Developments in “balance of systems” and protection in PV installations

A photovoltaic installation may contain many components in addition to the PV modules. All of these require careful selection in order to meet the requirements of the system. Taken together these are usually called “balance of systems” (or BOS) and may make up half the cost of a system. Here, the author describes how the cause of failure of a PV system is more often attributable to BOS failures than to specifically PV components