Tesup ElectronicsInverter: solar and wind
Setting up a renewable energy generation system in your home can be costly. Quite a popular option among home renewable energy enthusiasts is to sell some of the excess electricity they generate back to the grid, helping to pay back the cost of their renewable energy generation system and potentially make a profit! Doing this yourself requires the installation of an electrical inverter to convert the power generated by your home renewable energy generators into electricity compatible with the grid. Inverter selection can be confusing at times with many options on the market and different compatibility between certain systems creating issues and headaches. These could range from how to connect your inverter to which sources of renewables are compatible with your system.
To navigate this tricky problem, TESUP thought it would be helpful to publish a run down of some of the most important points when purchasing or considering an inverter, which inverters on the market are compatible with TESUP turbines and useful information. To start, let's go over what an inverter does. Your plugs at home and the grid at large generally uses AC power to operate. This means the electricity forms a wave shape. If you store electricity in batteries, however, the power is DC which means the electricity stays constant and takes a line form instead.
For the AC grid connection type, a single-phase inverter should be used.
To export electricity to the grid, the electricity must be in an AC form. Therefore any electricity you generate at home, be that through wind turbines or solar panels, and then store in a battery must be converted from the storage DC form to the grid compatible AC form to be sold to the grid. This is what an inverter does, it converts the DC electricity into grid compatible AC electricity at the correct grid frequency. So now we know what an inverter does, are inverters universal and can they be used for different energy sources?
It is a common practice to integrate multiple renewable energy generators, in other words: the hybrid systems. This usually takes the form of using both solar panels and wind turbines to generate electricity. That way, it is possible to take advantage of many kinds of weather to generate power for the home. The inverter with 2 MPPTs makes it possible to connect both your Wind Turbine and Flexible Solar Panels.
Most solar inverters which have 2 MPPTs can be used together with solar and wind renewable products: solar panels and wind turbines. The precaution about Hybrid Inverters from the experience of TESUP product users is that some hybrid Inverters can damage your Wind Turbine. You can learn more about this type of the inverter from this article in the blog section.
The Inverter data-sheet can provide you with the information about:
What type the inverter is
Usually, there are 3 types of inverters:
String inverter
Hybrid inverter
Micro inverter
On TESUP WebStore you will find One-Phase, String, Pure Sine Wave 1 MMPT Hybrid Inverter
Start up voltage
Your inverter can have a 35-550V voltage range
Compatibility with your existing inverter
If you already have an inverter connected to a group of solar panels, and your device has a free MPPT input, you can connect your Tesup Wind Turbine plus Charge Controller to your system. This can happen in two ways:
If your existing inverter has a start voltage of up to 80V:
In this case, your Tesup Wind Turbine will greatly generate energy full-time!
If your existing inverter has a start voltage higher than 80V:
In this case, your solar panel will be start your inverter, and the wind turbine will be freely generating energy contributing to your system. You can keep your system like this, or you can adopt a simple solution: add a new inverter only for the Wind Turbine, in parallel to your existing one, so you will be able to generate energy day and night with your Tesup Wind Generator.
PS: if you have a hybrid inverter, first check this information.
Connection
Wind turbine > charge controller> inverter
All products are compatible with each other.
The output voltage of the inverter is 220V
Solar panels tend to generate a very smooth and predictable power output as irradiation of the panels by the sun is fairly constant. Solar panel inverters can therefore be easily tuned to the particular power level that the solar panels produce. Wind turbines on the other hand, have a very inconsistent source of power: gusty and turbulent wind. This leads to the power generation of wind turbines varying significantly over their operation. Inverters with large operating ranges are therefore required to encapsulate and take advantage of the greater, time dependent peaks generated by wind power.
It is possible to purchase an inverter that covers both of these ranges, however, to operate properly, these systems use complex switching electronics. Generally, the most efficient way to handle multiple sources of home renewable energy generation, to get the most electricity out of them, is to use dedicated inverters. Attempting to squeeze two different systems into a single box commonly leads to high operating temperatures and low operating life. So how should you go about choosing the best inverter for your system? What different considerations should you make?
When selecting your inverter, one of the most important things to consider is the start up voltage. For solar panels, this minimum voltage is not a must, because the PV systems are normally composed of many solar panels connected in series, which gives a high voltage. On the other side, for wind turbines, the connection cannot be made in series, it should be made in parallel, resulting in a low start voltage. For this reason, the lower the voltage of your inverter, the better the compatibility with wind turbines.
Also, it is important to look at the rated power of the inverter. This should exceed the maximum power output of your renewable energy generation system, allowing your inverter to handle the maximum amount of electricity possible in your system to prevent issues. You should also consider the warranty provided by the manufacturer to cover you for any potential issues.