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Alternative Technology and Renewable Energy can be great fun and very rewarding, especially if done at home. On this blog I share my ideas and tips for mainly simple and inexpensive alternative technology projects.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Low power small grid-tie inverter


I have wanted, for some time, to try a grid-tie inverter to enable the output of my two Unisolar 64 solar panels to feed into the electricity grid. I purchased a Mastervolt Soladin 120 which seems to work very well. It is intended for the European market so does not have a 13 amp square pin plug for UK use. This is easily overcome however, and I have been very impressed with the performance and simplicity. Most grid-tie inverters are quite large and therefore expensive, but this unit at around £100 is ideal for experimental low power use. The maximum output it can feed into the grid is below 100 watts, so it is never going to give you a payback from the electricity generated, but several units can be operated in parallel for higher power.

When solar panels come down in price I may well invest in a larger system that can generate several kilowatts, but for now this will have to do.

6 Comments:

At 10:08 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Could you please tell me where you bought the Mastervolt Soladin 120 inverter from.
you can email me at
andrew (at) croftwireless.co.uk

Many Thanks
Andy

 
At 7:26 pm, Blogger Nigel said...

I got it from Mastervolt UK, but I understand they are no longer available. See my website for details of the more powerful Soladin 600 which I now have.

 
At 2:42 pm, Blogger Daniel White said...

I'm looking for something that will first take energy out of my batteries which are powered by solar, then, when the batteries are running low, switch over to taking energy from the grid, so you never notice the difference. Simply put, I want something my wife can opperate and she doesn't have to worry about plugging and unplugging a lot of stuff. Right now, she'll ask me when she can use the solar generated energy in my batteries, but I have to set everything up for her. When the warning goes off because she's been watching TV too long, she has no idea how to switch things off and then replug the TV into the wall. Usually she just watches that TV for about an hour every night, and as long as we've had sun that day, I can keep the batteries full and she'll never notice the difference. But yesterday, just after I had pass out into a really nice sleep, I was awoken from the power inverter alarm. She thought a bomb was about to go off! Pretty funny. So I'm just wondering, where can I find a low cost, true sign wave, DC to AC power inverter that will also plug in the wall and switch to grid power when the batteries are reading low?? Thanks.

http://pod.asiaeast.org/

 
At 12:34 pm, Blogger Nigel said...

Sorry, I have never found an inverter which will automatically switch back to mains if the batteries are low. They usually operate the other way round, in case the mains fails!

 
At 9:48 am, Blogger Unknown said...

hey. the article is very inspiring. thanks for sharing. also it was quite helpful. do keep up posting more .

SMA Inverters

 
At 9:50 am, Blogger Unknown said...

hey the review was very detailed and useful. thanks for sharing such an informative post.

SMA Inverters

 

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