Chilicon Power Residential Design and Installation Guide
6
2.2 Products
Chilicon offers the following products to support photovoltaic projects:
Microinverters
CP-250E
Single input microinverter for 60 or 72 cell modules
CP-720
Dual input microinverter for 60, 72, 96 or 128 cell modules
Trunk Cabling
CP-MTC-1.025 1.025m cable - male connector one end and dual female connector on the other end
CP-MTC-1.7 1.7m cable - male connector one end and dual female connector on the other end
CP-MTC-2.15 2.15m cable - male connector one end and dual female connector on the other end
CP-MTC-JBOX 1.7m cable - bare wire on one end and dual female connector on the other end
CP-WTPRF-CAP Cap to seal unused female connectors
Communication Devices
CP-GWY-100 Communication gateway
CP-HEM
Aeon Labs Gen 5 Z-wave energy meter (ZW095)
CP-ZW-Rep Aeon Labs Gen5 Z-wave repeater (ZW117)
Tooling
CP-AC-Tool Disconnect tool for AC trunk cable connections
CP-DC-Tool Disconnect tool for DC MC4 connectors
2.3 System Design
Designing a system using Chilicon Power microinverters is straight forward provided the following areas are
addressed prior to deployment:
1)
Branch Circuit Sizing: The number of microinverters deployed on a branch circuit must not exceed the
maximum allowable current of 24 A supported by the Chilicon Power #10 AWG MTC trunk cabling. For the
CP-250E, each microinverter can produce 1.2A (@240V) at full power for a maximum of 20 inverters per branch
circuit, while the CP-720 can produce 3.0 A (@240V) at full power for a maximum of 8 duos (16 PV modules).
However, Chilicon Power provides the ability to self-limit microinverter power to support larger branch circuits for
lower wattage modules. Refer to Chilicon Power’s “
Technical Bulletin: Branch Circuit Sizing
” and “
Technical
Bulletin:
Power Limiting of Microinverters
” for more details on this subject. These documents as well as reference
single line drawings for typical branch circuits can be found in the appendix of this document.
2)
Voltage Rise: The linking of microinverters along a branch cable results in an increasing voltage at each node
in addition to the voltage rise associated with the cabling connecting the branch circuits to the main service panel.
Suitable wire sizing and connection topology should be exercised such that the voltage at the last micro does not
exceed 264V. Refer to Chilicon Power’s
“Technical Bulletin: Voltage Rise Calculations”
found in the appendix for
more details on this subject. Furthermore, should the situation require, it is possible to extend the 264V upper
shutdown limit. Please contact a Chilicon representative for more details on this procedure.
