A lot of people seem to be under the misguided impression that because they have solar they will have power in blackouts.
Standard GTI's don't work that way. They are designed to work ONLY when there is power from the grid.
Having stand alone power can be done with the new type inverters. They can produce power either directly from the array or from batteries or with a combination of both.
I have an old style Inverter that has a massive torriod transformer instead of just IGBT's for power conversion and that runs ( relatively) low voltage so it can be hooked up to a battery bank and always have stable output but I believe it still needs the grid to work which is a bit counter productive.
The new ones will still anti Island and output through a dedicated circuit. Useful to be sure but far from cheap. They still make a lot more sense than putting in Home batteries for blackout backup. They can take the solar input and run stand alone but that's a stupid waste of money for a problem that can be solved at a 10th or less of the cost and have far better longevity with a generator.
Despite common moral high ground and safety zealot misinformation, it -IS- possible to run a normal Grid Tie Inverter off Grid using either a generator or an inverter to create the frequency signal the GTI requires to come on line without any modifications. There is a specific procedure, paramaters and restrictions to doing it without letting out the magic smoke but it is also straight forward in how you hook things up rather than having to perform any electronic trickery. It is supplemental to the Inverter/ Generator rather than completely stand alone and requires understanding of electric principals and load balancing.
I was going to remove one of my smaller arrays but have decided to just upgrade it somewhat and wire it for a normal battery / Inverter setup.
I have a couple of good 2 Kw 24V Inverters so if the power does go out, I can pull a couple of batteries out of the cars or mower and tractor and hook them up to give me plenty of power to run the Fridges and Lights. As long as the sun is shining ( without too much cloud,) the batterys will just be "ballast" for the inverters and won't discharge the battery's at all. Couple of battery's the size I have is only going to give about 1 Kwh of capacity so they wouldn't last long with anything bar the lights which are all LED and the fridges.
The positioning of the array is convenient so I can just knock off the main switch and have a cable for backfeeding a phase from each inverter and then use the generator at night if I have to. I'll have to feed 2 phases from a single phase supply with that but not a problem as the only 3 phase appliance I have is the AC, everything else is just single phase and load balanced.... sort of!
I recently put a meter on the 30+ Yo drinks fridge out the back and was amazed at how little power it uses. Sure it's winter and is lucky to get opened more than a couple of times a day ATM but still even running , the power it pulls is only about 300W max and often seems to run below that. I surmise the higher draw is occasional when the defrost heater kicks in. A single panel, small battery and 500W inverter would probably keep up with that, maybe 2 panels for summer to allow for more constant running. I haven't metered the new fridge with all the bells and whistles yet thats already had Major repairs at under 3 years old. The thing has a circuit board on it the size of something out of a TV and I'll bet that uses a heap of power in standby alone.
I believe there are going to be power shortages in a LOT of places over the coming summers with all the stupidity of trying to replace reliable FF power with unreliable wind and solar that fails every time it's needed most. There will be the usual excuses and blame of course but at the end of the day it's going to leave people without power far more frequently and far longer.
If people don't have a generator, I'd suggest NOW is a good time to get one before the inevitable rush. The situation is only going to get worse and the Gubbermint knows it but the power co's are hell bent on their virtue signalling and we will all no doubt end up paying billions to the power cos for last minute remedy's for what everyone bar the green washed could see coming all along. I expected a lot of power shortages last summer but I think they were offset by all the bushfires.
The situation with power hasn't got any better so I think a lot of places will experience outages this summer, just like other places like Commiefornia that have gone down the same road with predictable 3rd world results. When some of the coal power stations close down in a few years time as the power cos are saying they will, I think there is going to be a LOT of trouble with supply and we will see shortages in winter just as much as summer, maybe more.
I got my big Thumping Diesel genny ready and waiting that does enough power to keep my good neighbours either side powered up as well as myself.
Ironically enough, the backfeed from my solar will also be more than enough fom all of us when the power is on to meet all our needs and will prop up the system a tiny amount anyway. I'm helping one Neighbour boost up his present system so he too will be able to meet his own needs with surplus so between the 2 of us, we will be able to power quite a few houses in the street and reduce the local load. Not that it will mean squat in the over all demand.
The Power cos are trying to dissuade solar use which is Ironic because the whole original rooftop solar schemes were brought in because it was recognised that the grid was in a bad way, wouldn't be able to keep up and the money that it required to bring it up to speed was enormous as well as the time frame needed to bring it up to scratch. The solar was designed to lighten the load on the grid and give the power co's time to get on top of things. Solar caught on and now the power co's fearing they are loosing revenue are trying to curtail it even though in reality little has changed with the Grid.
It will be interesting to see if they do another turn around and discover it's cheaper to let people have rooftop or being now Privatised, They will simply say Stiff shit, we will supply what we can and it's the gubbermints responsibility to make up the shortfall. That will basically come down to throwing Billions at private companies to put in more inevitably unreliable infrastructure which they will charge the customers for and still Post the Billions in profits they do while talking BS about bringing power prices down.
The lesson is well illustrated in the US, Germany and other places and some countries like Japan and China have woken up and are putting in Clean coal like never before to protect their power security.
Meanwhile here in Oz we are still hell bent on trying to virtue signal to the world and ignoring the obvious flaws and lessons.
The faster all this Leftie Green virtue signaling BS is stamped out in many areas the sooner we can get on with building a decent and secure country again.
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