Grid-Tie Inverters with Batteries [RE-wrenches]

Joel Davidson joeldavidson at earthlink.net
Tue Aug 17 19:13:52 PDT 2004


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Hello William,
With all the news stories about rolling blackouts during the energy crisis,
we too have found grid power to be fairly reliable in Los Angeles. However,
I am surprised that your SW is doing as well as your ST. Our old ST
customers swapped out when the new XR was offered and have seen a
substantial improvement.
Joel Davidson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William Korthof" <wkorthof at earthlink.net>
To: <RE-wrenches at topica.com>; <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 4:47 PM
Subject: Re: Grid-Tie Inverters with Batteries [RE-wrenches]




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I live in the urban LA basin and have a SW system for my house,
an ST/XR system on a guest house, and SMA system on another
house around the corner. Not surprisingly, the SW system is
outperforming the ST/XR system slightly. The SMA system is
disadvantaged by flat panels and substantial western shading but
still works well.

The SW inverter does work well, but during three years it may
have provided backup power during five brief interruptions at best.
For the inefficiency, cost, and maintenance, I think solar-UPS
is usually not "worth it" for our customers. In fact, most of our
customers start losing interest in solar-UPS at a cost premium
of $1,000-$2,000. At the more realistic $4,000-$8,000 premium,
all but a few loose interest.


/wk



At 06:46 PM 8/16/2004, Allan Sindelar wrote:

>
>
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>Wrenches,
>Having read all of the other responses to date, let me offer a slightly
>different perspective. In the Santa Fe region we have reliable grid power
>from PNM, primarily coal-fired with long-term purchase contracts
>(environmental consequences not included in this post) at about $.08/kwhr
>base residential rate, and no state incentives yet. So our typical client
>has "green" as his or her primary motivation, not economics. The
>maintenance-free aspect of the Sunny Boy batteryless systems has a major
>appeal to this client type. We make it clear up front that if the utility
is
>down, so are they, but for the green client, pointing out that this is no
>different than before they added solar is usually sufficient.
>
>We ask for "primary motivation" as one of our top initial questions of a
>lead. If it's "to reduce my electric bill" we give them some good handouts
>on efficiency improvements and gently show them the door. If it's "clean
>solar power" and "power during outages" doesn't come up in the initial
>answer, we encourage batteryless grid-tie. To date, only if "power during
>outages" comes up as a primary response do batteries figure into the
>equation and our design recommendations.
>
>The Outback GT option has only been available for a few months, and we're
>having trouble getting product promptly anyway. We have been waiting for
>good field reports and a track record before designing around the Beacon
M5,
>having been burned once with AEI. Up to now, if someone has asked for GT
>with battery backup, we have told them to wait for awhile, as the current
>technology (SW/GTI or, previously, AEI M5000) is inefficient and
cumbersome,
>and the next generation (GTFX) is just around the corner. Now with the
>Outback we're ready to offer GT with backup (and long lead times).
>
>Also, b'less GT is easy to add to most homes' existing wiring. Adding
>batteries requires a fair amount of field rewiring to allow a second
>critical loads breaker panel. We can do it, but it's more labor and is hard
>to work into a  fixed price proposal, which most customers prefer.
>
>My $.02...
>Allan at Positive Energy
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Joel Davidson" <joeldavidson at earthlink.net>
>
>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.
>
>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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