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Inverter power use

  • 23-12-2024 11:49AM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,162 ✭✭✭


    How much power should my Solis inverter be using?

    I’ve switched off solar power to the house a few times at night and discovered a loss of 10% or more from the batteries,so at least a kilowatt or more

    What’s going on ? Does it really use that much power when not doing anything? Such a waste



Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 237 ✭✭on_the_roots


    DC—>AC (and vice versa) does waste some energy in the form of heat, that's why it gets warm on the heat sink.

    Most inverters have ~97% efficiency, pretty normal. So 90% is a bit low, you are probably not seeing the real difference there.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,911 ✭✭✭✭Calahonda52


    you need to isolate the battery as well..

    “I can’t pay my staff or mortgage with instagram likes”.



  • Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 7,102 Mod ✭✭✭✭graememk


    I dunno where they measure the efficiency, but round trip AC in to AC out is 15-20%

    I've measured the AC via an emontx and the DC shunt on my battery, over different inverters too.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,162 ✭✭✭pureza


    so if I isolate the battery,it would stay at whatever charge it’s at

    ATM I’m manually actively managing when to be on solar & bateries as I want them fully charged Xmas day (for the cook 😂)


    is island mode possible on a solis inverter btw ie using the system as a ups in the event of a power cut?

    Does this require a solis pro inverter? Or a special standby diesel generator connected?(to charge the batteries in the event they run down in the outage)

    Can the solis or the solis pro successfully prevent power going to the grid during an outage ?

    Presumably that would require equipment of some kind at the meter where the grid comes in? An automatic switch over ?

    Presumably that needs certifying in some cast iron way

    We don’t want to be electrocuting anyone fixing the outage 😱



  • Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 7,102 Mod ✭✭✭✭graememk


    Inverters self use is about 50-100w from what I've seen.

    Yes the solis has a EPS output, but you are limited to the output of the inverter.

    Usually it's a manual changeover so you can limit the number of circuits that are powered. The changeover switch itself is interlocked so you can't put power out into the grid when there is an outage



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