General Compliance Overview …

  1. The Clean Energy Council maintains a list of inverters which are approved to be installed by accredited installers.
  2. Approval of inverters requires submission of a Certificate of Compliance … also called a Certificate of Suitability, issued by a certifier accredited by JAS-ANZ (ASA)
  3. The certificate verifies that the inverter complies with the relevant Australian/International   Safety Standard.

Current Applicable Standards for Grid Connect Inverters

Until recently, the CEC has required compliance with AS4777.2 (Grid Connect Inverter Requirements) and AS4777.3 (Grid Protection Requirements).

The above two standards refer to AS/NZS3100 (General Requirements for Electrical Equipment) and AS/NZS60950.1 (if fitted with IT related electronics) as follows:

AS4777.2 …

4.1 General

The inverter shall comply with the appropriate electrical safety requirements of AS/NZS 3100.

NOTE: AS/NZS 3100 allows that if an individual Standard dealing with specific features of the

design, construction and testing of any particular class or type of equipment is issued, it

supersedes the general requirements of AS/NZS 3100 that are specifically dealt with in that

individual Standard.

 4.10 Data logging and communications devices

Any electronic data logging or communications equipment incorporated in the inverter

should comply with the appropriate requirements of AS/NZS 60950.1. Particular attention

is drawn to requirements for electrical insulation and creepage and clearance distances.

But now there is another standard … IEC62109.1 and IEC62109.2.

  • Where did this come from and why?

In its document: “Best Practice Regulation of the Australian Solar Industry” the CEC sites the PV Array Installation Standard AS/NZS5033 as the fundamental reference to all standards pertaining to PV systems and their installation. …

“With the recent re-release of AS/NZS 5033, the CEC is currently updating the installation and design guidelines. This will further improve installation practices and reduce the occurrences of common issues”[1]

With regard to safety of associated inverters, AS/NZS5033 refers to IEC62109-1 and IEC62109-2 in its Scope …

AS/NZS5033 SCOPE:

… The safety requirements of this Standard are critically dependent on the inverters associated
with PV arrays complying with the requirements of IEC 62109-1(Safety of power converters (PCE) for use in PV systems – General Requirements) and IEC 62109-2 (Particular Requirements for Inverters) and all power conditioning equipment complying with IEC 62109 series standards. …

So … What happens to the original standards (AS4777.2 & AS4777.3)?

These standards still apply since IEC62109 does not address the grid-connect requirements of inverters (AS4777.2) and Grid Protection requirements (AS4777.3).

  • This is qualified by IEC62109-.2 in the Note of the Scope as follows …

 “Note: The authors of this Part 2 did not think it would be appropriate or successful to attempt to put grid interconnection requirements into this standard for the following reasons:

a). Grid interconnection standards typically contain both protection and power quality requirements, dealing with aspects such as disconnection under abnormal voltage or frequency conditions on the grid, protection against islanding, limitation of harmonic currents and d c injection, power factor, etc Many of these aspects are power quality requirements that are beyond the scope of a product safety standard such as this” … etc

What standards will ASA advise to be included on the certificate issued for listing with the CEC ? 

The CEC has listed the standards as follows …

http://www.solaraccreditation.com.au/products/inverters.html:

The table supplied by the CEC does not reflect the requirements of Power Conversion Equipment (PCE) to be certified to IEC62109-1 and IEC62109-2 for any Grid Connect Inverter <200kW.

  • This appears to be contrary to the progression proposed by the CEC.

As the issuer of Australian Safety Approval Certificates for Australia, the only option for ASA is to apply IEC62109-1 and IEC62109-2 in addition to the currently applied AS4777.2 and AS4777.3 … and subsequent AS/NZS3100 (and AS/NZS60950.1)

Summary:

While still unclear in their control documents, the CEC have made it clear on their web site and by emails to currently listed importers and manufacturers, that Grid Connect inverters or power conversion equipment (PCE) must be certified compliant with IEC62109-1 and IEC62109-2 by 11 July 2015 of be removed from the relevant CEC approval products list.  This is in addition to:

  • AS4777.2
  • AS4777.3
  • AS/NZS3100
  • (AS/NZS60950.1)

The main reason for the listing of solar inverters on the CEC approved product list, is to enable the system owner to claim Renewable Energy Certificates (STC’s) under the Renewable Energy Target scheme.  If the device that you described does not have any input for renewable energy sources (PV or wind), then it would be outside of the scope of our product listing scheme.

For product testing, contact Austest Laboratories.  For safety approval certs, contact ASA.

[1] CEC Publication: “Best Practice Regulation of the Australian Solar Industry”, Section 7