March 30, 2016 – Eaton says its new Crouse-Hinds series direct current (DC) collection system is designed to reduce costs and installation time in large-scale solar projects. The Sunnector DC collection system includes wire harnesses and combiner boxes designed to support DC strings made with aluminum wire. According to Eaton, this reduces labour and material costs by 15% on average.

The  Sunnector is designed for use with 5 MW and larger-scale, grid-tied solar PV projects that incorporate fixed-tilt ground-mount racking designs.

The system allows installers to take advantage of lower cost and lighter weight aluminum wire, Eaton adds, while providing equivalent performance to copper wire. Cost savings correlate to string length and the system is designed for applications where string run lengths are longer.

The DC collection system includes combiner box configurations up to 24 strings at 30A and 12 strings at 60A, with operating voltages of 1000V.

Combiners are designed, tested, and listed to the Underwriters Laboratories (UL) 1741 standard. Harnesses are listed to UL9703 and 6703. The solution also meets Canadian Standards Association (CSA) c22.2 standard.