Hello Wrenches, I have an off-grid install where I was recently red-tagged by the state inspector. System is 24 volt with battery, Magnum inverters, some Magnum charge controllers, and a Morningstar charge controller. It is permitted under NEC 2017.
One of the inspectors issues was that my DC- conductors to the array / rapid shut down box are black color. He wants them to be white because he says they are solidly grounded. I reason that they are only solidly grounded when they are solidly grounded. As soon as the ground fault protection breaker opens, they are floating at array voltage. I think it is misleading and unsafe to have a white conductor that can have hundreds of volts of potential on it when a breaker trips. I haven't dug into the code yet. I'm just working on the logic that one of my mentors put into me which is white wires better not have voltage potential on them. "That's the sort of sh*t that kills electricians" is what he repeatedly said ... and it's stuck with me. Thoughts? I'm backed into the corner with the state, so I will be changing them to white even if it is unsafe ... unless I have some code backing. <rant>Changing the wires to white will get interesting up on the roof. I wonder if they want me to cut off the black MC on the modules and replace them with white? This is mostly just an exercise in the State of Minnesota only wanting to know about and allow micro inverters. They brought in a state inspector from three hours away who kept repeating that he was a "highly qualified individual", but was unable to identify or recognize a charge controller. He kept referring to the charge controllers as inverters.</rant off> Thanks, -James Jarvis APRS World, LLC +1-507-454-2727 http://www.aprsworld.com/
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