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Anyone had lightning strike your array and get saved by over current protection?

Your exposure to lightning induced surges, especially on PV side, may vary.
Utility line is expected to carry all sorts of nasties. UL listed products are protected to some extent. Midnight or other products with good size MOV should do considerably more.
MOV can fail shorted (therefore shorting out supply). The ones in Midnight (which you can buy individually from DigiKey) are connected in series with a thermal protection device so will switch to open. That can be wired to an indicator light, as Midnight has done.
 
OzSolar said:
-The best way to project against a direct strike is to make sure your equipment doesn't look any more attractive than the tallest object around you.
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That's an easy one, I'm always the most attractive tall object around.
 
mvonw said:
My question on this post is not that lightning strikes can happen (they do), or that they can be very destructive (they clearly are), but is there any real world, empirical evidence of commercial surge suppressors preventing damage..??
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NEMA Surge Protection Institute (NSPI) might have what you're looking for. I'm trying make sense of how they are rated.

EG: 10AWG is rated at 30 amps and that makes sense to me.
 
Direct hit or very close, too much energy to divert.
The only evidence I have of the protection working is when it is destroyed
(did it's job), and the attached systems still work.
Most of the devices I use have a status LED.
I check them during Summer, replace the zapped ones.
(midnite solar MNSPD-600, Square-D SDSA1175)
www.se.com

Type SDSA1175 | Schneider Electric USA

Schneider Electric USA. Browse our products and documents for Type SDSA1175 - SDSA1175 SPDs
www.se.com www.se.com

Other evidence is the "street" side POTS and DSL wiring on the Square D Surgebreaker Plus Whole House protector.
The Street side wire insulation is black and crispy, protected side nice and intact.

www.se.com

Surgelogic™ Surgebreaker Plus | Schneider Electric USA

Schneider Electric USA. Browse our products and documents for Surgelogic™ Surgebreaker Plus - Whole House Surge Protective Device offering all-in-one protection for appliances, lighting, cable, ethernet, and telephone.
www.se.com www.se.com
 
And my therapist has been working so hard to get me stop believing that "they are watching me". I just got this email and if I've searched for surge protection on Amazon it's been at least 2 years.

1659201433152.png
 
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I may be thinking about this all wrong. Mr. Google says that a typical lighting bolt produces 2.7 x 10*6 wh of energy. Perhaps I should erect a giant metal pole and connect it to my battery bank.......
 
OzSolar said:
And my therapist has been working so hard to get me stop believing that "they are watching me". I just got this email and if ever I've searched for surge projection on Amazon it's been at least 2 years.
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It's either intentional sharing from the forum software on this site, or all the links we post all over this site/thread. Each of these links that get posted here probably link into facebook/google/amazon tracking databases.
 
OzSolar said:
And my therapist has been working so hard to get me stop believing that "they are watching me".
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Ha, I have given up on any expectation of privacy. The only thing I do about it, is to physically remove any address information from my trash.
FaceBook changed their parent company name to Meta, as in metadata. I am glad someone cares enough about my meta data to save it. Maybe that will be a new service offered by mortuaries is to charge us a fee so we can be buried with out metadata.
 
There is a NFPA code for lightning strike protection. NFPA 780.

NFPA 780: Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems

<p>1.1 Scope.<br />1.1.1 <br />This document shall cover traditional lightning protection system installation requirements for the following:<br /><br />(1) Ordinary structures<br />(2) Miscellaneous structures and special occupancies<br />(3) Heavy-duty stacks<br />(4) Structures containing...
www.nfpa.org
There is a NFPA 70 Code, NEC, for protection using electrical circuits and devices.
They are two different distinct codes.
Do not expect a surge protector to protect you from a DIRECT lightning strike !
If you or your equipment is struck by lightning, its toast.
The NFPA code for lightning strikes equipment protects a defined area by diverting the lightning strike to ground, thereby avoiding the direct lightning strike to equipment and structures it is designed to protect.
 
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cs1234 said:
It's either intentional sharing from the forum software on this site, or all the links we post all over this site/thread. Each of these links that get posted here probably link into facebook/google/amazon tracking databases.
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It's got to be something like that. The exceptionally odd deal is that I got the email BEFORE pvdude sent his message with that SQ D product.
 
In commercial building electrical protection, we would specify a lightning protection system to be installed which included roof terminals (spikes) with heavy down conductors (like 2/0 equivalent), connected to a buried ground ring around the building perimeter, which itself was sometimes augmented with driven ground rods. Then we would specify 140kA or more of surge protection at the building electrical grid service entrance, and more surge-protectors at interior distribution panels.

Arthur Bradley (Disaster Preparer) recommends 140kA minimum surge protector, and high saturation ferrite chokes on L1, L2, and N at your service entrance. The ferrites slow down the surge enough for the surge protector to turn on do its job. Though the context of his work is EMP protection, lightning strike induced power line spikes are included.

To answer the original question if PV surge arrestors truly prevent damage to equipment, IMO they will prevent SOME damage from a nearby strike, but no damage protection from a direct strike.

A more certain way to protect your solar panels and equipment attached to them is to put the entire solar panel array under the zone of protection of a lightning protection system as described for commercial buildings—lightning rods (well above the four corners of your array) , heavy ground leads, and extensive grounding system. Then, the surge protector could handle the secondary (inductively coupled) surge from a direct strike.

Likely what I will do when I put up my 5 kW array. Hope this helps.
 
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Harry Wynne said:
A more certain way to protect your solar panels and equipment attached to them is to put the entire solar panel array under the zone of protection of a lightning protection system as described for commercial buildings—lightning rods (well above the four corners of your array) , heavy ground leads, and extensive grounding system. Then, the surge protector could handle the secondary (inductively coupled) surge from a direct strike.
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Hmmm.. I think I'll just take my chances with the lightning. ?️
 
mvonw said:
My question on this post is not that lightning strikes can happen (they do), or that they can be very destructive (they clearly are), but is there any real world, empirical evidence of commercial surge suppressors preventing damage..??
Click to expand...
Nothing will protect you from a Direct strike unless you invest $50K-$100K in specialized lightning gear. This is how Over the Air TV and Radio Stations protect themselves from the Multiple strikes that hit them every year.

For Home use 8-10ft Ground Rods going around the house and bonded together and bonded to the Panel box is your best protection.

After Having several indirect hits in my neighborhood that resulted in surges coming in through the cable TV Line and burning out the HDMI port on my TV as well as the Cable box itself I decided to try a Siemens Gas discharge tube on the RG6 cable line. So far no problems and one of my friends asked me how I stopped the problem. I sent him a Amazon Link and he also bought one. Two weeks ago he said they got a Hit in the neighborhood and it worked.
His Next door neighbors all lost their TV's and Cable boxes but he said the Siemens Device blew Apart and blasted the cable end off but all of his equipment was saved, even the Cable box itself.

He sent me this photo of the RG6 cable with the end blown off and the wire melted.
Siemens.JPG
 
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