Grid Tied Inverter

B@rrels

B@rrels

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Has anyone found a way to trick GT Inverter into working when Eskom is off.I tried with a generator but no luck as a fault comes up..Grid Freq Fault.
 
Sinbad said:
It should be able to island itself and still provide power to the house... If not, it's a kark inverter.
Click to expand...

From Gordon-R link:

A common example of islanding is a distribution feeder that has solar panels attached to it. In the case of a power outage, the solar panels will continue to deliver power as long as irradiance is sufficient. In this case, the circuit detached by the outage becomes an "island". For this reason, solar inverters that are designed to supply power to the grid are generally required to have some sort of automatic anti-islanding circuitry.
 
Sinbad said:
It should be able to island itself and still provide power to the house... If not, it's a kark inverter.
Click to expand...

The problem is not with the inverter itself, but whether it is connected to the distribution board, and uses the same household wiring as the normal mains power. That is the definition of grid-tied, and in the CT municipality is not permitted without an interrupter circuit.

IMO the OP does not provide sufficient information to realistically answer the question.
 
Ah I see I got a little confused with terminology

This is what I meant:

An important product of anti-islanding protection is that a purely grid-tied PV system will only operate when the power grid is active. If there is a power outage the inverter will shut off and although the solar panels may still be generating power it will not be sent to your house. A hybrid grid-tie system ensures that you will still have a useable power source in the batteries even if the power is out.

The way I'd wire mine if I were to DIY, would be grid into inverter, and then inverter into house. So Inverter can still power house after switching its grid connection off... Not grid into house and inverter ALSO into house, which is what would score you your headcount in a power outage...?
 
Sinbad said:
The way I'd wire mine if I were to DIY, would be grid into inverter, and then inverter into house. So Inverter can still power house after switching its grid connection off... Not grid into house and inverter ALSO into house, which is what would score you your headcount in a power outage...?
Click to expand...

You could do it that way, but then you would need an inverter large enough to power the entire house. Running 24/7 would put a large burden on the reliability.

At the other extreme, if the load is small, you could use batteries and go off grid entirely. Each variant has pros and cons, including hybrid systems.

The simplest is solar panels with a grid-tie, and a few batteries to power some light bulbs, computers, etc. That is the example I am familiar with (installed at my cousin's house).

None of this really helps the OP...
 
Speaking to a salesperson he says it can reverse my meter which I'm kind of suspect about
 
Thanks for the replies.We are directly supplied by Eskom,not municipality.When the solar power is powerful enough,say from from 7am at about 500 watts the Eskom meter stops dead,and solar power is used until an item using more than 500 watts is used it starts operating again and so on all day.By midday we are up to 3000 watts and no Eskom used until 6pm say.I have another inverter(with 2 100ah batteries) in the house off a separate panel for a few lights,2 tv's,decoders,modem and cordless phone etc.When Eskom goes off we have this for our entertainment.If I were to take a plug from this inverter and plug it back into the mains to fool the main inverter that there is power would be great,but I need a "non return valve" to stop the main inverter feeding back into the 2nd inverter....theoretically:whistle::whistle:
 
Gordon_R said:
You could do it that way, but then you would need an inverter large enough to power the entire house. Running 24/7 would put a large burden on the reliability.

At the other extreme, if the load is small, you could use batteries and go off grid entirely. Each variant has pros and cons, including hybrid systems.

The simplest is solar panels with a grid-tie, and a few batteries to power some light bulbs, computers, etc. That is the example I am familiar with (installed at my cousin's house).

None of this really helps the OP...
Click to expand...

The inverter I was looking at was a 5kva, that could do 5kva from panels/batteries but also pass through 5kva from mains at the same time... 10 being more than enough for me :)

Unfortunately, $$$
 
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