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Using APC 5000VA Smart UPS as inverter and battery

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  • Using APC 5000VA Smart UPS as inverter and battery

    I have an big expensive APC 5000 VA Smart UPS system (online double conversion). Its rated for 3500w of continuous output and it has an internal battery of 960 Volt-Amp-Hours. I can connect up to 10 external battery packs to this system. My idea is to build a grid-assisted system based on this unit. I'd wire everything in the house except washer/electric oven/AC unit into this UPS. The high-consumption appliances and heat-generating appliances would still be on-grid.

    With 200w of average continuous consumption, 2 battery packs would get me almost 19 hours of autonomous time. That's plenty of time between charges.

    So my question is... how do I generate 220v AC (maximum 30 amps) from a solar panel(s) to charge this big boy? It seems to me like I have 2/3 of a good solar system with this unit (power inverter and battery), so I'd really like to take advantage of it and find a way to charge it using solar panels.

    Thanks for everyone's help.

  • #2
    Going straight into the batteries from the Panels is how most people would do it, via a charge controller. Lots of similar setups on here. However I have a similar UPS (APC 3000) and I'm sure it has some kind of intelligent gubbins in it which KNOWS it has not been connected to AC power for a while, because despite it showing plenty of volts on my battery pack, (solar charge controller pumping in about 56 volts) the UPS still flashes the one bar of battery LED and beeps . Only when I give it some grid power for a while does it shut up.

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    • #3
      Your idea of grid assisted rather than grid interactive will put a lot of cycle loading on your battery bank, and as a result will end up costing you more per kWh than it would cost to buy the same amount of power from POCO.
      Only pure grid tie (using the grid as an infinite free battery with Net Metering) has a positive economic return when the POCO rate is lower than $1.00 per kWh. And even then you are on shaky ground if you correctly factor in all of your real costs.
      SunnyBoy 3000 US, 18 BP Solar 175B panels.

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