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I am certain this has been covered somewhere but I can’t find it. I am looking at moving my small solar panel setup out to the edge of my yard. There are no shade structures there. About 150 feet. Can I use 10 or 12 gauge stranded wire inside conduit and add my own mc4 ends ? Or would a lower gauge be better and reduce the watt loss ?
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Before we can take even a wild guess, how many volts and amps you looking to travel that 150' ? -
Oops, right now 40 volts , 9 amps . I am planning to add another 2 200 watt panels in the future so then maybe double those numbersComment
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For that kind of run you definitely want the panels in series, max
voltage and minimum current will seriously minimize losses. If
you will accept 3% (voltage) loss of around 4 V, at 9A and a 300
ft loop, Ohms law says no more than 0.44 ohms total, or .0015
Ohms per foot. So 12 ga could get by above, heavier to cut losses.
Bruce RoeComment
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Good morning!
I went though this with our system installation. We had an addition built between our house and garage that we wanted to pre-wire for the solar before the panels went in. The only requirement that the vendor (Generac) required was that it be 3/4" EMT Conduit. We had to have about 70' run from the garage, through the addition and down into the utility basement where the inverter was placed.
The EMT conduit was a standard wire that the electrician was familiar with and able to source. The EMT conduit is the light green in the attached diagram (from our installation documentation).Rade Radosevich-Slay
Tiverton, RIComment
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Thanks for the responses. I think I may go back to my original plan of mounting them near the house and live with the slight early morning and late afternoon shading.Comment
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Closest panels here are 500 ft from the house, adequate wiring
keeps total AC and DC losses to around 2%. Bruce RoeComment
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