[RE-wrenches] Heart Transverter

[Daniel Young]

We have 2 pre-UL units that we are swapping for newer UL listed units now on
our solar trailer. My experience right now is with the pre-UL prototypes
only. Will follow-up after we run the new units at a few events.

 

Good: The potential for this inverter is enormous. Eventually it will be
able to take commands from the utility (if they are so inclined to give
them) and can either buy/sell power to level out the demand on the utility
grid. And the flexibility of the DC and AC inputs allows for many system
configurations. A 4kw system (2 Heart transverters) each handle 2 DC
connections and 2 AC connections, any of which can be inputs or outputs. So
you can have up to 4 different DC attachments (wind/solar/fuel
cell/battery/dc pump/dump load, etc) and 4 ac connections which can also be
programmed to act in a variety of ways. And if you like data, the inverter
tracks everything that goes on inside (DC voltage/amperage/power, AC
voltage/amperage/power/power factor, it also has an AC oscilloscope so you
can examine the ac waveform of different loads)

 

Bad: The max DC voltage is about 40-50 volts DC, which means that you can
only have single module strings of PV attached, and a maximum 36V nominal
battery bank. This is no big deal on a small solar trailer setup like ours,
but a 4kw ground mount 100' from the building would start to get
unrealistic. That is probably the price to pay for the relatively universal
nature of the DC/AC interface.

 

Ugly: You need to figure out exactly HOW to program the inverter in order to
get it to even do basic MPPT, not to mention to do all of the other tasks it
can potentially perform. And unless you know how hexadecimal works in
relations to programming..not an easy task. There is a more user friendly
software for programming, but it too is a bit of a bear to install and get
working on most PC's (we tried 3 different computers, and only one was able
to run the software effectively) This last point may be a fluke based on the
fact we were dealing with beta software. We're about to turn on the new
units and see if things have been improved since we started working with
Heart several months ago.

 

All in all, we're still excited about the potential of this new inverter.
But up until now, it has been a bit rough around the edges in terms of user
friendliness. A bit of polishing, and this will be a killer product,
especially for saturated grids like Hawaii.

 

With Regards,

 

Daniel Young, 

NABCEP Certified PV Installation ProfessionalTM: Cert #031508-90

NABCEP Certified Solar Heating InstallerTM: Cert #SH031409-13

Lead Systems Designer for:

Dovetail Solar and Wind

 

From: RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org] On
Behalf Of Marco Mangelsdorf
Sent: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 7:54 PM
To: 'RE-wrenches'
Subject: [RE-wrenches] Heart Transverter

 

Hola,

 

Anyone have anything good, bad or ugly to say on this bugger?

 

Thanks,

marco

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