January 1, 2019, is quickly getting closer and pretty soon 690.12(B)(2) is going to be applied. It seems like the only options are going to be some kind of module-level device that can be operated remotely by the inverter. Not many options out there right now other than SolarEdge and microinverters.
I don't see any sign of the UL listing option in 690.12(B)(2)(1) providing any relief before the end of the year, and 690.12(B)(2)(3) would be hard to implement, although not impossible. That leaves us with 690.12(B)(2)(2), and on larger roof-mounted C&I projects it's going to be challenging. Some inverter manufacturers are partnering with MLPE manufacturers, but I have not seen any of them announce that their systems are listed for RSS yet. On the upside at least we can go back to putting inverters in the shade instead of out in the array.
What are the chances AHJs waive 690.12(B)(2) because there are not many commercially available solutions yet and stick with what we are currently doing?
On another note, optimizers that take more than one module will probably fail RSS since it looks like most, if not all, will put the modules in series and that will exceed the 80V max RSS voltage. That's going to make larger systems even more costly.
I don't see any sign of the UL listing option in 690.12(B)(2)(1) providing any relief before the end of the year, and 690.12(B)(2)(3) would be hard to implement, although not impossible. That leaves us with 690.12(B)(2)(2), and on larger roof-mounted C&I projects it's going to be challenging. Some inverter manufacturers are partnering with MLPE manufacturers, but I have not seen any of them announce that their systems are listed for RSS yet. On the upside at least we can go back to putting inverters in the shade instead of out in the array.
What are the chances AHJs waive 690.12(B)(2) because there are not many commercially available solutions yet and stick with what we are currently doing?
On another note, optimizers that take more than one module will probably fail RSS since it looks like most, if not all, will put the modules in series and that will exceed the 80V max RSS voltage. That's going to make larger systems even more costly.