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Solar energy => solar systems homemade and commercial => Topic started by: tinman on May 03, 2014, 11:37:20 AM

Title: Grid tie inverter question.
Post by: tinman on May 03, 2014, 11:37:20 AM
I have found an excellent deal my local electronics supplier has ATM -A 1.5kVA grid tie inverter. Normal price is $1399.00 AU dollar's,and on special ATM for only $165.00 AU.
http://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=M7977

My question is this-dose a grid tie inverter have to be conected to the grid to work?-dose it need the 240 volt ac(in my case)signal to opperate. Or can i use this as a normal inverter off grid?.

Thanks
Brad
Title: Re: Grid tie inverter question.
Post by: MarkE on May 03, 2014, 12:48:12 PM
I have found an excellent deal my local electronics supplier has ATM -A 1.5kVA grid tie inverter. Normal price is $1399.00 AU dollar's,and on special ATM for only $165.00 AU.
http://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=M7977

My question is this-dose a grid tie inverter have to be conected to the grid to work?-dose it need the 240 volt ac(in my case)signal to opperate. Or can i use this as a normal inverter off grid?.

Thanks
Brad
Grid tie inverters will not operate without a live utility connection.  They incorporate a feature called anti-islanding where they specifically work to detect the utility and if they don't find it, stop producing power.  This is a legislatively mandated safety feature directed at preventing the inverter from energizing the utility lines when they are being serviced. 
Title: Re: Grid tie inverter question.
Post by: tinman on May 03, 2014, 01:41:07 PM
MarkE

Indeed ,i totaly had forgotten about that point.

Thanks for the reply.
Title: Re: Grid tie inverter question.
Post by: mscoffman on May 03, 2014, 03:54:36 PM
Well, small grid tied inverters generally don't because they assume that you are doing grid-tied only stuff, that
is you would not expect to run your whole house on this inverter if the utility line went down because this is too
small to support the total household load. But this is a bad precedent to set for larger inverters.

The other hand I would insist that a 7KW or more grid tied inverter have a stand alone mode
so that in event of a power failure your house could stand alone and run on it's back up battery
bank. The grid connection will be severed in any event. It should cost only a few dollars more
to have the frequency generating circuit added.

Not doing (b) will penilize people who are grid independent and want to use that type inverter, and would
prevent you or someone else from becoming grid independent should they want to in the future. I predict
that grid interconnect benefits are joing to go the way of a July snowstorm in the Northern Hemisphere once
electrical utilites find out what they are up against.

:S:MarkSCoffman
Title: Re: Grid tie inverter question.
Post by: MarkE on May 03, 2014, 10:29:40 PM
Well, small grid tied inverters generally don't because they assume that you are doing grid-tied only stuff, that
is you would not expect to run your whole house on this inverter if the utility line went down because this is too
small to support the total household load. But this is a bad precedent to set for larger inverters.

The other hand I would insist that a 7KW or more grid tied inverter have a stand alone mode
so that in event of a power failure your house could stand alone and run on it's back up battery
bank. The grid connection will be severed in any event. It should cost only a few dollars more
to have the frequency generating circuit added.

Not doing (b) will penilize people who are grid independent and want to use that type inverter, and would
prevent you or someone else from becoming grid independent should they want to in the future. I predict
that grid interconnect benefits are joing to go the way of a July snowstorm in the Northern Hemisphere once
electrical utilites find out what they are up against.

:S:MarkSCoffman
You are simply wrong.
Title: Re: Grid tie inverter question.
Post by: e2matrix on May 04, 2014, 07:03:11 PM
Well that depends on when you got your inverter.   That law may have been mandated in some areas and at some time in the past but I've had a couple high power grid tie inverters that will run and can feed back to the grid when there is no power coming from the grid if you program them that way.   I will assume new inverters being sold in the U.S. will not be able to do that.   The ones I had in the past were not  programmed that way because I knew it would be dangerous.