Author Topic: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)  (Read 3324 times)

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Jamiel1997

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Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« on: August 21, 2015, 09:07:36 PM »
Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
im looking for a Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup) for under $200

dnix71

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #1 on: August 21, 2015, 10:15:22 PM »
I see you are from Antigua/Barbuda. That place is quite small. Do you actually have a grid? There are no grid tie inverters that meet European or US standards for safety in the price range you asked.

Where you intend to use the inverter determines which ones you can legally install. Amazon and eBay are not legitimate places to buy grid tie inverters because they knowingly sell equipment that is illegal and unsafe to use. This has been a long standing problem in countries that enforce safety rules on grid tie. NO plug-in grid-tie inverter is legal in the US, but Amazon and eBay will happily take your money and sell them to you.

Batteries make a system much more expensive to maintain in the long run, but if you don't have a 24-7-365 grid, then you need backup of some kind when the power goes off.

We need a lot more details from you about what you want to do and why.

Jamiel1997

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #2 on: August 21, 2015, 10:39:09 PM »
1 yes we do have a grid lol.
2 plug-in grid-tie inverters are legal in my country (or at least nobody in the power company cares because were such a small country.)
3 we have a 24-7-365 grid but only when hurricanes come and knock down a few poles is when power goes down.
4 i want a grid tie inverter and might probably add a regular inverter onto my system for backup in the future, but for right now my focus is on a decent grid tie inverter for less than $200.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2015, 10:46:50 PM by Jamiel1997 »

Frank S

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #3 on: August 21, 2015, 11:35:09 PM »
What power output do you have? You didn't mention any Solar PV a wind generator or a hydro unit.
 So what would the GTI be used for if you didn't have battery back up
 there are a lot of UPS units for very small un-interrupted power usages they won't feed the grid though.
I live so far outside of the box, when I die they will stretch my carcass over the coffin

dnix71

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2015, 11:57:08 PM »
Okay.

Let me put it this way. If you have a grid, someone owns the equipment and bills you for use, correct? This is not like India where people connect anything and expect power for free. You do seem to have some history of an unstable grid. http://www.apua.ag/1550-2/
http://www.reegle.info/policy-and-regulatory-overviews/AG Maybe you would tell us about this and what happened to resolve it.

This is someone elses's property and investment. In the US we have co-ops that make and distribute electricity in areas not served by large power generators, but those co-ops are still legal entities with investors and owners and people who are held accountable if something fails or someone gets hurt. To connect to a co-op you follow their rules.

If you want to know what is acceptable to connect your home or business to a grid owned by others, then you need to ask whoever is in charge of your grid. Don't ask us. Even in the US there is no one set or hard and fast rules about grid-tie. Some places make it easy, some don't. Even if a plug-in grid-tie inverter was allowed, there are good reasons for not doing it that way.

To grid tie properly you need an electrical meter that is capable of running backwards and metering correctly while doing so. In the US those are only available from the power company after you install a licensed, approved system. Also the grid in places like the US is tightly regulated. Grid-tie inverters legal for use in the US must immediatley disconnect if they sense out of bounds frequency or voltage.

If you plugged a US GTI into a branch circuit it wouldn't run for long. Every time a major appliance cycled on that branch the voltage spikes and line phase shifts would cause the inverter to shut down. Also, if your home has ground fault circuit interruters, you cannot feed them backwards, they have a line in and load out hardwired. You would either damage them or be forced to remove them to backfeed from a branch.

You also live on small islands. You need marine grade equipment. The cheap stuff you get off the internet won't last long in damp salt air.

There are tax breaks for certain renewable energy equipment bought for use in Antigua/Barbuda. http://www.owiaenergy.com/solar-pv-basics.html This company has information about installing renewables connected to the APUA and a link for people licensed by the APUA to install grid-tie with or without battery backup.
http://www.dasolar.com/solar-panel-installation/bahamas This company serves your country and claims to be licensed.

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/64115.pdf   PDF here. A nice summary of options.

Jamiel1997

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2015, 09:52:56 AM »
You guys are doing exactly what every other forum I've been to and asked this question has done, avoiding the question and stating a bunch of other things. I just want links posted that corresponds with my requests.

