Maintenance and Troubleshooting
| Important: The GT Inverter will reduce its energy output to protect its electronic | |
| circuits from overheating and possible damage in high heat conditions. For maximum | |
| output in hot climates, mount the GT Inverter in a shaded location with good air flow. | |
Angle of the sun | The angle of the sun in relation to the PV array | |
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| will vary depending on the time of day and time of year as the sun’s angle in | |
| relation to the array changes. Sunlight output decreases as the sun approaches the | |
| horizons (such as in winter in North America) due to the greater atmospheric air | |
| mass it must penetrate, reducing both the light intensity that strikes the array’s | |
| surface and spectrum of the light. In general, you can expect only four to six hours | |
| of direct sunlight per day. | |
Partial shade | Shading of only a single module of the array will reduce the output of the entire | |
| system. Such shading can be caused by something as simple as the shadow of a | |
| utility wire or tree branch on part of the array’s surface. This condition, in effect, | |
| acts like a weak battery in a flashlight, reducing the total output, even though the | |
| other batteries are good. However, the output loss is not proportionate to shading. | |
| The GT Inverter is designed to maximize its energy production in all of the above | |
| situations using its MPPT algorithm. | |
Other Factors |
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| Other factors that contribute to system losses are: | |
| • Dust or dirt on the array | |
| • | Fog or smog |
| • Mismatched PV array modules, with slight inconsistencies in performance | |
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| from one module to another. |
| • | Inverter efficiency |
| • | Wire losses |
| • | Utility grid voltage. |
| For additional information and technical notes concerning PV array performance, | |
| please visit our Web site at www.xantrex.com. | |