Mar 23 2009
The Best Inverters. Pure Sinewave Inverters
Many of us wishing to become Self Sufficient, especially when it comes to our Electrical needs, will have begun delving in to the world of Inverters
There is a surprising array of different makes and models to choose from. It can seem like a very complicated business, but once understood a Solar or Wind Powered system is surprisingly easy to install.
The backbone of an off grid or grid-tied power system is the Inverter. The best Inverters
Choosing The Right Inverter
If you are thinking of running a Solar or Wind Powered System to run, or help run your home, then there are a few things that need to be considered.
Inverters are limited by the Power output in Watts. The best Inverters have a decent number of Watts that they will supply to your house. You need to decide what you wish this number to be. To run a whole house with very high consuming Electrical Appliances will call for an Inverter with a high number of Watts that it can supply.
Our Pure Sinewave Power Inverter will supply 1300 Watts at any one time to our House. This means we can run Appliances that consume up to that amount of Watts with no problem. The best Inverters will also allow you to draw a much higher number of Watts than this for a short period of time, such as when a Washing Machine goes on a Spin cycle.
It is very important to do a few calculations before buying an Inverter, to ensure you purchase the best Inverter you can to supply the equipment you wish to run. You may even find it much more economical to downshift some of your Electrical equipment so that it needs less Watts to run your Home.
Remember that the Watts supplied to your Home will have been generated by your Solar or Wind Generator System. There is no point having a DC to AC Inverter that can output a high number of Watts if you have not got enough Solar Panels to supply that Power.
The Best Inverters
Inverters come in an array of sizes and outputs. When looking for the best Inverters make sure you buy the correct one.
If you wish to buy an Inverter that you can connect a backup Generator to, ensure it has that capability. The best Inverters will allow you to wire a Generator in. This means if you have little Solar energy you can start the generator, the Inverter will use the Power it creates to charge your Batteries and also output the generators Power in to the Home.
This is a a very important consideration.
Where To Buy Inverters In The US Or The UK
To begin with ensure you buy an Inverter that is correct for your Country. This will mean in the US you will buy an inverter from Amazon US
The Best Power Inverters
Pure Sinewave Inverters
The best Power Inverters are Pure Sinewave Power Inverters. A Pure Sine Wave means there is absolutely no fluctuation in the current. This means the current is extremely stable.
Pure Sinewave Inverters are not so important for small scale supplies, but for the Home they should be a consideration. As technology advances, even non Pure Sinewave Inverters are now very stable. It is best to use your judgment and purchase the best you can afford for the Job you wish it to do.
12 Volt Or 24 Volt Power Inverters?
Inverters come as either 12v or 24v.
The standard DC supply is 12 Volts. This is how Solar Panels are normally wired as are Deep Cycle Batteries. It is what we use here but looking back on our installation I would be tempted to have installed a 24 Volt System.
Here is the difference.
A normal 12v system has the Solar Panels wired and connected to a bank of 12v Batteries. These in turn are connected to the 12 Volt Pure Sinwave Inverter. The Inverter changes the 12v DC current to 220v or 230v AC.
It works well and is the cheaper system to install.
The difference with a 24v system is this:
A 24 Volt Pure Sinewave Inverter does exactly the same job of converting the DC power generated to normal AC household power. BUT you will have to have double the Battery capacity (ie power storage) to wire it to make it 24 Volts. This means that the Batteries will be twice as expensive to buy as a 12v Battery system. However this means that the same number of Solar Panels can be wired to make them 24v instead of 12v. This means you will double the power generated by the same cost for the Panels.
This does have many advantages. A 24 Volt Pure Sinewave or just 24v Inverter does not cost much more, the Batteries will cost quite a bit more, but you will end up with twice as much power generated from your Solar Panels if you wire them differently.
If you can afford it then I would seriously consider it. I wish it was the system we had bought when we had the funds available. This is not to say a 12v system with the best Inverter we could buy is a bad system. It has been going for years and powers our Home extremely well.
Buy The Best Inverter You Can
Consider your options, 12v or 24v, Pure Sinewave or just a quality Power Inverter, and spend wisely. It is a large part of the cost of the total system. Although I really am amazed how much prices have come down in the four years since we purchased our system.
If you have any questions then feel free to ask me. I will help if I can.
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Voltage is not power. Doubling the voltage of your system has nothing to do with power whatsoever. Power is voltage x current. I can build a 48 volt system and have the same power storage as someone with 24 volt system by purchasing batteries with 1/2 the amp-hour rating as used in the 24 volt system. The higher the design voltage, the lower cost for a given amount of power used per day. This is because higher voltage requires smaller diameter copper wires than lower voltage. Copper is expensive. Everything else being equal, the higher the DC voltage of your system the better. The limitation is the available accessories, such as water pumps and inverters. These devices are mass produced in a very limited number of DC voltage ranges. I chose 48 volt DC because at the time this was the highest voltage available for an inverter and DC submersible well pump.
We have a Trace 4048. Trace is now Xantrex. Outback is supposed to be very good. Inverters are important! Can’t get from that solar DC to AC in the distribution box without them!!
Prices on solar are significantly cheaper than they were back in 1998 when we bought much of our equipment!
Hi Frank, thanks for a comprehensive comment. I see what you mean about the amp hours. I didn’t touch on it as it will come up in later posts and I wanted to keep things simple, but I appreciate your comments.
48 Volt Inverters do not seem to be that widely available and I am guessing it will still be a while before they are a choice for those just beginning with a Solar setup.
I agree about prices going down. I can’t believe how much cheaper the equipment is now than when we bought ours just over 4 years ago.
I’m not sure where you are located but the new U.S. tax credit of 30% for alternative energy expenditures will make our systems much cheaper. Maybe we can afford to upgrade the system. A better grade inverter will be more efficient all the way around.
In discussing pure sine wave inverters, a lot of inverters and UPS’s have a triangle wave as the ac output since it cheaper electronically to do so. A lot of electrical devices like motors are really are designed expecting a sine wave. If you have a triangle wave, it contains higher frequency wave components (look up Fourier transform) that your equipment might not be able to filter out causing problems.