The Earth Fault Protection Card performs rigorous earth resistance measurements on the solar array of the inverter before allowing start up, and it monitors earth leakage currents during operation. Due to certification restrictions, the design comprised an entirely discrete digital logic state machine which runs the earth leakage measurement eight times before the test passes and allows the inverter to start up.
Electron Artz was tasked to undertake the design from ground up with some design collaboration with Ario. The first design worked as expected and passed certification without the need for further revisions.
Ario MetaPower approached Electron Artz for design assistance with the electronic hardware for their 200kW inverter. Electron Artz was tasked to review, redesign and include additional functionality into two of the three boards of the inverter control stack. We were also tasked to design two new boards for the inverter from ground up.
The Earth Fault Protection Card was one of the two new boards that were designed from ground up.
