What's the advantage of 24 volts instead of 12?

[Leehamrick]

Hello everyone
I'm setting up a small solar system mostly just for emergency back up and I have a question about
setting up the battery bank and Inverter. I see some people have there batteries wired in series for 24 volts
and some have them wired in parallel for 12 volts.
I checked and the controller that I'm using will work with the batteries setup for 12 or 24 volt. I need to get
an inverter and I'm wondering if I should go with a 24 to 120 volt or 12 to 120 volts. Is there an advantage
to having the batteries and inverter set up for 24 volts?

[inetdog]

Hello everyone
I'm setting up a small solar system mostly just for emergency back up and I have a question about
setting up the battery bank and Inverter. I see some people have there batteries wired in series for 24 volts
and some have them wired in parallel for 12 volts.
I checked and the controller that I'm using will work with the batteries setup for 12 or 24 volt. I need to get
an inverter and I'm wondering if I should go with a 24 to 120 volt or 12 to 120 volts. Is there an advantage
to having the batteries and inverter set up for 24 volts?

The advantages all revolve around lower current being needed to or from the batteries for transferring the same amount of power.
Usually a charge controller will have a maximum output current, and so it can handle twice as much charging power when working at a higher voltage.
Battery strings for 24V DC can be made from series strings of a larger number of batteries of lower individual AH ratings than 12 volt battery strings.
Resistive losses in the wiring will be less with lower current.

[Sunking]

Use the highest voltage you can. 12 volt is for toys, So is 24 really but it is 400% more efficient than 12 volts. Assuming your charge controller is MPPT and it had better be something like 40 amps th emaximum input at 12 volts is 500 watts, and 1000 at 24 volt.