Bruce S

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2015, 03:06:58 PM »
We ALL see your posts.
MOST of us do NOT want to answer as we ALL know it's dangerous!!
Stop and think about this!! If you've asked this question on other forums and NOT gotten an answer and we AIN'T answering it....
There's a really good reason.
I can quickly answer your question, but officially refuse!
Best of luck
Bruce S
A kind word often goes unsaid BUT never goes unheard

oztules

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2015, 04:25:21 PM »
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Brand-New-2-5KW-PV-Grid-Solar-Inverter-Inspire-Solar-N2500-/271967279575?hash=item3f528359d7

Fully approved, on Ebay, about $73USD.

Many other examples available.
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_odkw=inspire+inverter&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xcehe+inverter.TRS0&_nkw=cehe+inverter&_sacat=0

"Clean Energy Council approved and Compliant to:
IEC 62103; EN 50178; IEC/EN 62109-1;
IEC/EN 62109-2; IEC/EN61000-6-1:2007
IEC/EN61000-6-3:2007; IEC/EN61000-3-3:2007;

--> AS/NZS 3100:2009; AS4777:2:2005; AS4777:3:2005 "

http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xinspire+inverter.TRS0&_nkw=inspire+inverter&_sacat=0

Your problem is freight... not inverter availability.

I'm not in a position to know if you know what to do with it, only you know that......... but don't buy the little ones that just plug in, as they tend to  fail early in their life due to capacitor fatigue from ripple.


.................oztules
« Last Edit: August 25, 2015, 04:29:58 PM by oztules »
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boB

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2015, 05:00:21 PM »

Here's more stuff.  Not the greatest for under $200   but under $200 nonetheless...

http://www.amazon.com/Phonetone--buillding-Grid-tie-Inverter-Converter/dp/B00RX3YF12/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440536289&sr=8-1&keywords=grid+tie+inverter

Just go to amazon.com  and search for  grid tie inverter.

Heck, you can just search Google for grid tie inverter or almost any search engine.

boB


dnix71

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2015, 07:56:51 PM »
OZTULES The one listed is non-compliant. The company also went out of business.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1956370

If it's that cheap, there is a good reason for it.

bOB The one you list is blatantly non-compliant. It plugs in with a cord.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2015, 08:01:44 PM by dnix71 »

Bruce S

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #10 on: August 26, 2015, 09:42:07 AM »
dnix71;
Don't worry so much friend, the OP is NOT in the USA and may not have the same regs as we or other nations do.
He's stated this in one of his posts.
MY post was to hopefully not sound peeved about it, but to help understand why people are saying what they are saying and why they're trying to be helpful from a safety point of view.

Cheers!
Bruce S
A kind word often goes unsaid BUT never goes unheard

oztules

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #11 on: August 26, 2015, 04:59:09 PM »
Nix  it is compliant, the clowns in the forum you point to are just full of sticker envy and have no idea of how they work even. Their tests were adumberate at best and false.

They have compliance numbers, and were removed from the CEC list because they were no longer supported in the market. This was more to do with sticker snobs and government subsidies than anything electrical .. READ the idiot replies, most of them could not tie their own shoelaces, much less understand anything about a grid tie inverter.... they are the usual arm chair experts, and the world is full of them.
They complied they had numbers, they were legal, and there are still thousands of then running around the country.

Brilliant scientific statements like"they are cheap for a reason" as justification for their conceited superiority seems to have changed since... the lowly cheap inverters are now commanding big money.. in fact more than some normal run of the mill ones... with no guarantees, no manufacturers back up, they are now comanding  real money
http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xaerosharp+inverter.TRS0&_nkw=aerosharp+inverter&_sacat=0

I applied for  and got permissions to grid tie from Hydro Tasmania... government authority. They have the inverters on their list as complying with AS3777. The CEC ( clean energy council ) had it on their lists too, and the unit/s were tested and approved by the inspector when the installation was approved and new meter installed.

The CEC is a think tank that the Government uses the recommendations of TO MAKE THE GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIES AVAILABLE. If there is no company to back up the product, the Government wont fork out the money for an installation that does not comply with consumer laws.. so it gets taken off the list of the CEC.. not because of technical compliance.. it complied once, it does not change. AS3777 does not change.

Complying with CEC only makes it available for Government assistance, complying with AS3777 makes it LEGAL

Those know alls don't know all, and the tests they performed are just dumb. The first start of the day from turn on is relatively fast, as it does a quick test, and then connects... ... but IF IT SHUTS DOWN FOR ANY REASON then it times out to the correct limits. They do this and I do complain to the HYDRO TASMANIA that the wind turbines they installed stop these things from producing on windy days... why, because they do comply with AS3777, and they do wait the 3 mins for clean power.. which may be 10 or 20 minutes before they see 3 mins of clean contiguous power. Big wind,mills and small 1mw diesel generators make for frequency problems.... and it is the expensive ones from Europe that fail tests in this area... horror of horrors. This is mostly ignored by the boffins, as how could experienced companies with expensive inverters do this??? so they seem to have sticker blindness when it suits them.

