Know How an Off-Grid Solar PV Inverter Works

Installing an off-grid solar inverter has become the main concern for most of the people living in the remote parts of the world. Because it totally lessens our reliance on the grid, thus meeting our power needs completely through solar energy.

So, if you are planning to install an off-grid solar system at your place, read this article to solve your queries.

A brief overview of On-grid & Off-grid Solar systems:

A solar system can typically be of three types: DC system, On-grid solar system, and Off-grid solar system. In a DC system, as the name implies the whole system is based on DC. Its key components would be a solar charge controller, a solar panel, DC load, and batteries. There is no DC to AC conversion here.

In an On-grid solar system, the solar panels are connected to a solar charge controller that is connected to a grid-tie solar inverter that actually converts the Direct Current coming from the panels to Alternating Current and runs the load. If there is extra solar energy, it feeds back the power to the grid. The on-grid solar system does not store the solar energy for later usage. Thus, batteries do not come into the picture here.

Now that we have had a brief overview of the other two solar systems, let’s have a discussion on the Off-grid system.

Figuring out an Off-grid solar photovoltaic system:

An off-grid system is a standalone solar power system that is an independent structure actually designed for running your AC load via solar energy and grid supply and also charges your batteries. The off-grid system makes minimal usage of the grid and thereby highly reducing your electricity bills.

Here the key components are solar charge controller, AC load, solar panels and inverter. One thing to know here is that an off-grid system makes use of just one kind of energy source at a time for running the appliances.

If sufficient solar energy is available, this system would run your load completely on solar. If the solar energy received is less for running the load, it’ll take the remaining of the needed power from the batteries and run the load.

In either of the cases, it won’t run your load via mains. If the solar energy is not sufficient and the battery is discharged to a user settable value just then the inverter runs the load straight via mains and utilises solar power for charging the batteries. This makes sure that grid supply is minimum used which highly reduces your monthly expenses.