[RE-wrenches] Apparent power

Bill Hoffer sunengser at gmail.com
Sat Feb 4 16:13:52 PST 2012


Keith

I was involved with doing some testing with these guys for a company that
wanted to manufacture them in Washington State ( made in WA incentives) and
the concept is good, but I had a lot of questions that they were not able
to answer.  Big one is the inverter was producing 10watts all night long (
smoke and mirrors!) .  This is in my opinion is only possible if the
inverter is playing with power factor from the grid, possible maybe in a
commercial setting, but less likely to be too big of a gain in a
residential setting where Power factor issues are generally less
pronounced.  I never was able to get solid answers about what was actually
happening and at the time I did not have good enough Power analysis
monitoring equipment  ( I was going by several meters  and clamp ons and
the monitoring software from the inverter itself.  I was able to adjust the
power factor and gain some output, but with out actually monitoring what
was happening simultaneously with high end Power Quality equipment I could
not tell what was really happening.  Again no solid responses from
Apparant.  Again when I am getting more output than is possible from the
module, something seems fishy, or at least using power from the grid to
increase the output on the inverter seems a little crooked) So at this
point I would recommend buyer beware , concept is good , but until the
utility starts paying a premium for power factor adjustment ( or a
commercial install needs power factor adjustment I do not see how the added
features can be cost effective.   IMHO, I am not convinced that this
inverter is really doing what they are claiming, however I would love to be
proved wrong!

Bill


Bill Hoffer PE
NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer™
Sunergy Engineering Services PLLC
2504 Columbia Ave NW
East Wenatchee WA 98802-3941
SunEngSer at gmail.com Cell:(509)679-6165
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