind 3 layers of Steel-Aluminum-Aluminum.. With each layer providing about 40 to 45db of attenuation, their survival is up in the 99.99999% range.

A single layer Faraday cage, properly made, will protect 90% of your stuff 90% of the time. Two layers will protect 99%, 99% of the time, and three layers is just goofy "It must survive" territory.

Most of my stuff is behind two layers.. The steel box, and then a DriShield 3400 bag.. that's probably good enough for almost everything.

The DriShield bags are nice because you don't have to seal them, just fold them over on themselves a couple times and tape them off. Very easy to open back up.

Aluminum foil works, but you basically have to destroy it to get the item back out, so I suggest only using it for stuff that will only come out in a real emergency.
 
One thing you should know about an EMP attack.

The idea is to hit an enemy, than wait for a time until the enemy has repaired much of his equipment, using up any available spare parts.
Then hit again. This time no further repairs are possible....

Then its back to the middle ages without anything electrical.
 
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Warpspeed said:
One thing you should know about an EMP attack.

The idea is to hit an enemy, than wait for a time until the enemy has repaired much of his equipment, using up any available spare parts.
Then hit again. This time no further repairs are possible....

Then its back to the middle ages without anything electrical.
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So Faraday cages are just a waste of time, don't worry about building one.
 
Warpspeed said:
One thing you should know about an EMP attack.

The idea is to hit an enemy, than wait for a time until the enemy has repaired much of his equipment, using up any available spare parts.
Then hit again. This time no further repairs are possible....

Then its back to the middle ages without anything electrical.
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An EMP attack would result in a full scale nuclear war. There won't be anything left to attack with afterwards.
 
I think I am more concerned about lightning protection then EMP. WHEN the emp happens, and it will, you may not want power depending on where you live. Though it might be nice to have the power for later on after allot of the events go down. Maybe a year or two later.

If I could have just enough solar for flashlights, headlamps and radios I would be happy for a while. I just need to get a hand pump put on the well, though I have a creek that is a second option but its a hike.

No A/C would suck but its do-able if necessary.
 
Warpspeed said:
Who knows what will trigger a nuclear war ?
But if one does start we are all totally screwed.
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Several nuclear armed nations, including those in NATO, have already stated a high altitude nuclear EMP attack would be treated as any other nuclear attack.
 
sunsurfer said:
I think I am more concerned about lightning protection then EMP. WHEN the emp happens, and it will, you may not want power depending on where you live. Though it might be nice to have the power for later on after allot of the events go down. Maybe a year or two later.

If I could have just enough solar for flashlights, headlamps and radios I would be happy for a while. I just need to get a hand pump put on the well, though I have a creek that is a second option but its a hike.

No A/C would suck but its do-able if necessary.
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Power is used for keeping the sump pump dry, food refrigerated, and outdoor camera's going.

From the perspective of someone viewing your home, there would be no difference between turning on a bedroom light or using a battery powered camping lantern.
 
MurphyGuy said:
Power is used for keeping the sump pump dry, food refrigerated, and outdoor camera's going.

From the perspective of someone viewing your home, there would be no difference between turning on a bedroom light or using a battery powered camping lantern.
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I am in the country. My peaceful idyllic homestead would turn into a FOB. I got a list of folks based on relationships and skill sets.

Firewood stacked in IBC totes make a dandy hesco barrier replacement. Hoping the tractor still works. Samuel Colt didn’t make men equal, that honor belongs to front end loaders and pallet forks.
 
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