With "silent sell", should this ever come to pass, the inverter would stay in it's SILENT mode, (where the inverter is available for grid back up, and yet not constantly wasting ~750 watt hours a day, needlessly running and floating already charged batteries)... talk about a phantom load! Then when there is power beyond the battery sell voltage set point, it would switch itself to SELL, and feed the excess back into the grid.

No need to fart around with grid usage timers, which were basically set up for use with utilities that offer cheaper use rates for off peak loads. Using the grid usage timer does NOT shut the inverter off into the silent mode... it just keeps humming away wasting power. This mode also cycles the batteries, further reducing efficiency. Now IF the grid usage timer was capable of putting the inverter into and out of the silent mode, then it use might be worth considering.

But as the "silent sell" mode continues to be no more than promised vapor ware (sigh), one never knows if this will ever become anything other than some kind of wishful thinking. I keep hoping the Vanner unit will come on line soon and offer a real option (competition) for this kind of waste reduction need. Frankly, I am beyond tired of hearing Trace's lip service and unfulfilled promises for the silent sell feature.

Todd

mmangelsdorf@hei.com wrote:

Steve, Backwoods Solar:
The SW can be programmed to limit the amount of grid power used to charge a
battery bank. It's a fairly easy thing to do and the inverter can be kept
in the SELL mode all the time.
1) Menu heading 10--Set Max Charge Amps AC to the lowest setting which is 1
amp. So, whenever the inverter goes into the battery charging mode, the max
amps used from the grid is always 1.
2) Menu heading 18--Grid Usage Timer allows the user to control when and for
how long the grid will be used to charge the batteries. You can either
defeat the battery charging capability entirely by setting the "start charge
time" the same as "end charge time" which means that the grid will never be
used to charge the batteries. Or, if you want the grid to supply at least
some amps to keep the batteries from discharging too deeply, set the time
for X number of hours per night. In my grid-tie systems with battery
back-up I've usually set the grid usage timer to charge the batteries at the
1 or 2 amp rate for 6-8 hours at night just to make sure that the batteries
will be a full state of charge nearly all of the time.
I hope that this is helpful. All of this info can be found in the
wonderful, sleep inducing 89-page SW Owner's Manual. Working on a remote
job in southern India several years ago, the manual was one of the few
things I had to read for weeks so I read it from front to back then back to
front.
best of luck,
marco
ProVision Technologies, Inc.
Hilo, Hawaii

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