Grid-Tie Inverters with Batteries [RE-wrenches]

Joel Davidson joeldavidson at earthlink.net
Sun Aug 15 17:33:31 PDT 2004


 

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Todd and Larry,

Thanks for the quick feedback. I hope more Wrenches chime in on this
subject. "The Unruly Power Grid," the cover story in the August 2004 issue
of IEEE Spectrum magazine is at
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/aug04/0804grid.html

The SW-series is/was a good inverter until the GTI was forced on us. Outback
deserves a lot of credit for keeping alive PV's tradition of responding to
Wrenches' wish list with a better product.

With thousands of residential grid-tie PV battery and batteryless systems
that you guys have installed, there must be other opinions.

Best regards,
Joel Davidson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Todd Cory, Mt. Shasta Energy Services" <toddcory at finestplanet.com>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2004 9:53 AM
Subject: Re: Grid-Tie Inverters with Batteries [RE-wrenches]




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Joel,

Here it is a no brainer... our power (Pacificorp) goes out predictably
whenever we got a good winter storm. It also blinks, and drops out from time
to time in the summer too. I used to be off grid. When I moved closer to
town and got grid power again I thought "Ah, back to the easy life", however
after never having a power outage off the
grid (unless it was from my working on the system) I realized I had gotten
spoiled and resetting the blinking digi clocks every week got old really
fast.

Here is the list of our power outages in the recent past:
11-7-02     15 1/2 hours
12-14-02    4 1/2 hours and again later 45 minutes
12-16-02     20 minutes
12-17-02    47 minutes
3-3-03    4 minutes
10-30-03    15 minutes
11-2-03    25 minutes
12-7-03    12 minutes
1-17-04    40 minutes
1-20-04    35 minutes
1-25-04    3 hours and again later 12 minutes
6-28-04    3 minutes

This does not include all the small bumps, just the major outages.

I had been using a grid tied SW4024 for the last 8 years... worked "ok", but
95% of the time it reboot my computer during a grid to inverter transfer.
The thing was loud and an huge energy hog, which was especially noticeable
during those dark winter months when it ate way more then it ever back-fed.
Last month the obsolete gear was
removed and a GVFX3648 installed.

WOW! What an improvement. With no setting tweaking at all, this machine is
like our Prius. Smart, efficient, and FAST! I can no longer even tell when
there is a grid outage, unless I happen to notice the meter. The phone does
not buzz when on inverter power, and the unit is smart enough to shut off
when it is not needed. Efficiencies look
to be quite close to the Sunny Boy standard, with the huge advantage of
having power when the grid is down. Even without low maintenance (AGM)
batteries the decision (around here at least) causes me to never do a grid
tie without batteries. Most folks here have private wells, so a grid outage
means no winter heat (without a wood stove)
AND no water/ toilets.

Considering the way the grid is stretched and with peak oil at our doorstep,
I the reliability of the grid will only get worse.

My .02

Todd



Joel Davidson wrote:

> Wrenches,
>
> I've often said that if we did our grid-tied PV system now, we would use a
batteryless inverter instead of our SW4048 with batteries because today's
batteryless systems cost less and produce more energy. However, the new
grid/battery inverters have me thinking about the value of grid-tie PV with
battery backup.
>
> One of PV's big selling points is personal and national energy security,
but if you have batteryless PV system and the grid goes down, so does your
PV. According to , the grid goes down a lot and really big power outages
will continue to happen.
>
> Just how often do power outages really happen? We have had only 3 grid
outages since June 1998 totaling 45 hours. Two outages were energy crisis
rolling blackouts and one was a neighborhood pole-mounted transformer that
burned out.
>
> Those of you with batteryless PV, how many grid/PV outages have you had in
how many years? What about your customers? Do you think the new grid-tie
inverters with batteries are worth the extra system cost?
>
> Joel Davidson

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