Grounding for Inverters Part 3: Getting Along With The Grid [UPDATED!]

This video is part 3 of a series. [UPDATED Version]

Part 1: The basics of grounding and bonding.
Part 2: Grounding and bonding for off-grid solar inverters.
Part 3: Grounding and bonding for grid assisted solar inverters, and using transfer switches to supply power to your existing house outlets.

Contents Of Part 3
00:00 - intro
01:43 - dynamic bonding
07:34 - no bonding
10:22 - Common neutral
11:58 - transfer switches
13:31 - summary

Grounding & Bonding For Inverters playlist

Reliance Transfer Switch video

Product Links:

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These videos are for educational purposes only. I’m not an electrician or electical engineer.
Solar projects should be performed by a qualified electrician.

[francoisguyot]

Thank you! Your presentation of the different inverters and the different bonding schemes is an invaluable resource which I wish I had back in 2018.

[loghomebuilder]

You answered so many of my questions with this video. Thank you so much.

[joegonzalez]

great video series ! thanks so much for the clear and simple explanation of this.topic

[mannysantizo]

I found your video most helpful - I have a Powmr Hybrid inverter 120v 3K 24V and it only has a L1 and N out - I do not have it connected to utility so I connected the ground to the ground rod which is in my garage and at the outlet I bridge the ground to the Neutral before I did that I made sure that with everything running including all inline breakers that there was no continuity or Voltage between the Neutral and the Ground - after that I connected my Tesla Mobile connector and the Ground fault is gone now - and it actually charging the tesla at 8 AMPS - 12 is the max - but just the fact that is working is a huge plus before that I would get a ground fault immediately after connecting. Thank you very much for your videos - I do agree that they should have a common Neutral hopefully in the future they build hybrid inverters that have that feature, I do not plan to connect it to Utility for Charging so it should be fine. In the future I plan to get a Subpanel and use the bonding from Ground to Neutral that comes with the subpanel, I have watch other videos including one by EG4 and by far your video seem to be the most professionally done, what a difference! I am new subscriber and will watch the rest of your videos.

[smca]

Great vid...answered lots of questions for me

[johnboy]

Great video. I am using a single circuit transfer switch to my furnace. Line power on one side and a floating neutral inverter generator on the other side of transfer switch. Bonding is in my main panel and if I understand correctly the neutral from generator is bonded by tying the load neutral and main panel nuetral together . This way I am following rule of bonding in one place only. Generator only used during power outages.
Than you again for the most informative video I have seen to date on this subject.

[laylyly]

Very good explanation, thank you very much, the best of explanation.

[Floyd]

Great series, really clear, have to subscribe.

[Kanuka-Forest]

As an installer who has used a few different inverters now, i don’t suggest using growatt. They can be ok for some people for a while, but they aren't very robust, have terrible software and programming and i have seen many fail. Save up a bit and go Victron, trust me on this.

[ChacinDiaz]

Excelent video…..My house does not have a gorund wire at all. Only a neutral and L1-L2 . I wan to feed L1 and neutral coming from a power bank (Battery-Inverter) to the buss bars and neutral to the neutral bar in the neutral bar. Of course I have a double breaker that cuts the L1 and L2 feed off the grid when the power bank or the inverter is feeding the home circuitr. I am not in the USA. An electritian recommended a 3 phase breaker taht will not not only have L1 and L2 from the grid but also de neutral phase.

[loghomebuilder]

Oh, BTW, I bought a Growatt ES 5000 from Signature Solar, who have disconnected the internal gnd-neutal bonding in the invertor.

[richardphillips]

Thank you for your videos. I am using a Xantrex 2000 Watt inverter which has the ground and neutral bonded and is not easily removed. The transfer switch is a Generac. In the Generac the switch only switches the Line and not the neutral. The neutral is hard wired from the generator/ inverter to the main panel neutral and the ground is also hard wired through the Generac. Is it safe to not connect the ground wire from the Xantrex to the Generac transfer switch? As a test, I connected the transfer switch to the Xantrex through the GFCI receptacle on the front of the inverter. The GFCI will trip when connecting the ground wire, but works if the ground is not connected from the inverter. I believe this is because the GFCI senses a lower resistance path back to the source (the inverter). If the ground is not connected from the inverter to the transfer switch, the neutral ground bond is supplied at the main panel and you have equal current entering and leaving the GFCI receptacle. I am a little scared to connect the inverter to the transfer switch from the terminals in the back of the inverter until I know that it is safe. I am planning to draw no more than 15 Amps from the inverter at 120 Volts and I am not connecting the Xantrex to "shore power". After thinking about this a lot and doing some research, I feel that as long as I use the GFCI outlet which is rated for 20 Amps, this should work. But I would love to hear what you have to say. Thanks again.

[fernando.andina]

Great video. Unfortunately the common neutral is illegal in many countries. If you want to run in island mode, you need to rely on your own neutral. This is a more complex scenario where you use the grid neutral when there is grid, and the internally bonded neutral when using the island mode. If the inverter does it all its great but if it doesn't? You could work in this scenario in another video if you want.

[usa-ev]

Great video! So in these grid assisted cases it's OK to have the grid neutral connected to the inverter's neutral (either directly or through the main bonded connection). I was concerned that this could backfeed the grid during inverter operation to some degree (obviously not full-on backfeeding).

[casstippit]

Watched this whole series, and appreciate all the info. Having some issues with my growatt 3000 lvm 24. It’s in a van conversion so it can’t have a permanent NG bond. When using shore power everything is fine. When off shore power and using inverter I’m getting the 40v on G to N and 60v on G to L. I tried the jumper line between the N in/out and while it did turn off the “reverse polarity” light in my paneltronics breaker panel I’m still getting the same voltage readings and fault light in my three prong outlet tester. Any idea what my issue is and how to fix it?

[williaml]

I do have a question
I have 10 370w panels. An EG4 6500, an EG4 battery and a sub panel with a neutral bar but no ground bar. The 6500 has a ground terminal. Not hooked to grid. Where should I hook the ground cable?

[amythinks]

Wow. I spent the last week hunting down nuggets of information trying to figure this thing out. I knew there was a problem with my desire to purchase the 6000 XP from signature solar and I think you just confirmed it. I have an RV application. Sometimes we will be plugged in and sometimes we won't. I don't want to have to remember to switch the software for the times we're plugged in and the times we're not. That much I already knew. But I didn't fully understand if that problem applied to all inverters. It seems that for this application the dynamic bond would be much better. No messing around with changing up the settings. If it's plugged in, it should know to float and if it's not it should know to establish the bond, right? Looks like maybe I need to go with the EG4 3000 watt inverter. Am I missing something here?

[techchat]

hi i want to bound my solar inverter which is solis 6kw hybrid chinese branch here in pakistan 2 wires came from grid hot(230v) and neutral so can i bound on main dp only like you told rule number 1 and any other changes made ? inverter also have PE port on both Grid in side and load out side...
Please explain and advance love from paksitan.

[kenputer]

My inverter/charger is not bonded so my breaker panel is bonded now my generator does have a boned neutral, will that be a problem when I am using the generator to charge the batteries through the inverter/charger ?

[istvanszini]

Thank you for your video, this information is difficult to find even with the technical support of some of the companies mentioned. I'm installing an Eg4 3000 W on my van, it seems that I'll need to install the screw to enable the bounding while the van is connected to the grid while charging the batteries. Since this inverter only has protection ground (green wire) on the AC input, do you think you could install CFCI outlets that work when the van is disconnected from the grid?