Powerwall and Solar Provisions for Future

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shortcircuit2

Senior Member
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South of Bawstin
The last big gotcha: need to have a class 1 or class 2 ethernet cable that connects the gateway and powerwall, and if planning to but these in very far away places (e.g. gateway at the meter, and PowerWall in the basement where the solar inverters are for temperature control), run this or leave a conduit that you can fill later if you can do it without 360 deg of bends, etc. The Tesla installers use an ethernet cable that has a mains insulation rating so they can put it in the high voltage conduit. Note that you cannot just use regular ethernet cable even outside of a conduit since the instructions require class 1 wiring methods for the comms.

Code does not allow communications wiring to be installed in the same raceway as power wiring.
 

GoldDigger

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Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
Code does not allow communications wiring to be installed in the same raceway as power wiring.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that sections of the code referring to communications refer to data transmission that is not associated in any way with a utility that provides voice or data distribution over a wide area.
IMHO the "communications" carried over Ethernet or Modbus for purely local purposes is not what those code sections are addressing. The applicable rules are those dealing with limited power circuits which happen to be used for information and control purposes. The "communications" sections also do not apply to intercom systems, for example, and arguably may not apply to phone service within a PBX on the customer side of its connection to the common carrier phone network.
 

jaggedben

Senior Member
Location
Northern California
Occupation
Solar and Energy Storage Installer
Yeah, I think the code is very unclear on this stuff. It's unclear to me if 725 applies to Modbus communications when they are integral to the functioning of a system like this. If it does apply, then it's unclear to me (due to lack of information) whether such a communications circuit would be Class 1, 2, or 3. Class 1 is allowed in the same raceway with power wiring, see 725.48.
 
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