Too many people make populist decisions based on fatuous group think.... and those clowns fit that catagory. The demise of Inspire was a commercial disaster stemming from wildly optomistic government policy ending up with many thousands of very useful inverters with AS3777 compliance hitting the distressed creditor auctions all at once. into a market that you cant use them unless your a licenced installer, which you cant install because the Govt subsidy is no longer available because the company went insolvent, and you would breach consumer laws.... makes then scrap really but not because they don't comply.... just unusable because of circumstances.

Aerosharp were installed as a very popular inverter at one point, but that was at the time when huge subsidies were availabe, and the aerosharps were cheaper than the australian and european versions.
Consequently the low budget and fly by night operators all climbed on board, and with no idea of what they were doing, were designing and selling systems that were woefully under done, and suspect wiring , poor installation started to emerge.. typical of any time a government gets involved with free money. It corrupts the market.

Those established operators that knew what they were doing from the get go, stayed in business, those fly by night operators went bust for good reason, but  whole swaths of systems were now without guarantee, and the govt made the rest of the industry cover it. One large operator decided that because of the inherited risk, to recall all aerosharps, as they had a high call back rate. This was more caused by improper installation by new budget installers, but when it tastes bad, we panic and knee jerk a response. Aerosharp were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They are actually very well built, and I have had no problem with any of mine in the last 5 years.

So in short... they do comply, and your gurus are not espousing facts, just industry drivel. You either get tested and certified or you don't... you cant no longer comply because your parent company goes bust or whatever, the machine is the machine, it does not change. You can get delisted from the industry energy council, but that has nothing to do with technical specifications, only industry noise.

I get tired of defending common sense.... they do comply.
So go pick on the european ones, they seem to be running fine on windy days..... because they seem to ignore the islanding, so are popular because they produce all the time... funny how things work really. The chinese ones stop when they are supposed to... and get a bad name from not runnng all day BECAUSE THEY COMPLY.

Don't believe everything you see on a forum.

Hydro Tasmania have not come knocking at my door to tell me my inverters no longer comply... and they know where to find me too.


.....................oztules
« Last Edit: August 26, 2015, 05:07:34 PM by oztules »
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oztules

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #12 on: August 26, 2015, 05:27:13 PM »
To add insult to injury, it looks like the inverters have UL approval too The california Govt has UL approved  and cert lists that may attract govt subsidies... along with  the test results for all the inverters on the approved list.
You can look at the results here:
http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/equipment/inverter_tests/summaries/

"Inverters must meet the following criteria in order to be added to the eligible equipment - (1) have safety certification (UL 1741) from a Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL) and (2) submit conversion efficiency data tested by a NRTL. The conversion efficiency data is from testing on a minimum of five samples and is for rebate calculation purposes. Submitted information is confirmed by the Energy Commission prior to being added to the list of eligible equipment, but it is not continuously monitored. Information presented on this webpage does not demonstrate equipment quality, performance over time, reliability, or durability. All parties should perform their own due diligence on all equipment."

Note: to attract Govt monies, there needs to be relevent guarantees ( 10 years) which can't happen here now... so no CEC.... get it now?

So the poor old aerosharp made it to YOUR eligible equiptment list from the looks of it, not just the AS3777 over here, and the inspire would be a generic name for the one imported by the defunct company here. I don't think they ever installed one.. they didn't get that far. I think it was manufactured by CEHE, but it did get compliance here and a CEC certification which obviously lapsed on death of the company... but the AS3777 certification remains valid.

................oztule
« Last Edit: August 26, 2015, 05:35:26 PM by oztules »
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oztules

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Re: Grid tied inverter (with or without battery backup)
« Reply #13 on: August 26, 2015, 08:38:19 PM »
Sorry Nix, for some obscure reason I was thinking AS3777 it is AS4777.

I found the handbook that comes with the aerosharp, and it has UL1741, IEEE1547,VDE0126-1-1, and DK5940 and lastly AS4777 compliance.

The CEHE/ inspire has the previously noted compliance that you ignored in the first post.
Last I saw, they also had TUV and were talking about the USA market, and going to do UL 1741..... no idea if they did ...nor do I care about the USA market.

We have our own idiots over here to worry about.


...............oztules
Flinders Island Australia